Book Description
Since the Second World War, congressional parties have been characterized as declining in strength and influence. Research has generally attributed this decline to policy conflicts within parties, to growing electoral independence of members, and to the impact of the congressional reforms of the 1970s. Yet the 1980s witnessed a strong resurgence of parties and party leadership—especially in the House of Representatives.
Offering a concise and compelling explanation of the causes of this resurgence, David W. Rohde argues that a realignment of electoral forces led to a reduction of sectional divisions within the parties—particularly between the northern and southern Democrats—and to increased divergence between the parties on many important issues. He challenges previous findings by asserting that congressional reform contributed to, rather than restrained, the increase of partisanship. Among the Democrats, reforms siphoned power away from conservative and autocratic committee chairs and put control of those committees in the hands of Democratic committee caucuses, strengthening party leaders and making both party and committee leaders responsible to rank-and-file Democrats. Electoral changes increased the homogeneity of House Democrats while institutional reforms reduced the influence of dissident members on a consensus in the majority party. Rohde's accessible analysis provides a detailed discussion of the goals of the congressional reformers, the increased consensus among Democrats and its reinforcement by their caucus, the Democratic leadership's use of expanded powers to shape the legislative agenda, and the responses of House Republicans. He also addresses the changes in the relationship between the House majority and the president during the Carter and Reagan administrations and analyzes the legislative consequences of the partisan resurgence.
A readable, systematic synthesis of the many complex factors that fueled the recent resurgence of partisanship, Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House is ideal for course use.
Book Description
Parliamentary obstruction, popularly known as the "filibuster," has been a defining feature of the U.S. Senate throughout its history. In this book, Gregory J. Wawro and Eric Schickler explain how the Senate managed to satisfy its lawmaking role during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it lacked seemingly essential formal rules for governing debate.
What prevented the Senate from self-destructing during this time? The authors argue that in a system where filibusters played out as wars of attrition, the threat of rule changes prevented the institution from devolving into parliamentary chaos. They show that institutional patterns of behavior induced by inherited rules did not render Senate rules immune from fundamental changes.
The authors' theoretical arguments are supported through a combination of extensive quantitative and case-study analysis, which spans a broad swath of history. They consider how changes in the larger institutional and political context--such as the expansion of the country and the move to direct election of senators--led to changes in the Senate regarding debate rules. They further investigate the impact these changes had on the functioning of the Senate. The book concludes with a discussion relating battles over obstruction in the Senate's past to recent conflicts over judicial nominations.
Book Description
Politics may be the art of compromise, but accepting a compromise can be hazardous to a politician’s health. Politicians worry about betraying faithful supporters, about losing the upper hand on an issue before the next election, that accepting half a loaf today can make it harder to get the whole loaf tomorrow. In his original interpretation of competition between parties and between Congress and the president, Gilmour explains the strategies available to politicians who prefer to disagree and uncovers the lost opportunities to pass important legislation that result from this disagreement.
Strategic Disagreement, theoretically solid and rich in evidence, will enlighten Washington observers frustrated by the politics of gridlock and will engage students interested in organizational theory, political parties, and divided government.
Book Description
The belief that U.S. presidents' legislative policy formation has centralized over time, shifting inexorably out of the executive departments and into the White House, is shared by many who have studied the American presidency. Andrew Rudalevige argues that such a linear trend is neither at all certain nor necessary for policy promotion. In Managing the President's Program, he presents a far more complex and interesting picture of the use of presidential staff. Drawing on transaction cost theory, Rudalevige constructs a framework of "contingent centralization" to predict when presidents will use White House and/or departmental staff resources for policy formulation. He backs his assertions through an unprecedented quantitative analysis of a new data set of policy proposals covering almost fifty years of the postwar era from Truman to Clinton.
Rudalevige finds that presidents are not bound by a relentless compulsion to centralize but follow a more subtle strategy of staff allocation that makes efficient use of limited bargaining resources. New items and, for example, those spanning agency jurisdictions, are most likely to be centralized; complex items follow a mixed process. The availability of expertise outside the White House diminishes centralization. However, while centralization is a management strategy appropriate for engaging the wider executive branch, it can imperil an item's fate in Congress. Thus, as this well-written book makes plain, presidential leadership hinges on hard choices as presidents seek to simultaneously manage the executive branch and attain legislative success.
Customer Reviews:
Clear blend of archives and statistics.......2003-06-02
This book just won the Neustadt Award from the American Political Science Association as the best book on the presidency (I guess for 2002). Having read it in a graduate school seminar last spring, I concur with the choice. It's the best recent book I've read on how presidents deploy their staff to produce legislative policy proposals. Rudalevige suggests a theory for when presidents will use centralized White House staff and when they will rely on the bureaucracy that is grounded in the "transaction cost" field of economics. His argument is convincing, if sometimes abstruse (especially I would guess for non-academics; this book is *not* a Bob Caro kind of book about politics).
