Why Not Parties?

by Monroe, Nathan W.

• ISBN13: 9780226534893
• ISBN10: 0226534898
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Recent research on the U.S. House of Representatives largely focuses on the effects of partisanship, but the strikingly less frequent studies of the Senate still tend to treat parties as secondary considerations in a chamber that gives its members far more individual leverage than congressmen have. In response to the recent increase in senatorial partisanship,Why Not Parties?corrects this imbalance with a series of original essays that focus exclusively on the effects of parties in the workings of the upper chamber. Illuminating the growing significance of these effects, the contributors explore three major areas, including the electoral foundations of parties, partisan procedural advantage, and partisan implications for policy. In the process, they investigate such issues as whether party discipline can overcome Senate mechanisms that invest the most power in individuals and small groups; how parties influence the making of legislation and the distribution of pork; and whether voters punish senators for not toeing party lines. The result is a timely corrective to the notion that parties don't matter in the Senatewhich the contributors reveal is far more similar to the lower chamber than conventional wisdom suggests.

Author Biography

Nathan W. Monroe is assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Merced. Jason M. Roberts is assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. David W. Rohde is the Ernestine Friedl Professor of Political Science at Duke University.
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Assessing the Impact of Parties in the U.S. Senate	p. 1
Electoral Accountability, Party Loyalty, and Roll-Call Voting in the U.S. Senate	p. 23
Party and Constituency in the U.S. Senate, 1933-2004	p. 39
Scoring the Senate: Scorecards, Parties, and Roll-Call Votes	p. 52
The Senate Whip System: An Exploration	p. 73
Party Loyalty and Discipline in the Individualistic Senate	p. 100
Make Way for the Party: The Rise and Fall of the Senate National Security Committees, 1947-2006	p. 121
Agenda Influence and Tabling Motions in the U.S. Senate	p. 142
Filibustering and Majority Rule in the Senate: The Contest over Judicial Nominations, 2003-2005	p. 159
Minority-Party Power in the Senate and House of Representatives	p. 181
Catch-22: Cloture, Energy Policy, and the Limits of Conditional Party Government	p. 198
Distributive and Partisan Politics in the U.S. Senate: An Exploration of Earmarks	p. 229
References	p. 253
Contributors	p. 271
Index	p. 275
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