Effect Of Divided Government Research Articles

Governing Through Gridlock: Bill Composition under Divided Government

AbstractWhat is the effect of divided government on issue attention in state legislatures? Much of the research on divided government examines how it affects the enactment of significant legislation but does not consider other effects on legislative behavior. In this article, I propose a new theory of the relationship between divided government and legislative activity. Regardless of partisan control, reelection-minded legislators face pressure to deliver benefits to voters, yet divided government can make substantive policy change difficult. As a result of these competing pressures, under divided government legislators increasingly turn their focus to bills that benefit their local constituents, which are seen as easier to enact and allow them to engage in advertising, credit claiming, and position taking. Consistent with this theory, I find that under divided government, legislators introduce bills at the same rate, but the type of legislation introduced shifts away from statewide policy changes and towards district-specific legislation.

The President's Legislative Policy Agenda, 1789‐2002. By Jeffrey E.Cohen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 302 pp.

The President's Legislative Policy Agenda, 1789-2002. By Jeffrey E. Cohen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 302 pp. In The Presidents Legislative Policy Agenda, Jeffrey Cohen illustrates how a strategic president considers the congressional context in determining his legislative pursuits. Cohen uses congressional anticipations theory to answer a central question: why do 'divided government' and 'modern' seem to allow themselves to be defeated so often in Congress? (p. 48). Cohen quite convincingly offers the answer. Presidents consider context in deciding the likelihood of legislative success/defeat, and they adjust the legislative agenda accordingly. This book has many contributions, and it is important to discuss each, in turn. First, Cohen incorporates two central concepts in the study of the presidency into the theoretical and empirical efforts of the book. He rightly argues that the effects of divided government and the modern presidency are often viewed as near truisms. However, Cohen uses his data to speak to and refine these settled questions. Second, Cohen develops an impressive data set that spans the first year of the Washington administration to the second year of the George W. Bush administration. Rarely does longitudinal work on the presidency offer such systematic data. Though Cohen notes, understandable reasons exist for the emphasis on modern presidents (p.36), his data allow us to examine historical aspects of the presidency in a rigorous way. Is such comprehensive data possible for every study of the executive branch? No. However, Cohen explains that when possible, such data can only strengthen our theoretical and empirical understanding of the executive branch. Next, the empirical effort in this book is admirable. It is meticulous in both the manner in which it analyzes multiple aspects of the legislative agenda as well as the modeling choices employed. Chapters 4 and 5 examine variation in the size of the agenda and the content of that agenda, clarifying our understanding of the nature and process of agenda-building. These chapters show that strategically withhold proposals from the agenda when context--particularly, divided government--makes enactment less likely. In a friendlier political environment, expand the agenda. Chapter 6 considers the moderation hypothesis, showing that under divided government moderate their legislative agenda in order to improve the chances of enactment. Finally, Chapter 7 examines outputs. How successful is the strategic president in inducing enactment of his legislative proposals? …

Two Parties - Less Cake? Divided Government and Multilateral Aid

This paper investigates the effect of divided government on the share of official development assistance (ODA) that is given multilaterally. It uses intra-governmental fragmentation to capture divided government in parliamentary systems, developing two rival hypotheses with respect to the effect of divided government on the share multilateral aid. On the one hand, the share of multilateral aid may increase as cabinet parties seek to overcome gridlock through delegation. On the other hand, increased fragmentation may incite cabinet parties to revoke delegated authority and to conclude inefficient logrolls in bilateral aid. The paper subsequently assesses these hypotheses using a dataset with twenty OECD donors from 1960 to 2002. Empirical results show that intra-governmental fragmentation decreases the share of multilateral aid. The findings hold for alternative specifications of the predictor, various econometric specifications, and estimation methods. As to the causal mechanism, divided government does not generate gridlock, but incites cabinet parties to inflate the bilateral aid portfolio, which explains the relative decline in multilateral aid. These results imply that domestic politics and specific institutional settings that involve shared decision-making authority in the executive deserve more thorough attention by students of foreign policy outcomes.

Congressional Preferences and the Structure of Delegation: Reassessing the Effect of Divided Government on U.S. Trade Policy

How does the interaction of domestic preferences and political institutions determine the outcome of U.S. trade policy? We revise and extend conventional accounts by paying close attention to partisan constituency trends over time and the structure of delegation under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (RTAA). On the level of constituency composition, we demonstrate that the “partisan switch” between Republicans and Democrats has been accompanied by a reversal in party sensitivity to exporter, and to a lesser extent, import-competing interests. In addition, due to the asymmetrical structure of delegation under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (RTAA), we assert that the effect of divided government on U.S. trade policy is conditional on congressional preferences. The RTAA allows the president to lower, not raise, tariffs. This implies that a pro-trade party supported by exporters faces incentives to delegate regardless of the party identity of the president, while a protectionist party supported by import-competers will find delegation to the other-party president problematic. Our propositions find broad support in both congressional voting and U.S. tariff rate data.