The blend of methodologies is what I appreciated most, perhaps. There's a great battle in political science between those who use statistics (quantitative methodology) and those who focus on historical or archival data (qualitative methodology). Presidency books have tended to fall in the latter camp -- one neat thing about this book is that it does both. It uses careful archival research, from presidential libraries and the OMB archives, and uses that to code a large dataset for statistical analysis. There are two quantitative chapters that non-political scientists might want to avoid, though they are summed up in the concluding chapter.
All in all, an important work for presidency scholars; a very informative read for those with an interest in the presidency (and willing to tolerate discussion of political science methods!)
Book Description
From the 1910 overthrow of "Czar" Joseph Cannon to the reforms enacted when Republicans took over the House in 1995, institutional change within the U.S. Congress has been both a product and a shaper of congressional politics. For several decades, scholars have explained this process in terms of a particular collective interest shared by members, be it partisanship, reelection worries, or policy motivations. Eric Schickler makes the case that it is actually interplay among multiple interests that determines institutional change. In the process, he explains how congressional institutions have proved remarkably adaptable and yet consistently frustrating for members and outside observers alike.
Analyzing leadership, committee, and procedural restructuring in four periods (1890-1910, 1919-1932, 1937-1952, and 1970-1989), Schickler argues that coalitions promoting a wide range of member interests drive change in both the House and Senate. He shows that multiple interests determine institutional innovation within a period; that different interests are important in different periods; and, more broadly, that changes in the salient collective interests across time do not follow a simple logical or developmental sequence. Institutional development appears disjointed, as new arrangements are layered on preexisting structures intended to serve competing interests. An epilogue assesses the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich in light of these findings.
Schickler's model of "disjointed pluralism" integrates rational choice theory with historical institutionalist approaches. It both complicates and advances efforts at theoretical synthesis by proposing a fuller, more nuanced understanding of institutional innovation--and thus of American political development and history.
Book Description
The task of deliberating public policy falls preeminently to Congress. But decisions on matters ranging from budget deficits to the war with Iraq, among others, raise serious doubts about its performance. In Deliberative Choices, Gary Mucciaroni and Paul J. Quirk assess congressional deliberation by analyzing debate on the House and Senate floors. Does debate genuinely inform members of Congress and the public? Or does it mostly mislead and manipulate them?
Mucciaroni and Quirk argue that in fashioning the claims they use in debate, legislators make a strategic trade-off between boosting their rhetorical force and ensuring their ability to withstand scrutiny. Using three case studies—welfare reform, repeal of the estate tax, and telecommunications deregulation—the authors show how legislators’ varying responses to such a trade-off shape the issues they focus on, the claims they make, and the information they provide in support of those claims.
Mucciaroni and Quirk conclude that congressional debate generally is only moderately realistic and informed. It often trades in half-truths, omissions, and sometimes even outright falsehoods. Yet some debates are highly informative. Moreover, the authors believe it’s possible to improve congressional deliberation, and they recommend reforms designed to do so.
Average customer rating:
|
The Indian Reorganization Act: Congresses and Bills
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Civil Rights & Liberties
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Cultural
| Anthropology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Native American Studies
| Special Groups
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Systems Of Government
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
| General
| Islamic Government
| Monarchy
| Representative Government
Federal Government
| Levels of Government
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Civil Rights
| United States
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Constitutional Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Jurisprudence
| Perspectives on Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Constitutional Law
| Law
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Law
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Professional
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0806133988 |
Books:
- The Case Against Lawyers: How the Lawyers, Politicians, and Bureaucrats Have Turned the Law into an Instrument of Tyranny--and What We as Citizens Have to Do About It
- The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
- The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work, and Ideas
- The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- The Flight of the Eisenstein (Horus Heresy)
- The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Moral Purpose of the State
- The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Contemporary Engineering Economics
- The New Garden Paradise: Great Private Gardens of the World
- The Effects of a Choice Auto Insurance Plan on Insurance Costs
- Lonely Planet Canary Islands
- Texas Hold'em For Dummies
- The Three Theban Plays
- The Cat in the Hat
- Statistical Computing: An Introduction to Data Analysis using S-Plus
- Miller Comprehensive GAAP Guide, 1992
- Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License
Heavy Lifting: The Job Of The American Legislature
Inside Congress: A Cq Reader : 107th Congress
The American Congress
Home Style: House Members in Their Districts (Longman Classics Edition)
Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process (Congressional Procedures & the Policy Process) (Congressional Procedures & the Policy Process)
