Why Not Parties?: Party Effects in the United States Senate - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226534898 ISBN 13: 9780226534893

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2008

Synopsis

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 Senate—which the contributors reveal is far more similar to the lower chamber than conventional wisdom suggests.

About this title

Review:

"Timely, sophisticated, and well written, this volume contains an unusual number of new and important pieces. There is no comparable book on Senate politics." - Steven S. Smith, Washington University in St. Louis"

About the Author:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0226534898
• ISBN 13: 9780226534893
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 294
• Editor: Monroe Nathan W., Roberts Jason M., Rohde David W.