Making the Grade: Distributive Politics, Institutional Capacity and Competing for Federal Grant Money.

What happens when the American states are pitted against each other in a national competition for federal aid? In 2009, President Obama announced "Race-to-the-Top" (RTT), a program in which states could apply for grant money to improve their education systems. Critics charge that the program favored certain states and regions the president wished to please, while Obama defended the program as an innovative alternative to conventional methods for determining the distribution of federal outlays. This paper explores which of these claims has more merit: did Obama politicize the process and funnel money to certain states, or did institutional capacity at the state level determine who won and who lost? Results suggest that institutional capacity, and coalition-building in particular, were central drivers of RTT outcomes. The results have important implications our understanding of national education policy and our distributive politics in general. In addition, the results suggest that RTT-like competitions can be administered fairly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]