POS 6427
Congressional
Politics
Professor Lawrence
C. Dodd
University of Florida, Spring,
2008
Week One: Introduction (Jan 8)
PART ONE: STUDYING THE POST-WAR
CONGRESS-AN OVERVIEW
Week Two: Historical Perspectives on
Congress (Jan 15)
Week Three: Theoretical Perspectives on Congress (Jan 22)
Week Four: The House vs. the Senate (Jan 29)
Week Five: Constituencies, Representation and Elections (Feb 5)
Week Six: Parties and Committees (Feb 12)
Week Seven: Goals, Careers and Legislative Decision-making (Feb 19)
Week Eight: The Contemporary Legislative Process (Feb 26)
Week Nine: Enacting and Implementing Public Policy (March 4)
Spring Break
(Week of March 11th)
Preparation of
Mid-term Exam: Due March 18th
PART TWO: DOING CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH
Week Ten: Preparation of Research
Designs (NO CLASS: March 18)
Week Eleven: Discussion of Research Designs (March 25)
Week Twelve: Discussion of Research Designs (April 1)
Week Thirteen: Faculty/Student Research Presentations (April 8)
Week Fourteen: Faculty/Student Research Presentations (April 15)
Week Fifteen: Discussion of Research Projects (April 22)
Seminar Objectives
This course is a graduate-level introduction to the study of the U. S.
Congress during the post-war era. Part I focuses on introducing you to
critical topics and literature and Part II is devoted to the
preparation of research papers. The course is a companion course to
Professor Dodd’s seminar on American Legislative Development. The ALD
course seeks to help students understand congressional development: why
it has been important historically as a vital representative and
policy-making institution within our broader social, political and
constitutional system, how it changes across time, and how it sustains
and replenishes its constitutional powers. The current course focuses
in-depth on the changing character of Congress in the Post-War era from
1945 to the present. In doing so, the course will examine closely the
post-war functioning of the Congress as a representative and
policy-making institution; the theories and methods that inform our
understanding of the post-war Congress; and research programs that help
explain post-war politics in Congress.
The American Congress is the most extensively studied political
institution in the world. Journalistic coverage of the Congress – by
such newspapers and journals as the Congressional Quarterly Weekly
Report, Washington Post, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, Los Angeles Times and National Journal provide a daily
account of the Congress rich in detail, colorful in its analysis, and
unparalleled in thoroughness. The Congressional Record adds a daily
record of the speeches and commentaries of House and Senate members.
Similarly, the Congress makes available the language of all bills it
considers and all laws it passes, the results of roll call votes from
committee and floor action, the hearings and reports of committees, and
a wide array of information from its caucuses and subcaucuses. And of
course there are any number of popular books on the Congress, usually
by journalists, that address particular issues of congressional
politics. To all of this is then added the scholarly literature on
Congress – itself the most voluminous such literature about any
political institution in world history.
Our task in this course is to grasp the major trends, themes and
theories that characterize the scholarly study of the post-war Congress
while ensuring that students gain a sufficient general understanding of
the institution (aided by popular and journalistic accounts and, if
possible, first hand observation) that they can assess the explanatory
value of specialized scholarly work, see the relevance of scholarly
work to the real-world institution, assess the broad strengths and
weaknesses of congressional scholarship as a body of knowledge, and
contribute to systematic analysis of the Congress in innovative ways
through their own scholarly activities. This is both a daunting task –
given the voluminous literature on the Congress – and yet also an
exciting one.
Because the literature on Congress is so well-developed, there is
considerable opportunity for students of the Congress to make
methodological, theoretical and interpretive breakthroughs that
not only help clarify congressional politics but also illuminate the
broader study of politics. In other words, the study of Congress is
sufficiently well-developed, and a broader array of journalistic and
popular knowledge is sufficiently accessible, that students are not
confined to research efforts that describe the broad outlines of
congressional politics. Instead, they can look for explanatory
connections among a well-studied array of electoral and institutional
processes. In doing so, they can also examine the interpretive
implications that congressional politics may have for understanding
other political institutions, at home and abroad.
Stated more bluntly, if political science is to develop general
theories or paradigmatic perspectives on such topics as elections and
representation, political careerism and institutional performance,
institutional change and organizational adaptation, agenda evolution
and policy responsiveness, or constitutional design and institutional
power – such developments could well come as a result of
findings, methods and theories developed in congressional studies. In
essence, the information and literature on the Congress are so
well-developed that in studying Congress as a scholarly endeavor
students are not simply examining one of the world’s most powerful
representative assemblies. They also are exploring the cutting edge of
data, methods and theories about politics and positioning themselves to
contribute to new cutting edge developments.
The course introduces students to the scholarly study of the Congress
by immersing them in the literature on Congress and by asking them to
conduct an original research paper due during finals week. Because of
the quantity of published work on Congress, the course ‘picks and
chooses’ among many excellent studies. In the process, a genuine effort
is made to introduce students to a pluralistic array of research
styles, topics and analytical perspectives. This is not a course in one
‘school’ of congressional studies, but an effort to help students be
aware of the different schools and perspectives that have emerged
during the development of congressional studies, hopefully thereby
enabling them to choose approaches that best fit their own talents and
topical interests. At the same time, a major theme of the course is
that a critical aspect of understanding Congress is studying it ‘up
close and personal,’ so that all students are encouraged to do field
work on Capitol Hill or in congressional districts as a part of their
research, either during the semester or at a subsequent point in
research development. They are also encouraged to consider a summer as
an intern on Capitol Hillif they plan a dissertation on the Congress.
