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.

The fall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe raised the complex question of how social services were to be distributed and administered in countries with legacies of highly centralized state. In Poland, a series of reforms attempted to modify and decentralize social service programs. Yet with Poland’s second round of decentralization, long-held and clearly specified reform goals were undermined from the very outset. In this insightful, detailed, and carefully argued study, Janelle A. Kerlin demonstrates how and why reforms, intended to improve services and increase citizen participation in social service programming, largely failed to meet expected goals. The politics of reform development—including political deals, exclusionary tactics, and hidden maneuvering by Polish policymakers—prevented any significant upgrade of services or real change in decision-making structures. Conflicting ideologies and pressures on policy actors stemming from historical, institutional, political, and international sources often resulted in compromises that led to unfavorable public service outcomes. In this book, Kerlin uses focused interviews with leading reform actors and a nationwide representative survey of two hundred public social service institutions to develop a model that connects the politics of the decentralization process with social service outcomes. Not only students of the former Soviet bloc, but also those interested in the links between politics and policy outcomes more broadly will find in this volume an informative and instructive case study that has far-reaching implications.

"To achieve legitimate self-government in America's extended Republic, the U.S. Constitution depends on Congress harmonizing the country's factions through a process of conflict and accommodation. Why Congress demonstrates the value of this activity by showing the legislature's distinctive contributions in two crucial moments in the mid-twentieth century: during World War II, when congressional deliberation contributed to national cohesion by balancing interests and ensuring fairness, and during the push to end racial segregation, when a prolonged debate in Congress focused the nation's attention and delivered a decisive victory for the broad coalition united around civil rights. The second part of the book traces the evolution of Congress, which first experimented with radical decentralization in the 1970s and then, beginning in the 1980s, embraced powerful leadership and ideological caucuses that prioritized partisan unity and electoral confrontation. This transformed institution has been unable to work through the country's deep divisions on contemporary issues like immigration or the COVID-19 pandemic. Contemporary policymaking often circumvents Congress entirely. In other instances, Congress is engaged, but it proceeds without any bipartisan cooperation or through leader-broken compromises generated by crises. Each of these patterns creates serious difficulties for legitimating American policy. The book concludes with three scenarios for Congress's future. Without significant change, the institution will sink into decrepitude. But it could still be transformed, either by progressive constitutional reform empowering the president at the legislature's expense, or by a revival of meaningful deliberation and debate facilitated by the renewal of the committee system"--

Congress occupies a central place in the U.S. political system. Its reach into American society is vast and deep. Overtime, the issues it has confronted have increased in both quantity and complexity. At the beginning, Congress dealt with a handful of matters, whereas today it has its hands in every imaginable aspect of life. It has attempted to meet these challenges and has changed throughout the course of its history, prodded by factors both external and internal to the institution. The essays in this volume argue therefore that as society changed throughout the twentieth century, Congress responded to those changes.

Traversing more than a century of American history, this book advances a new theory of congressional organization to explain why and how party dissidents rely on institutions of their own making, arguing that these intraparty organizations can radically shift the balance of power between party leaders and rank-and-file members. Intraparty organizations empower legislators of varying ideological stripes to achieve collective and coordinated action by providing selective incentives to cooperative members, transforming public-good policies into excludable accomplishments, and helping members to institute rules and procedures to promote group decision making. Drawing on rich archival evidence and interview data, the book details the challenges dissident lawmakers encounter when they face off against party leaders and their efforts to organize in response. Eight case studies complicate our understanding of landmark fights over rules reform, early twentieth-century economic struggles, mid-century battles over civil rights legislation, and contemporary debates over national health care and fiscal policy.

Making Congress Work, Again, Within the Constitutional System Congress for many years has ranked low in public esteem--joining journalists, bankers, and union leaders at the bottom of polls. And in recent years there's been good reason for the public disregard, with the rise of hyper-partisanship and the increasing inability of Congress to carry out its required duties, such as passing spending bills on time and conducting responsible oversight of the executive branch. Congress seems so dysfunctional that many observers have all but thrown up their hands in despair, suggesting that an apparently broken U.S. political system might need to be replaced. Now, some of the country's foremost experts on Congress are reminding us that tough hyper-partisan conflict always has been a hallmark of the constitutional system. Going back to the nation's early decades, Congress has experienced periods of division and turmoil. But even in those periods Congress has been able to engage in serious deliberation, prevent ill-considered proposals from becoming law--and, over time, help develop a deeper, more lasting national consensus. The ten chapters in this volume focus on how Congress in the twenty-first century can once again fulfill its proper functions of representation, deliberation, legislation, and oversight. The authors offer a series of practical reforms that would maintain, rather than replace, the constitutional separation of powers that has served the nation well for more than 200 years.

"The Legislative Branch examines Congress's performance as a democratic institution, identifies the forces that have shaped its development, and considers the prospects for effective reforms." "The Legislative Branch is a collection of essays by some of the nation's leading political scientists and scholars of public policy. It examines Congress's historical development; the effects of its electoral campaigns and outcomes; its internal structures, including party leadership and the committee system; its strengths and shortcomings in policymaking, including budgeting and foreign policy; its relations with the executive branch and the courts; its public support; and the dynamics of reform. Each essay analyzes long-term institutional developments, defines their implications for democratic governance, and spells out implications for reformers."--BOOK JACKET.