A Broader Application of Weingast and Marshall's Theory

Weingast and Marshall (W&M)'s theory seems like it could be used in a broader context to explain why congress members renege on the deals that they make with their voters. After all, the 2 driving forces that contribute to congress members reneging on their trades of votes for votes are also present in the trades they make with their constituents of electoral votes for political action. Congress members experience both non-contemporaneous benefit flows and non-simultaneous exchanges when they run for office, for the constituents uphold their end of the bargain (voting for the congress members) before their congress members have a chance to uphold theirs (taking whatever political action they promised while campaigning). The congress members' added flexibility lies in the relatively early timing of their benefit flow: they immediately receive the benefit of securing their seats in congress before their voters receive the benefits of having their congress members execute promised political action.

This House of Cards clip illustrates an example of a congressman defying W&M's assumption that congress members always act to represent the interests of their constituents: he decides to renege on his campaign promise to advocate for keeping the shipyard in his district open. W&M focus on moral hazard and opportunism as the main inspiration for reneging, but in this case, the congressman decides to renege because the cunning majority whip, Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey) is blackmailing him into doing so. Although the congressman had every intention of testifying at the BRAC hearing to keep the shipyard open during his campaign, his situation changed after his constituents voted him to office. (He wasn't being blackmailed before but now he is.)

When the disgruntled congressman asks Underwood why he must stop all of his efforts to keep the shipyard open, Underwood, in an attempt to hide his own reasons for wanting to black mail the congressman, cites the "forces bigger than either of (them) at play" that he calls politics. These looming forces, which W&M would argue include non-contemporaneous benefit flows and non-simultaneous exchanges, keep congress members from being able to uphold their promises both to each other and arguably, to their constituents.