Following the introductory week, the course will be divided into two
parts. Part One focuses on n overview of the major topics of
congressional studies and highlights research that helps illuminate
these topics. The reading in Part One is heavy, with students expected
to immerse themselves in learning Congress by reading about it. By the
end of Part I students should have a reasonable grasp of Post-War
Congressional Politics and research on it. At that point, OVER SPRING
BREAK, students will write a ‘take-home’ examine which tests their
knowledge of post-war congressional politics and, in the process,
serves as a primer for prelim questions on the Congress. That take-home
exam will be due to Professor Dodd by email no later than 5pm on March
18th. Additionally, by spring break (and preferably by Week Five)
students should have a sufficiently well-developed understanding of
Congress and congressional research to choose a topic for original
research.
Spring Break and Week Ten will provide a time for students to make a
final choice of a research topic and draft a research design. Part Two
of the course then focuses on “Doing Congressional research.” During
Weeks Ten and Eleven students will present their initial research
designs and discuss the designs of others. Thereafter will come several
weeks in which the seminar sessions will focus on faculty research
projects – with presentations by various faculty – while students
pursue their personal research endeavors. The last class meeting will
involve student discussions of their research findings. Final research
papers will be due to Professor Dodd during finals week.
.
During Part I, to facilitate class discussion, students are asked to
write a short weekly essay (about a page and a half long) addressing a
central question relevant to the reading and to email the essay to
Professor Dodd and all other students by Monday at 5pm the day before
the Tuesday class. These email assignments will be ungraded, but will
be considered in final grade decisions as a contribution to class
discussion. For selected weeks, students are asked to complete graded
papers, which will contribute to the final grade decision, as follows.
The topics for these writing assignments will be handed out as the
syllabus is finalized.
Required Readings
The required books for this course are available for purchase at
Goerings Bookstore near campus. Most of these are also on reserve in
Library West. In addition, virtually all essays and articles used in
the course are available in books placed on reserve in Library West, or
in appropriate journals. Material not available easily on reserve will
be placed in the department library or provided through handouts in
class.
Reading Code:
***read closely
**read for the major points
*read if time permits/or for
special interest
Abbreviations:
1. CR I - VII refers to Congress
Reconsidered, editions one through seven, on reserve.
2. Studies refers to Studies of
Congress, edited by Glenn Parker, on reserve.
3. Two Decades refers to Ralph Huitt and Robert
Peabody, eds., Congress: Two Decades of Analysis, on reserve
4. APSR refers to the American
Political Science Review
5. AJPS refers to the American Journal of Political
Science
6. LSQ refers to the Legislative Studies Quarterly
Class Assignments
First and foremost, students are expected to complete the reading for
each week and to participate in class discussion. Because the
literature on Congress is so vast, and because this course seeks to
introduce you to a broad range of perspectives and topics present in
congressional studies, the reading for the course will be extensive.
Nevertheless, Professor Dodd has necessarily made a number of choices,
leaving out a number of outstanding scholarly works, analytic
perspectives and important topics. Even in doing so, a large
introductory body of reading remains.
In exploring this reading, students are encourage to make some choices
of their own about what to read, and how closely to read it, as seems
necessary given available time, energy, and commitment to the study of
Congress. To facilitate these choices, Professor Dodd has ‘starred’ the
readings. The three-stars (***) designate material that is absolutely
essential for the weekly discussion topics, and should be read closely
and attentively. The two-stars (**) indicate that the reading is
important to the weekly discussion and should be examined before class,
looking for its major points. The one-starred reading (*) tends to
explore specialized work relevant to a class topic and can be consulted
if time and personal interest permit. “Recommended Reading” is intended
to guide students to additional work to consider for research projects,
prelim preparation, or personal knowledge. Except for ‘background’
studies and descriptive contemporary commentaries, everything assigned
in the class can be considered of ‘classic’ status (or in some cases as
being short summaries by authors of ‘classic work’ published in books
or multiple articles too lengthy for this course). The star system does
not indicate the quality of the work at hand, but its centrality to
class discussion for a particular week. Appropriate engagement in class
discussion, based on completing and mastering the core reading, will be
considered in final grade decisions.
Goerings has been asked to make all of the following books available
for purchase. In addition, the Library has been asked to put these
books on reserve, as available, and they can be purchased from
Amazon.com.
Lawrence Dodd and Bruce Oppenheimer, Congress Reconsidered, 8th
edition.
Julian Zelizer, On Capitol
Hill
Nelson Polsby, How Congress
Evolves
Nolan McCarty, et. al., Polarized
America
Charles Stewart III, Analyzing
Congress
David Mayhew, America’s
Congress
David Mayhew, Congress: The
Electoral Connection
Tracy Sulkin, Issue Politics
in Congress
Gary Jacobson, The Politics
of Congressional Elections
Richard Fenno, Home Style
Frances Lee and Bruce Oppenheimer, Sizing Up the Senate
David Rohde, Parties and
Leaders in the PostReform House
Christopher Deering and Steven Smith, Committees in Congress
Gary Cox and Mathew McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan
David Price, The
Congressional Experience
Barbara Sinclair, Unorthodox
Lawmaking
Forrest Maltzman, Competing
Principals: Committees, Parties and the Organization of Congress
David Brady and Craig Volden, Revolving
Gridlock,
Sarah Binder, Stalemate
Diana Owens, Greasing the
Wheels
Week Two: Historical Perspectives on
Congress
I. Historical Perspectives on Congress
**Joseph Cooper and David Brady,
“Toward a Diachronic Analysis of Congress,”
APSR, 1981
***Polsby, “Institutionalization of the U.S. House,” APSR, 62: 1968, pp.
144-168,
or in Parker, Studies
**Stewart, Analyzing Congress,
Chapters 2, 3
***Cooper, “From Congressional to Presidential Preimminence” in CR VIII
***Mayhew, America’s Congress:
all
II. The Post-War Congress
**Samuel P. Huntington, “Congressional
Responses to the Twentieth Century,” in
Truman, Congress and
America’s Future.
