Exporting Congress?

by Power, Timothy J.; Rae, Nicol C.

• ISBN13: 9780822959212
• ISBN10: 0822959216
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-28
• Publisher: Univ of Pittsburgh Pr

Summary

The United States Congress is often viewed as the world's most powerful national legislature. To what extent does it serve as a model for other legislative assemblies around the globe? InExporting Congress?distinguished scholars of comparative legislatures analyze how Congress has influenced elected assemblies in both advanced and transitional democracies. They reveal the barriers to legislative diffusion, the conditions that favor Congress as a model, and the rival institutional influences on legislative development around the world. Exporting Congress?examines the conditions for the diffusion, selective imitation, and contingent utility of congressional institutions and practices in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, the European Parliament, and the new democracies in Latin America and Eastern Europe. These scholars find that diffusion is highly sensitive to history, geography, and other contextual factors, especially the structure of political institutions and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches. Editors Timothy Power and Nicol Rae place the volume's empirical findings in theoretical, comparative, and historical perspective, and establish a dialogue between the separate subfields of congressional studies and comparative legislatures through the concept of legislative diffusion.

Author Biography

Timothy J. Power is University Lecturer in Brazilian Studies and Fellow of St. Cross College, University of Oxford.  He is the author of The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil and coeditor of Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes.
Nicol C. Rae is professor of political science at Florida International University. He is the author of <I>Conservative Reformers: The Republican Freshmen and the Lessons of the 104th Congress; Southern Democrats; and <I>The Decline and Fall of Liberal Republicans: 1952 to the Present; and coauthor of Impeaching Clinton: Partisan Strife on Capitol Hill.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Legislative Diffusion: Can the U.S. Congress Be a Source?	15	(1)
Timothy J. Power
Nicol C. Rae
Reinstitutionalizing the British House of Commons: How Relevant Is the Congressional Model?	15	(19)
Nicol C. Rae
So Close, and Yet So Far: Congressional Influences on Canadian Legislatures	34	(20)
Louis Massicotte
Recorded Voting and Accountability in the United States and Latin American Legislatures	54	(28)
John M. Carey
Limits on Exporting the U.S. Congress Model to Latin America	82	(20)
Scott Morgenstern
The Influence of U.S. Congressional Hearings on Committee Procedure in the German Bundestag	102	(17)
Gerhard Loewenberg
The U.S. Congress's Modest Influence on the Legislatures of Central and Eastern Europe	119	(18)
John R. Hibbing
Samuel C. Patterson
The Environmental Determinants of Legislative Structure: A Comparison of the U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament	137	(20)
Amie Kreppel
Ballot Structures and Legislative Behavior: Changing Role Orientations via Electoral Reform	157	(28)
Pippa Norris
Barriers and Carriers: Legislative Diffusion and the Selective Imitation of Congress	185	(12)
Timothy J. Power
Nicol C. Rae
Notes	197	(12)
Bibliography	209	(18)
Contributors	227	(4)
Index	231