Partisan Cleavage and Cohesion in the House of Representatives, 1861-1974

Abstract

Partisan Cleavage and Cohesion in the House of Representatives, I86I-1974 The American Congress surely qualifies as one of the most intensively studied political institutions of the world, past or present. Historians and political scientists have examined the Congress in detail in various temporal contexts and from a variety of perspectives. In recent years much of this work has been concerned either directly or tangentially with the role and influence of political parties in Congress. It has involved meticulous, quantitative analyses of congressional voting records. Concern for the functions and influence of political parties in Congress is understandable. The party system is among the most prominent structural elements of Congress, and in numerous historical contexts party affiliation has been found to be a major correlate, although not necessarily a determinant, of congressional voting behavior. Political parties also exist in the larger political system and are often seen as the principal agencies of modern polities for mobilizing and structuring mass participation in politics and for aggregating and articulating popular interests and demands. In this view, political parties link Congress and its members to the larger political system and are vital mechanisms of responsible and representative government. But despite numerous investigations, knowledge of the functioning of political parties in Congress is incomplete in critical ways. Studies of Congress have been disproportionately crosssectional in nature, concerned with the behavior of members of Congress and the performance of congressional institutions during limited time periods. The work of political scientists has focused primarily upon the years since 1945, and historians have concentrated upon limited temporal eras, usually those marked by conflict and intensive controversy. Without considering problems presented by methodological diversity, the essentially episodic focus of this research has been such that the results of investigations do not readily combine to provide an adequate cross-