Internal contradictions will dog Bulgarian coalition

Significance Claiming that 30-40% of advance payments for the much-delayed Hemus motorway had been transferred to the Citizens for Bulgaria’s European Development (GERB) party, Rashkov refused to provide specifics in case the prosecutor’s office leaked them to GERB. The party threatened to sue Rashkov for defamation. Impacts The new government is in a race against time, as it needs to show some success in the coming months before disappointment sets in. Worries about presidential influence over the government are overshadowing memories of Borisov’s mismanagement. The new government faces a legacy of mistrust towards Brussels and Washington in large sections of Bulgarian society.

Presidential Influence and Competitive Grant Funding

How does partisan alignment with the president affect the distribution of federal competitive grant funding? This analysis contributes to the literature on distributive politics by reexamining the relationship between alignment with the president and competitive grant funding over the time period of 2001 to 2017. Furthermore, the analysis will test if the relationship between alignment and competitive grant funding changed after the enactment of the 2011 earmark moratorium. Fractional probit regression is used to model the relationship between a representative's partisan alignment with the president and the portion of annual competitive grant funding that their district receives. The results suggest that there is no relationship between alignment and competitive grant funding when looking at grant funding across all federal agencies. However, when only examining agencies that are susceptible to presidential influence a weak relationship emerges. Findings also suggest that this relationship developed after the enactment of the earmark moratorium.