**Dodd and Schott, Congress
and the Administrative State, 1979, Chs. 1-5, reserve
***Dodd, “Congress, the Constitution, and the Crisis of Legitimation,”
in CRII, 1981
***Zelizer, On Capitol Hill:
All
Weekly Email Questions: Please answer both of the following questions:
1. How Is the Post-War Congress different from and
similar to Congress in earlier historical eras and how might you
explain these similarities and differences based on what you currently
know about congressional politics? About a page to a page and a half,
single-spaced
2. What area/topics of congressional politics would
you consider for conducting a research project in this class this
semester? Why, and what kind of project? Half page to a page
single-spaced
Highly Recommended: Eric Schickler, Disjointed Pluralism:
Looking Ahead: Works we will read next week include
Mayhew, Congress: The
Electoral Connection and
Polsby, How Congress Evolves
Week Three: Selected
Theoretical/Analytical Perspectives on Congress
I. Landmark Works in the Study of Congress: An
Overview
**Nelson Polsby and Eric Schickler,
“Landmarks in the Study of Congress
Since 1945,” Annual Review
of Political Science, 2002, Vol. 5, 359-67.
See also: Robert L. Peabody, “Research on Congress: A Coming of Age,”
in Huitt and Peabody, in Congress:
Two Decades of Analysis, (hereafter referred to as Two
Decades) 1969.
II. The Dominant “Goal-Seeking” Interpretation of
Congress: Mayhew and His
Competitors
***David Mayhew, Congress: the Electoral Connection:
all, including prologue/preface
Review also: Fiorina, Congress: Keystone of the
Washington Establishment
***Critiques and complementary
perspectives:
a. Read the
colloquium discussion of the book in PS: Political Science and Politics,
Volume XXXIV, #3, June, 2001.
b. Fenno, Congressmen
in Committees, “Introduction” and Chapter One
c. Dodd, “Congress and the Quest for Power,” (in Congress Reconsidered (CR),
first edition, 1977) and Parker, Studies of Congress) and
III. Organizational Perspectives on Congress
*Cooper, “Congress in Organizational
Perspective,” In
CR I.
***Cox and McCubbins,
The
Legislative Leviathan, Introduction, Chaps 4, 5
***Shepsle, “Institutional Equilbrium and Equilibrium Institutions,” in
Weisberg,
Political Science: The Science of
Politics, 1986.
***Dodd, “The Cycles of Legislative Change,” in Weisberg, above.
IV. Social Structure Perspectives
***Polsby, How Congress Evolves, all
***McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal, Polarized America, Chapter 1
*Review,
Dodd, “Congress, the Constitution, and the Crisis of Legitimation”
V. Spatial//Identity/Ideational Perspectives
***Stewart,
Analyzing Congress, Chapter
1.
***Hawkesworth, “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender: Toward
A Theory of Raced-Gendered
Institutions,” American
Political Science
Review 97 (2003): 529-550.
***Dodd, “Congress, the Presidency, and the American Experience: A
Transformational Perspective,” In
Thurber, Divided Democracy,
1991
***Koopman,
Hostile Takeover,
Handout.
***Dodd, “ReEnvisioning Congress,” Read version in either 7th or 8th
edition of CR.
VI. Integrative and Process Perspectives
***Arnold, The Logic of Congressional Action,
Chapters 1 and 2
***Schickler, Disjointed
Pluralism
***Dodd, “ReEnvisioning Congress,” the version in the 7th or 8th
Edition of CR.
***Baumgartner and Jones, Policy
Dynamics, Chapter 1
*** Jones, Baumgartner and True, “Policy Punctuations: U.S. Budget
Authority,
947-95.” JOP: (1999) 60, 1-30. Also
see Jones/Baumgartner, The
Politics of
Attention
Email Assignments:
1. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of
Mayhew’s argument in The Electoral Connection and how would you improve
on it and or expand on it?___Kim, Matthew___
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of
moving beyond a re-election focus and considering other member goals in
the explanation of congressional
behavior?___ Michael B.___
3. Why do Cox and McCubbins believe political parties
are the central organizational unit in Congress and how persuasive is
there argument? Does it seem to work for Congress under all conditions
across time, or is it a time-bound, context-bound or policy-bound
perspective?___Paulina, Josh___
4. What does Shepsle mean by institutional
equilibrium and equilibrium institutions and how might this aid the
study of Congress and other branches of government such as the
Court?___Donald___
5. What is Polsby’s ‘social structure’ argument in
How Congress Evolves, how does it differ from goal-oriented and
organizational perspectives, and what do you see as its contribution to
our understanding of congressional change in the postwar era?___Chris,
Jayme,____
6. What is the social structure argument in Polarized
America, how do the authors propose to test it, and how might it help
us understand congressional change in the postwar era?____Rob___
7. What are Raced-Gendered Institutions and how is
this concept and the study of it relevant to Congress, with what
theoretical and research implications?___Adann___
8. What is the argument of Arnold in The Logic of
Congressional Action, with respect to legislator-constituent relations
and their affect on congressional action, and how persuasive/useful is
it?___Kevin__
9. How might scholars think about policy reversals by
Congress from the perspective of Arnold versus Baumgartner and Jones
and what implications would your answer have for your expected
dissertation work?____Jordan____
10. What is the value of multiple theoretical
perspectives on Congress, as seen in Dodd’s ReEnvisioning Congress,”
and what are its drawbacks and limits? What perspective does it provide
on congressional change in the postwar era and how might that
perspective be improved on?___ Jackie____
Week Four: The House versus the Senate
I. An
Overview
*Baker, House and Senate, Chapters One
and Two
***Fenno, “The Internal Distribution of Influence: The House” AND
Huitt, “The
Internal Distribution of Influence: The
Senate” in Truman, Congress
and
America’s Future
***Carmines and Dodd, “ Bicameralism in Congress: The Changing
Partnership,” in
CR III, 1985.
