Download or read book Minority Parties in U S Legislatures written by Jennifer Clark and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2015-07-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of the influence minority parties wield is both a major work of political science scholarship and a timely examination of an issue with real consequences for the functioning of democratic legislatures and the creation of legislation. Challenging conventional assumptions that the majority party dominates the legislature, Jennifer Hayes Clark investigates precisely the ways in which—and under what conditions—members of the minority party successfully pursue their interests. For this study, Clark collects fine-grained data from both the U.S. Congress and state legislatures to get a close look at three key points in the legislative process: committee assignments, bill cosponsorship, and roll-call votes. She finds that minority party members are not systematically excluded throughout the policymaking process. Indeed, their capacity to shape legislative decision-making is enhanced when party polarization is low, when institutional prerogatives are broadly dispersed rather than centralized, and when staff resources are limited. Under these conditions, bipartisanship bill cosponsorship and voting coalitions are also more prevalent. With the sharp increase of partisan polarization in state legislatures and in Congress, it is essential to understand how and when a minority party can effectively represent constituents.
Download or read book The Diversity Paradox written by Kristin Kanthak and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In legislatures, group dynamics affect how the legislature operates, who is valued enough to play a critical decision-making role, and what voices matter in determining policy outcomes. An increase in a minority group's size within democratically-elected legislatures actually leads to the devaluation of individual minority group members. The authors assert that representative institutions such as legislatures face a 'diversity paradox': when the size of a minority group increases beyond mere 'tokenism' in representative institutions, it tends to create an unintended backlash toward the minority group's members that emanates from both majority and fellow minority group members. The inclusion of minority group voices in representative institutions is critical in a wide range of political decisions, ranging from legislative gender quotas in the new Iraqi constitution to attempts in the U.S. to increase minority representation through redistricting.
Download or read book Minority Party Misery written by Jacob F.H. Smith and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of minority party status on politicians’ engagement in electoral politics. Jacob Smith argues that politicians are more likely to be engaged in electoral politics when they expect their party to be in the majority in Congress after the next election and less likely when they anticipate their party will be in the minority. This effect is particularly likely to hold true in recent decades where parties disagree on a substantial number of issues. Politicians whose party will be in the majority have a clear incentive to engage in electoral politics because their preferred policies have a credible chance of passing if they are in the majority. In contrast, it is generally difficult for minority party lawmakers to get a hearing on—much less advance—their preferred policies, particularly when institutional rules inside Congress favor the majority party. Instead, minority party lawmakers spend most of their time fighting losing battles against policy proposals from the majority party. Minority Party Misery examines the consequences of the powerlessness that politicians feel from continually losing battles to the majority party in Congress. Its findings have important consequences for democratic governance, as highly qualified minority party politicians may choose to leave office due to their dismal circumstances rather than continue to serve until their party eventually reenters the majority.
Download or read book The Minority Party in Congress written by Charles O. Jones and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Underdog Politics written by Matthew N. Green and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the first comprehensive study of the subject in decades, political scholar Matthew Green disputes the conventional belief that the minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives is an unimportant political player. Examining the record of the House minority party from 1970 to the present, and drawing from a wide range of quantitative and qualitative data, Green shows how and why the minority seeks to influence legislative and political outcomes and demonstrates that the party's efforts can succeed. The result is a fascinating appreciation of what the House minority can do and why it does it, providing readers with new insights into the workings of this famously contentious legislative chamber"--
Download or read book Congressional Record written by United States. Congress and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 1380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)
Download or read book Congress Permanent Minority written by William F. Connelly and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1994 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inaugurates a series of political science analyses of contemporary American politics addressing how institutions and policies can best function to maintain a liberal democracy. Considering both campaigns/elections and the inner workings of Capital Hill, explores how the Republican minority in the US House of Representatives shifted from part of a normal political cycle to a 40-year institution, and the implications for politicians, the party, the government, and the country. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Minority Rights Majority Rule written by Sarah A. Binder and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-06-13 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minority Rights, Majority Rule seeks to explain a phenomenon evident to most observers of the US Congress. In the House of Representatives, majority parties rule and minorities are seldom able to influence national policy making. In the Senate, minorities quite often call the shots, empowered by the filibuster to frustrate the majority. Why did the two chambers develop such distinctive legislative styles? Conventional wisdom suggests that differences in the size and workload of the House and Senate led the two chambers to develop very different rules of procedure. Sarah Binder offers an alternative, partisan theory to explain the creation and suppression of minority rights, showing that contests between partisan coalitions have throughout congressional history altered the distribution of procedural rights. Most importantly, new majorities inherit procedural choices made in the past. This institutional dynamic has fuelled the power of partisan majorities in the House but stopped them in their tracks in the Senate.
