Suchergebnisse

"The role of the Congress is essential to any study of American government and politics. It would be impossible to gain a complete understanding of the American system of government without an appreciation of the nature and workings of this essential body. This is an introductory text aimed at undergraduates studying American politics and American society. It looks at the workings of the United States Congress, and uses the Republican period of ascendancy, which lasted from 1994 until 2000, as an example of how the Congress works in practice. The book illustrates the basic principles of Congress using contemporary and recent examples, while also drawing attention to the changes that took place in the 1990s. The period of Republican control is absent from many of the standard texts and is of considerable academic interest for a number of reasons, not least the 1994 election, the budget deadlock in 1995 and the Clinton impeachment scandal of 1999. The book traces the origin and development of the United States Congress, before looking in depth at the role of representatives and senators, the committee system, parties in Congress, and the relationship between Congress and the President, the media and interest groups. This will be the first textbook on the market that enables students to incorporate these developments into their work and into their thinking about contemporary American politics and society"--Publisher's description

Representation and governing in a separated system -- The historical development of Congress -- Elections -- Representation -- Committees -- Parties -- Policy making in the House and Senate -- The legislative effectiveness of Congress and its members : governing, policymaking, and the budget -- Congress and the President -- Congress and the bureaucracy -- Congress and the courts -- Congress and interest groups.

Cover -- Half-title page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Measuring Legislative Effectiveness -- 3 The Keys to Majority-Party Effectiveness in Congress -- 4 A Tale of Three Minorities -- 5 Gridlock and Effective Lawmaking, Issue by Issue -- 6 The Habits of Highly Effective Lawmakers -- 7 The Future of Legislative Effectiveness -- References -- Index.

By the standard of most European parliaments, levels of party voting in the United States Congress are relatively low. Nevertheless, party voting does occur in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the American context, a party vote occurs when majorities of the two congressional parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, oppose one another. The authors construct measurements of levels of party voting in Congress in the years after the Second World War. They then develop a model to test the effects of a number of independent variables that influence fluctuations in party voting levels over time. The study models the time series for party voting and demonstrates striking differences between the House and Senate in the correlates of partisan cleavage.