***Fenno, “Looking for the Senate: Reminiscences and Residuals,”
U. S. Senate
Exceptionalism
II. The Modern Senate
**Huitt, “Democratic Party Leadership
in the Senate,” APSR, LV (June,
1961), 331-344, And “The Outsider in
the Senate: An
Alternative Role,” APSR LV (Sept, 1961),
566-575, both in
Two Decades
***Sinclair,
The
Transformation of the U.S. Senate: all
***Sinclair, “The New World of U.S. Senators” In
CR VIII
***Lee and Oppenheimer,
Sizing Up the Senate: all
***Sinclair, “The 60-Vote Senate,” in
U.S. Senate Exceptionalism.
III.
The Modern House
***Cooper and Brady, “Institutional
Context and Leadership Style: The House from
Cannon to Rayburn,” APSR 75 (1981): 411-425
***Rohde,
Parties and
Leaders in the Post-reform House: all
**Koopman,
Hostile Takeover,
Introduction and Chapters 1-3, 6 (Library Reserve)
***Dodd and Oppenheimer, “A Decade of Republican Control: The
House of Representatives, 1995-2005” CR VIII.
IV. Some Arenas of
Comparative Bicameral Research
a. Congressional Reform:
***Schickler, McGhee and Sides,
“Remaking the House and Senate: Personal Power, Ideology and the 1970s
Reforms,”
LSQ 28 (3):
297-333.
***Alford and Hibbing, “Electoral
Convergence in the U.S. Congress,”
in Oppenheimer, ed., U.S. Senate Exceptionalism.
***Weisberg,
Classics in Congressional Studies,
Chapter 12 (by
editors), Chapter 13, Matthews,
“Folkways of the Senate”(or
APSR, 53: 1064-89) and Chapter 14 Asher, “The
Learning of Legislative Norms” (or APSR, 67: 499-513).
***McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal, Polarized America, Chapter 2
V. Perspectives on Future
Research and Theorizing
***Rohde, “Seeing the House and Senate
Together: Some Reflections on Research on the Exceptional Senate,” U.S. Senate
Exceptionalism
***Dodd, “Making Sense Out of Our Exceptional Senate: Perspectives
and Commentary” in Oppenheimer, U. S. Senate
Exceptionalism.
Email Assignments:
1. What are the basic contrasts between the House and
Senate identified by Baker and why are they important?___Kim____
2. Why and how do Carmines and Dodd (publishing in
1985) see bicameralism changing across history, particularly since
WWII, and how does the research of Alford and Hibbing (published in
2002) speak to their analysis?____Chris_____
3. What is Sinclair’s argument in Transformation and
how do “New World”
“And 60-Vote” extend and inform her
earlier argument?____Rob______
4. What is Lee and Oppenheimer’s core argument in
Sizing Up and what is its
relevance to our understanding of
Congress?_____Michael_____
5. What are Rohde’s core arguments in Parties and
Leaders about why the House moved from the textbook Congress to
Conditional Party government and how
persuasive do you find his argument?____Adann____
6. What were the norms of the House and Senate like
in the early post-War era, as seen in the work of Matthews and Asher,
and also Huitt on the ‘Outsider,’ and
how likely are the changes of the past two decades
to have altered and upended
those norms? How might one gauge what
the contemporary norms are and what
their causes and consequences
are?____Paulina____
7. What role did power versus ideology play in the
reforms of the House versus the Senate in the 1970s?____Donald_______
8. Based on the reading thus far in this course,
including Zelizer, Sinclair, and Dodd and Oppenheimer, how would you
compare and contrast the way in which the Republican Revolution swept
the House versus the Senate, and with what
Similar/different consequences?____Josh, Jordan_____
9. What are the major research areas that Rohde
stresses in “Seeing….Together”, how might they best be framed, and what
kinds of specific research endeavors might flow from them?___Jackie_____
10. What is Dodd’s argument in “Making Sense” about
why and how the House and Senate may be analytically different kinds of
institutions, requiring different theoretical lenses to see and
comprehend them?___Kevin__
Some Thought Questions: (1)Detail three or four major differences
between the House and the Senate as institutions and discuss their
combined implication for the development of Congress.
(2)Briefly
compare and explain the distinctive responses of the
House and Senate to the post-WWII world and discuss the
implications these developments have for the operation of Congress as a
powerful policy-making institution today.
