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15 - Setting the Agenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Steven S. Smith
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
Jason M. Roberts
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Ryan J. Vander Wielen
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia
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Summary

Cox and McCubbins argue that the majority party in the House behaves as a cartel. That is, members of the party cooperate to control the legislative agenda by delegating special agenda-setting powers to various offices – committee chairmanships, the speaker-ship, and the Rules Committee – and by exercising party control over those offices. Effective use of these offices minimizes the number of defeats the majority party experiences on the floor of the House.

INTRODUCTION

For democracy in a large republic to succeed, many believe that responsible party government is needed, with each party offering voters a clear alternative vision regarding how the polity should be governed and then, if it wins the election, exerting sufficient discipline over its elected members to implement its vision. America was once thought to have disciplined and responsible parties. Indeed, students of nineteenth-century American politics saw parties as the principal means by which a continental nation had been brought together: “There is a sense in which our parties may be said to have been our real body politic. Not the authority of Congress, not the leadership of the President, but the discipline and zest of parties has held us together, has made it possible for us to form and to carry out national programs.”

Since early in the twentieth century, however, critics of American politics have often argued that congressional parties are largely moribund.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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