Download or read book Two Parties or More written by John F Bibby and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-20 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students of American government are faced with an enduring dilemma: Why two parties? Why has this system remained largely intact while around the world democracies support multiparty systems? Should our two-party system continue as we enter the new millennium? This newly revised and updated edition of Two Parties-Or More? answers these questions by
Download or read book How Our Laws are Made written by John V. Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book New Majority Or Old Minority written by Nicol C. Rae and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1999 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of original essays by leading congressional scholars explores the impact of the Republican majority on Congress with attention to the history of the institution and party characteristics present and future. Visit our website for sample chapters!
Download or read book State Legislatures in American Politics written by American Assembly and published by Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall. This book was released on 1966 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Insecure Majorities written by Frances E. Lee and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] tour de force. Building upon her argument in Beyond Ideology, she adds an important wrinkle into the current divide between the parties in Congress.” —Perspectives on Politics As Democrats and Republicans continue to vie for political advantage, Congress remains paralyzed by partisan conflict. That the last two decades have seen some of the least productive Congresses in recent history is usually explained by the growing ideological gulf between the parties, but this explanation misses another fundamental factor influencing the dynamic. In contrast to politics through most of the twentieth century, the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties compete for control of Congress at relative parity, and this has dramatically changed the parties’ incentives and strategies in ways that have driven the contentious partisanship characteristic of contemporary American politics. With Insecure Majorities, Frances E. Lee offers a controversial new perspective on the rise of congressional party conflict, showing how the shift in competitive circumstances has had a profound impact on how Democrats and Republicans interact. Beginning in the 1980s, most elections since have offered the prospect of a change of party control. Lee shows, through an impressive range of interviews and analysis, how competition for control of the government drives members of both parties to participate in actions that promote their own party’s image and undercut that of the opposition, including the perpetual hunt for issues that can score political points by putting the opposing party on the wrong side of public opinion. More often than not, this strategy stands in the way of productive bipartisan cooperation—and it is also unlikely to change as long as control of the government remains within reach for both parties.
Download or read book The Broken Branch written by Thomas E. Mann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-08-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congress is the first branch of government in the American system, write Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, but now it is a broken branch, damaged by partisan bickering and internal rancor. The Broken Branch offers both a brilliant diagnosis of the cause of Congressional decline and a much-needed blueprint for change, from two experts who understand politics and revere our institutions, but believe that Congress has become deeply dysfunctional. Mann and Ornstein, two of the nations most renowned and judicious scholars of government and politics, bring to light the historical roots of Congress's current maladies, examining 40 years of uninterrupted Democratic control of the House and the stunning midterm election victory of 1994 that propelled Republicans into the majority in both House and Senate. The byproduct of that long and grueling but ultimately successful Republican campaign, the authors reveal, was a weakened institution bitterly divided between the parties. They highlight the dramatic shift in Congress from a highly decentralized, committee-based institution into a much more regimented one in which party increasingly trumps committee. The resultant changes in the policy process--the demise of regular order, the decline of deliberation, and the weakening of our system of checks and balances--have all compromised the role of Congress in the American Constitutional system. Indeed, Speaker Dennis Hastert has unabashedly stated that his primary responsibility is to pass the president's legislative program--identifying himself more as a lieutenant of the president than a steward of the house. From tax cuts to the war against Saddam Hussein to a Medicare prescription drug benefit, the legislative process has been bent to serve immediate presidential interests and have often resulted in poorly crafted and stealthily passed laws. Strong majority leadership in Congress, the authors conclude, led not to a vigorous exertion of congressional authority but to a general passivity in the face of executive power. A vivid portrait of an institution that has fallen far from the aspirations of our Founding Fathers, The Broken Branch highlights the costs of a malfunctioning Congress to national policymaking, and outlines what must be done to repair the damage.
Download or read book Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress written by Craig Volden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-27 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores why some members of Congress are more effective than others at navigating the legislative process and what this means for how Congress is organized and what policies it produces. Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman develop a new metric of individual legislator effectiveness (the Legislative Effectiveness Score) that will be of interest to scholars, voters, and politicians alike. They use these scores to study party influence in Congress, the successes or failures of women and African Americans in Congress, policy gridlock, and the specific strategies that lawmakers employ to advance their agendas.
Download or read book Legislative Leviathan written by Gary W. Cox and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-05 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Legislative Leviathan provides an incisive new look at the inner workings of the House of Representatives in the post-World War II era. Re-evaluating the role of parties and committees, Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins view parties in the House - especially majority parties - as a species of 'legislative cartel'. These cartels seize the power, theoretically resident in the House, to make rules governing the structure and process of legislation. Most of the cartel's efforts are focused on securing control of the legislative agenda for its members. The first edition of this book had significant influence on the study of American politics and is essential reading for students of Congress, the presidency, and the political party system.
Download or read book American Government 3e written by Glen Krutz and published by . This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.