(3)If we were to see the
House as composed of ‘goal-seeking’ legis-lators (responding in their
goals to the structured hierarchy of power within the House)
legislators and the Senate as composed of ‘goal-adapting’ legislators
(responding in their goals to the fluctuating opportunities afforded
them by service in the fluid Senate) how might such a perspective
generate systematically different arguments, hypotheses and research
designs for the House and Senate, and how might such designs yield
cross-chamber comparative research?
Week Five: Constituencies,
Representation and Elections
I. General Perspectives
***Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional
Elections: all
*Jacobson, “Parties and PACs in Congressional Elections,” in CR IV and “The
Misallocation of Resources in House
Campaigns,” in RC V.
***Congress Reconsidered VIII,
Chapter 4: Erikson and Wright, “Voters, Candidates, and Issues in
Congressional
Elections” Chapter 5: Paul S. Herrnson,
“Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act…”
**Stewart, Analyzing Congress, Chapters
4, 5, 6
II. Constituency Characteristics and Elections
a. The Marginality puzzle is interesting both
substantively, in terms of what it
says about Congress and elections, and
analytically as an example of the
development of a research program in
political science.
***Everyone should read/review the original article by Mayhew in Polity Vol 6
(1974), #3, which is reprinted in Parker, Studies. Everyone
should also
read/review Part I of Fiorina, Congress: Keystone of the
Washington
Establishment, 1989.
Recommended: To appreciate the development of the
work on marginality, now
or in preparation for prelims, read as follows: Part
I in Parker, Studies, including
the introductory comments by Parker and the articles
by Mayhew, Bullock/
Scicchitano, Ferejohn and Fiorina. Then review
Fiorina, Congress: Keystone
of
The
Washington Establishment, 1989, Part I (assigned in the Scope
and
Epistemologies course; this is a reprint of his 1977
book). Then read Cover and
Mayhew, “Congressional Dynamics and the Decline of
Competitive
Congressional Elections,” in CRII. Then read Cain,
et.al., The Personal Vote:
Constituency
Service and Electoral Independence, 1987, Chapters 7-9
(remainder recommended). Then read Fiorina, Congress: Keystone...,
1989, Part
Finally, read:
***Fiorina, “Keystone Reconsidered,” in
Congress Reconsidered VIII.
**Alford and Brady, “Personal and Partisan Advantage in U. S. Congressional
Elections, 1846-1990, in CR
V.
***Review: Dodd, “The Cycles of Legislative Change,” in Weisberg
b. The Deep Partisanship of Congressional Districts
***Oppenheimer, “Deep Red and Deep Blue
Congressional Districts” in CR
VIII
c. District Characteristics and Party Polarization
***McCarty, Poole and
Rosenthal, Polarized America,
Chs 3-5
III. Constituencies, Campaigning and Representation
***Fenno, Home Style: all, including
the ‘Epilogue’
*Fenno, Going Home: all
*Fenno, Senators on the Campaign Trail:
all
IV. Elections, Issue Politics and Representation
***Warren Miller and Donald Stokes,
“Constituency Influence in Congress,”
APSR, 1963,
and in Parker, Studies.
*Gerald C. Wright, “Elections and the
Potential for Policy Change in Congress: The
House of Representatives,” in Wright,
et. al., Congress and Policy
Change.
**Brady, “Critical Elections,
Congressional Parties and Clusters of Policy Changes,”
British Journal of Political
Science, 1978; also in Parker, Studies
*Marjorie Hershey, “Campaign Learning,
Congressional Behavior, and Policy Change,”
in Wright, Rieselbach and Dodd, Congress and Policy Change,
on reserve
***Tracy Sulkin, Issue Politics in Congress:
all
Also recommended:
Swain, Black Faces, Black Interests
Jacobson, The Electoral
Origins of Divided Government
Fowler and McClure, Political
Ambition
Sorauf, Inside Campaign
Finance
Jacobson and Kernell, Strategies
and Choice in Congressional Elections
Week Five Email Assignments.
a. All Students: Briefly: Based on your reading of
Jacobson, Stewart and other readings in Part I, what aspects of
congressional campaigns and elections most interest you, why, and with
what significance or implications for Congress as an institution and
also for congressional research? About one page.
b. Individual Assignments:
1. What is Mayhew’s marginality puzzle, how did
Fiorina propose solving the puzzle, and how convincing is Fiorina’s
argument today?_____Michael______
2. What is the ‘partisan’ advantage identified by
Alford and Brady, how does it apply historically, how/why was it
challenged by the personal advantage in post-war America, and how might
it apply/not apply today?_____Rob______
3. How did Dodd incorporate the casework thesis and
partisan concerns in “The Cycles of Legislative Change” and how might
the cyclical argument apply or not apply today?____Kim________
4. What was Oppenheimer’s argument in “Deep Red and
Deep Blue,” what was his evidence, how convincing does it appear today,
and what appear to be the strengths and weaknesses of the argument in
retrospect?_____Jordan_______
5. How do McCarty, Poole and Rosenthal link issues of
demographics and congressional elections to explain the polarization of
party politics today, and how convincing to you find their
argument?______Josh________
6. What are the characteristics of a member’s Home
Style, how does home style affect a members relations with his district
and thereby his or her reelection chances, and what are the
implications of home style for representation of
districts?_______Chris________
7. How does Fenno characterize the nature of home
style among African American legislators and how does it affect their
participation in and role in Congress? How convincing do you find his
analysis?___Adann______
8. What is the argument of Miller and Stokes with
respect to constituency influence in Congress, how convincing is it,
and how applicable would it be today?_____Jackie______
9. What role does David Brady see critical elections
as playing in inducing policy change in Congress, how convincing is his
argument, and in what ways would it seem applicable/not applicable
today?____Kevin_____
10. What is Tracy Sulkin’s theory of ‘issue uptake,’
what role does it play in elections and agenda setting, and what is its
significance for our understanding the responsiveness of Congress as a
representative institution?____Paulina; Donald________
Week Six: Parties and Committees
I. The Post-War Evolution of Parties and Committees
**Dodd and Schott, Congress
and the Administrative State, Chapters 3-5 Review
or Finish
**Zelizer, On Capitol Hill
– Review or Finish
**Rohde, Parties and Leaders
in the PostReform Congress, Review or Finish
**Stewart, Analyzing Congress,
Chapters 7, 8
*James
MacG. Burns, The Deadlock of
Democracy
**Dodd, “The Expanding Roles of the House Democratic Whip System,” Capitol
Studies, 1979
**Dodd, “Coalition-Building by Party Leaders: A Case Study of House
Democrats,” Congress and the Presidency,
Vol 10: #2, 1983.
