Leadership Strategies for Legislative Party Cohesion

Abstract

N o ONE DOUBTS that leadership is important in producing legisI lative party cohesion, but there is little in literature of political science about how leaders build cohesion. More than a decade ago, Duane Lockard showed that party cohesion in Connecticut General Assembly was remarkably strong; he posited centralized organization, interparty competition, ideological similarities, and discipline as major bases of party control.' topic of this article is political strategies party leaders use to transform these bases into party votes, and why these strategies succeed. It draws on data from a session of Connecticut House of Representatives during which both cohesion and leadership activity were in full display. Despite emergence, in recent research, of legislator as an active, sentient being (rather than a passive register of pressures),2 not much is known about legislators' party orientations. For example, in their four-state study of Legislative System, based on interviews with almost all members of both houses in each state, John C. Wahlke, Heinz Eulau, William Buchanan and Leroy C. Ferguson find that the party man may act independently and independent may yet be more or less of a party man, The role of 'party man' is a highly ambiguous one, and The line between a 'party man' and an 'independent' or a 'maverick' is a tenu-