Legislative leviathan : party government in the House / Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cox, Gary W.

Contributor:

McCubbins, Mathew D. (Mathew Daniel), 1956-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Congress. House--Committees.

United States.

United States. Congress. House.

Committees.

United States. Congress. House--Leadership.

United States. Congress. House--Rules and practice.

Political parties--United States.

Political parties.

Parliamentary practice.

Leadership.

Physical Description:

xv, 309 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Summary:

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. Reevaluating the role of parties and committees, Gary Cox and Mathew 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. Possession of this rule-making power leads to two main consequences. First, the legislative process in general, and the committee system in particular, is stacked in favor of majority party interests. Second, because the majority party has all the structural advantages, the key players in most legislative deals are members of that party and the majority party's central agreements are facilitated by cartel rules and policed by the cartel's leadership. 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.

Contents:

1 The Weakness of Parties 2

2 Committee Government 9

3 An Outline of the Book 13

Part 1 The Autonomy and Distinctiveness of Committees 15

1 Self-Selection and the Subgovernment Thesis 17

1 Self Selection 19

2 Constituency Interests and Assignment Requests 21

3 Accommodation of Assignment Requests 25

4 Accommodation of Transfer Requests 32

5 The Routinization of the Assignment Process 37

6 What of Norms in the Assignment Process? 39

7 Whither Assignment Routines? The Republican Revolution 40

2 The Seniority System in Congress 43

1 Seniority in the Rayburn House: The Standard View 44

2 Reconsidering the Standard View 45

3 The Empirical Evidence 47

4 Interpreting the Evidence: Postwar Democratic Rule 52

5 Interpreting the Evidence: The Republican Revolution 55

3 Subgovernments and the Representativeness of Committees 58

1 The Previous Literature 59

2 Data and Methodology 65

3 Results 68

4 The Representativeness Thesis 72

Part 2 A Theory of Organization 77

4 Institutions as Solutions to Collective Dilemmas 79

1 Collective Dilemmas 80

2 Central Authority: The Basics 84

3 Why Central Authority Is Sometimes Necessary 87

4 Multiperiod Considerations 92

5 Problems with Central Authority 94

5 A Theory of Legislative Parties 99

1 The Reelection Goal 100

2 Reelection Maximizers and Electoral Inefficiencies 112

3 Party Leadership 115

4 Some Criticisms of Our Theory and Our Rejoinder 123

Part 3 Parties as Floor-Voting Coalitions 127

6 On the Decline of Party Voting in Congress 129

1 Party Voting: Trends Since 1980 130

2 Party Voting: Trends from 1910 to the 1970s 131

3 Party Agendas and Party Leadership Votes 135

Part 4 Parties as Procedural Coalitions: Committee Appointments 149

7 Party Loyalty and Committee Assignments 153

1 Assignments to Control Committees 154

2 Party Loyalty and Transfers to House Committees 155

3 Loyalty, the Republican Revolution, and the Great Purge of 1995 170

4 Assignment Success of Freshmen 171

8 Contingents and Parties 176

1 A Model of Partisan Selection 177

2 Which Committees' Contingents Will Be Representative? 178

3 Results 188

Part 5 Parties as Procedural Coalitions: The Scheduling Power 211

9 The Majority Party and the Legislative Agenda 213

1 The Speaker's Collective Scheduling Problem 215

2 Limits on the Scheduling Power 217

3 Committee Agendas and the Speaker 221

4 Intercommittee Logrolls 227

5 Coalitional Stability 230

6 Critiques and Rejoinders 232

10 Controlling the Legislative Agenda 235

1 The Majority Party and the Committee System 236

2 The Consequences of Structural Power: The Legislative Agenda 241

3 The Consequences of Structural Power: Public Policy 250

4 Comments on the Postwar House 251

Appendix 1 Uncompensated Seniority Violations, Eightieth through Hundredth Congresses 259

Appendix 2 A Model of the Speaker's Scheduling Preferences 263

Appendix 3 Unchallengeable and Challengeable Vetoes 267

Appendix 4 The Scheduling Power 269.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-294) and indexes.

ISBN:

0521872332

9780521872331

0521694094

9780521694094

OCLC:

69992418