II. Party Government in Congress
***Cox and
McCubbins, The Legislative
Leviathan, all
***Dodd and
Oppenheimer, “Congress and the Emerging Order,” CR VII.
**Krehbiel, “Where’s the Party?” British Journal of Political
Science 23 (1993),
234-60
***Smith and
Gamm, “The Dynamics of Party Government in Congress;” “The
House
Leadership in an Era of Partisan Warfare,” by Schickler and
Kathryn
Pearson; and “Obstruction and Leadership in the U.S. Senate,”
by Evans and
Lipinski; all in CR VIII.
III. Congressional Committees
***Deering and Smith, Committees in Congress, all
***Aldrich and Rohde,
“Congressional Committees in a Partisan Era,” in CR VIII.
***Fenno, “The House
Appropriations Committee as a Political System: The
Problem of Integration,” APSR (1962) 56: 310-24
***Gordon, “The
(Dis)Integration of the House Appropriations Committee:
Revisiting The Power of the
Pursue in a Partisan Era.” In CR
VIII.
IV. Committees versus Parties: Who has Influence?
***Maltzman, Competing Principals: Committees,
Parties and the Organization of
Congress: all
**Raven,
“Institutional Development in the House of Representatives, 1890-2000”
Email Assignments:
1. Based on the readings thus far in this course
(including those in Part I of the
syllabus, the Deering and Smith book in Part III, and readings in
previous weeks), lay out a timeline (with associated triggering events)
by which Congress transitioned from the Committee Government era of the
early postwar period to the Conditional Party Government of the current
period___Josh_____
2. As seen in the two essays on the whip system by Dodd, how was party
leadership in policy-making and vote-gathering changing in the
1970s?_____Kim_____
2. What is the core argument (about parties as
cartels in Congress) in Legislative
Leviathan and what are its implications for how we would understand
Congress were
it true? What are its strengths and weaknesses?___Paulina_________
3. What is the argument of Dodd and Schott in “Congress and the
Emerging Order” with respect to cooperative partisanship, what are the
implications of this argument for parties’ electoral, organizational,
policy-making and governing strategies, and how might such implications
be explored in empirical research?____Jordon____
4. How do the authors in Congress Reconsidered (Smith and Gamm,
Schickler and Pearson, Evans and Lipiski) describe party leadership in
the House and Senate today, as distinct from earlier
period?___Adann______
5. What was Fenno’s argument in his 1962 APSR article and how well or
badly does his argument now apply to the Appropriations Committee,
based on Gordon’s analysis? What are the implications of Gordon’s
analysis for the committee and Congress?___Chris____
6. How and why do Smith and Deering see committees operating
differently in the PostReform period from earlier decades?___ Jackie;
Michael______
7. Outline the three models of committee performance discussed by
Maltzman, explain how and why the models vary across time in their
relevance to Congress, and discuss the model most appropriate to the
postreform Congress.____Kevin;Donald____
8. How does Raven explain congressional development across the
20th/21st century and what is the relevance of his argument to our
understanding of Congress today?___Rob_____
Week Seven: Goals, Careers, Groups and
Institutional Politics
I. General Perspectives and Classic Theoretical Statements
*Rieselbach, Congressional
Politics, pp. 64-73
***David Price, The Congressional Experience:
all, at bookstore
***Fenno, Congressmen in Committees,
Introduction and Chapter One; on reserve
***David Rohde,
“Risk-Bearing and Progressive Ambition: The Case of Members of
the U. S. House of Representatives,” American Journal of Political
Science
(AJPS) Vol 23, #1.
**Heinz Eulau,
et. al., “The Role of the Representative: Some Empirical Observations
on
the Theory of Edmund Burke,” APSR Vol
53, 1959; also recommended, Roger
Davidson, The Role of the
Congressman, 1969.
II. Historical Perspectives
*Swift, “The Electoral Connection Meets
the Past: Lessons from Congressional History,
1789-1899,” Political Science Quarterly,
Winter, 1987.
**Polsby, et.al., “The Growth of the
Seniority System in the U. S. House of
Representatives,”APSR 1969.
*H. Douglas Price, “The Congressional
Career—Then and Now,” 14-27 in Polsby, ed.,
Congressional Behavior.
*Price, “Careerism and Committees in
the American Congress: The Problem of
Structural Change,” in Aydelotte, ed., The History of Parliamentary
Behavior.
III. Contemporary Developments and Research
**John F. Manley, “Wilbur D. Mills: A
Study in Congressional Influence,”
APSR 63
(1969): 442-64; and Randall Strahan,
“Dan Rostenkowski: A Study in
Congressional Power,” in CR V.
***John Hibbing, Congressional Careers. Read
Chapters 1, 8 and at least two of the following chapters, based on your
personal interests:
Ch 2: The Electoral Career
Ch 3: The Formal Position
Ch 4: The Roll Call Career
Ch 5 The Legislative Activity
Career
Ch 6. The District Activity Career
Ch 7. The Integrated
Congressional Career
*Cooper and West, “The Congressional
Career in the 1970s,” in CR
II
*Charles Bullock and Burdette Loomis,
“The Changing Congressional Career” in CR III
*Fenno, Senators on the Campaign Trail,
Intro, Chs 1,2,7,8, Conclusion; the
rest recommended
*Fenno, Adjusting to the U. S. Senate,”
in Wright, et. al., Congress
and Policy Change.
*Canon, “Political Amateurism in the U.
S. Congress,” in CR IV
*Hibbing, “Careerism in Congress: For
Better or For Worse?” in CR V
**Cooperman and
Oppenheimer, “The Gender Gap in the House of Representatives,” CR
VII; review Swain, “Women and Blacks in
Congress: 1870-1996,” in CR
VI
IV. Interpersonal Behavior, Groups and Norms Among
Members
***Matthews, “The Folkways of the
Senate,” in U. S. Senators
and Their World; also in APSR 53 (1959). Read or
Review
***Asher, “The Learning of Legislative
Norms,” APSR, 1973
67: 499-513. Read or Review
**Hall, “Participation,
Abdication, and Representation in Congressional Committees, in
CR V.
*Hawkesworth, “Congressional Enactments
of Race-Gender: Toward A Theory of Raced-
Gendered Institutions,” American Political Science Review
97 (2003): 529-550.
Read or Review
***Lynn Kathlene, “Power and Influence
in State Legislative Policymaking,”
APSR,
Vol., 88, #3, September 1994, pp.
560-576.
**Hammond, “Congressional Caucuses in
the Policy Process,” in CR IV.
***Dodd and Schraufnagel, “Legislative
Conflict and Policy Productivity: The Role of
Member Incivility and Party
Polarization in the Enactment of Landmark Legislation, 1891-1994--Based
on Evidence from the New York Times and
Washington Post” 2007 APSA Paper.
V. Theoretical Perspectives: Member Goals, Organizational
Structure and Policy Processes Across Time
***Dodd, “A Theory of Congressional
Cycles,” in Wright, Rieselbach and Dodd,
Congress and Policy Change.
*Glenn Parker, Institutional Change, Discretion,
and the Making of Modern Congress
Email Assignments for Week Seven:
1. Based on the readings from this and prior weeks,
imagine you were going to do a research paper on the changing nature of
the congressional career from 1945 to the present. In what ways and why
would you expect careers to be the same in the past decade or so as
they were in the early postwar decades, in what ways and why would you
expect careers to be different, what would be the overall significance
of the resulting patterns of congressional careers, and how would you
test for these arguments?_____Chris; Jackie; Kevin_________________
2. In what organizational, normative and behavioral
ways has the coming of (some degree of) racial, ethnic and gender
diversity altered the House of Representatives, how might such
alterations continue into the future, and how could you test your
arguments?_____Rob, Paulina, Adann________
3. What is the argument presented by Dodd and
Schraufnagel with respect to the changing role of norms in the
Congress, how does their argument inform our understanding of committee
vs party government in Congress, why do they see changing norms
affecting policy productivity, and what critique would you offer of
their argument?_____Josh; Donald______
4. In what ways does Dodd’s argument about “A Theory
of Congressional Cycles” in the Wright, et. al. volume differ from his
argument about “Cycles of Legislative Change” in the Weisberg volume,
what are the implications of his argument for how one explains policy
change in Congress, and what critique would you make of his
argument?_____Kim; Jordan; Michael_______
Week Eight: The Contemporary
Legislative Process
I. General Overview
*Rieselbach, Congressional Politics,
Chapters 8-13
***Barbara Sinclair, Unorthodox Lawmaking: all
***Stewart, Analyzing Congress, Chapter
9.
II. Generating and shaping legislation:
*Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policy,
Chapters 1, 7,8
*Berkman, The State Roots of
National Politics, Chapters 1,2, 6, 7
*Douglas Arnold, The Logic
of Congressional Action: Chapters 1-6
***Congress Reconsidered VIII,
Chapters 13, 14, 15
III. Operating according to the legislative rules of the game:
*Rieselbach, Congressional Politics,
Chapters 5 and 6
*Walter Oleszek, Congressional
Procedures and the Policy Process
*Steven S. Smith, Call to
Order: all
*Binder, “The Partisan Basis of Procedural Choice: Allocating
Parliamentary Rights in
the House, 1789-1991,” APSR
90 (1996): 8-20.
*Congress Reconsidered: Fifth
Edition: Chapters 9 and 13; Fourth edition: Chapters 10
and 13 Third Edition: Chapters 14 and 17; Second Edition, Chapter 12;
First
Edition: Chapter 5*
IV. Operating within a separation of powers system
*Mathew Shugart and John Carey, Presidents and Assemblies:
Constitutional Design and
Electoral Dynamics, Chapters 1 and 7; all is
recommended
*Jon Bond and Richard Fleisher, The President in the Legislative
Arena
*Dodd and Schott, Congress and the Administrative State, Chapters 4-8;
see also Joel
Aberbach, Keeping a Watchful
Eye (On Congress and the bureaucracy)
*Robert Scigliano, The
Supreme Court and the Presidency (which presents an argument
of an inherent alliance of these two institutions against Congress).
*The Encyclopedia of the U. S. Congress, pages 1185-1204, on Congress and the Federal
Judiciary.
*Mayhew, Divided We Govern
*Bessette, The Mild Voice of
Reason, Chapters 4- 8
3. Case studies:
***Fenno, Congressmen in Committees,
Chapter Six and Epilogue
*Carmines and Stimson, Issue
Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American
Politics: all
Polsby, Political Innovation in America
Special Email Assignment: Early Research Thought Paper: Write a short 1
to 2 page thought paper on the topic you expect to develop as your
research paper for this class. Lay out the puzzle you are thinking
about analyzing, why you’ve chosen it, how you might go about the
theorizing and research, and what you hope to find.
Weekly Email Assignment:
(1) What does Sinclair mean by Unorthodox Lawmaking,
why has it arisen, and what is its signficance for Congress and for
public policy?¬¬¬¬____Kim; Adann_______
(2) According to Stewart, why do bills not become
law and what does this analysis tell us about Congress as a
deliberative and representative institution?____Rob_____
(3) According to Stewart, how do bills occasionally
become law and why is understanding the factors involved important for
understanding Congress as a deliberative and representative
institution?______Kevin_____
(4) According to Stewart, how can roll call votes be
used usefully to analyze the individual and collective preferences of
members, and to what effect?________Michael; Paulina________
(5) What are the dynamics driving Congressional
involvement in judicial appointments and what implications do these
dynamics have for national policymaking, as seen in the analysis of
Binder and Maltzman?______Donald________
(6) How has taxing and spending policy making
evolved in the current period of CPG and what challenges does this
evolution posed for Congress and its powers, as seen in Rudder’s
analysis?_____Chris______
(7) How has Congress responded as a policy maker to
the age of terrorism, according to Wolfensberger, and what are the
implications for its institutional role and relevance?_____Jackie______
(8) Describe the differential roles played by
different committees in House policymaking, as detailed by Fenno in
Chapters 2-4 and 6 of Congressmen in Committees, explain why he sees
the differences he sees, and assess the probable relevance of his
analysis to the contemporary Congress.___Josh_____
(9) Describe the ways in which Senate Committees
difference in their policy role from House Committees, in Chapter 5 and
6 of Congressmen in Committees, explain why he sees the similarities
and differences he sees, and assess the probable relevance of his
analysis to the contemporary Congress.______Jordan______
.
Week Nine: Enacting Public Policy
*Rieselbach, Congressional Politics,
Chapters 7,8
*Julius Turner, Party and
Constitutency: Pressures on Congress, revised edition by
Edward V. Schneier, Jr., Preface, Acknowledgements, Chapters 1,2,8 and
Epilogue; look
at the remainder if time and interest. On reserve
*Aage Clausen, How
Congressmen Decide:
*John Kingdon, “Models of Legislative Voting,” Journal of Politics, 1977
*Cooper and Young, “Partisanship, Bipartisanship, and Crosspartisanship
in Congress
Since the New Deal,” in CR
VI.
***Brady/Volden, Revolving
Gridlock: all. Eventually read also Krehbiel, Pivotal Politics,
***McCarty, Pool and Rosenthal, Polarized America, Chapters
6,7
***Diana Owens, Greasing the
Wheels
***Sarah Binder, Stalemate
Email Assignments:
1. What is the theory of institutional gridlock
developed by Brady and Volden and how does this theory explain public
policy developments in the contemporary Congress?____Chris; Jackie;
Rob__________
2. How do McCarty et. al. see party polarization
affecting public policy in contemporary America and what are the
implications of their analysis for how substantial change in our
current policy outcomes can be best generated?____Michael; Paulina_____
3. What is pork barrel politics, how does Evans see
it affecting the enactment of general-interest policies, and in what
ways is it similar/dissimilar in the House and
Senate?_____Kim;_Donald______
4. According to Binder in Stalemate, when does
stalemate exist in congressional policy-making, why does it exist, and
how convincing do you find her analysis?___Kevin; Adann____
5. In Stalemate, Binder seeks to explain why some
Congresses pass a higher proportion of ‘salient’ legislation than do
other Congresses. One thing she does not look at is whether successful
efforts to enact salient legislation look different from unsuccessful
efforts. That is, she fails to consider whether the character of the
support coalitions and leadership efforts in successful cases differs
in identifiable ways from the character of such efforts in unsuccessful
cases – even within the same Congress. Possibly the causes of stalemate
have less to do with general factors like divided government, etc.,
than with variation in the success of leaders/policy entreprenuers in
generating certain types of policy coalitions. How might you go about
examining this issue, starting with Binder’s data and
analysis?_____Jordan_______Consider the same question, but in terms of
whether the success of legislation has to do with the character of
policy opposition.____Josh_
Weeks Ten to Fifteen: Research on
Congress
During these five weeks each student will conduct a personal research
project on an aspect of Congress that interests him or her.
Additionally, during this period we will meet each week except for week
ten to discuss your research designs and research progress, to meet
with other faculty on their research, and to discuss your research
findings at the end of the semester.