Gridlock in the Government of the United States: Influence of Divided Government and Veto Players

David Mayhew’s Divided We Govern significantly challenged the conventional wisdom of the adversarial effect of divided government on government effectiveness in the United States. While the post-Mayhewian literature has been centred on legislative productivity as a measure of gridlock, gridlock is here defined as an ‘inability to change policy’. In this study, the preferences of the legislators, such as the filibuster, override and House median veto players are plotted in Euclidean space. The analysis focuses on the influence of the area of the winset, which is an intersection overlapped by the veto players’ indifference curves. There is a substantial impact of the area of the winset on the change in policy output point, which is measured by the ADA scores and by Poole’s Mean Winning Coordinate. Yet divided government has marginal or no effect on policy swing. The conclusion is that the preferences of veto players, but not party control of the government, have a substantial impact on gridlock in the United States.

Delay as a Political Technique under Divided Government? Empirical Evidence from Germany, 1976–2005

This article analyses whether the majority situation of Germany's second chamber has an impact on the duration of the legislative process. While it is often assumed that diverging majorities between Bundestag and Bundesrat delay law-making, the little empirical research that exists could not confirm such an effect of divided government. We therefore seek to discover whether and how an oppositional majority in the Bundesrat can credibly threaten to delay the legislative process for an undue length of time. Our study is based on a comprehensive dataset featuring a wealth of information on all bills adopted between 1976 and 2005. We show that divided government delays legislation, but to a somewhat lesser extent than often assumed. We show that under divided government the federal government loses some of its power over the parliamentary calendar – with possible consequences for its ability to implement its political agenda. Interestingly, this finding is not limited to bills that require the consent of the second chamber, but applies to all bills.

Divided Government and Democratic Presidents: Truman and Clinton Compared

Little consensus exists about the consequences of divided partisan control of American national institutions. Many scholars argue that with opposite parties controlling the presidency and Congress, the incentive for executive-legislative cooperation on policy issues is reduced (Cox and Kernell 1991, 4-8). Proponents of a responsible party system, like James Sundquist (1989), posit that unified control of the presidency and Congress is vital for presidential policy leadership. They are quick to point out, as Davidson (1988) reminds us, that eras of true legislative harmony, while few and far between in this country, have always occurred when a single party controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue (p. 18). Yet, empirical studies of the impact of divided government have produced decidedly mixed results because of scholars' different research foci. McCubbins (1991) finds evidence that divided government contributed to the budget deficits of the 1980s that have only recently come under control. On the question of presidential success in Congress, roll call victory ratios are conditioned by the size and unity of party factions in Congress, with minority presidents' positions more likely to fail when the opposition majority party is cohesive (Bond and Fleisher 1990; Oppenheimer 1996). Adding to the controversy is David Mayhew's (1991) extensive treatment of legislative productivity. Gauging the amount of innovative legislation adopted in the postwar period, Mayhew finds that the number of laws adopted remains relatively constant despite the partisan configuration of institutions. But reversing the question to analyze legislation that did not pass, Edwards, Barrett, and Peake (1997) find that divided government leads to more legislative failures. This research adds to the debate about the effect of divided government by examining executive-legislative relations under Truman and Clinton after midterm elections reversed party control of Congress. Truman and Clinton share the dubious distinction of being the only two Democratic presidents to face Republican majorities in Congress since World War II. Both had activist agendas, began their terms with a majority of Democrats in Congress, and suffered dramatic reversals of fortune. Political pundits were quick to draw analogies between Truman and Clinton, not only following the 1994 midterm elections but also during the 1996 campaign as Clinton mounted a comeback. But in the legislative realm, there is much more than meets the eye. Whereas Truman attempted and failed to obstruct the Grand Old Party (GOP) agenda, Clinton was much more effective in his ability to force compromise from Republican leaders and halt the Contract with America. This comparative case study of Truman and Clinton focuses on two main hypotheses about presidential-congressional relations from 1947-48 and 1995-96. The first is that in both periods, the new Republican majorities in Congress inverted the expected norm of presidential control of the legislative agenda. The 80th and 104th Congresses were characterized by congressionally led policy innovation that ran counter to the FDR model of a strong president leading Congress. By deconstructing David Mayhew's significant laws in the 80th and 104th Congress, this research shows that few of the innovative laws in either period originated with presidential proposals--a clear-cut impact of divided government that has been overlooked. The second hypothesis is that the structure of voting coalitions in Congress placed Clinton in a much stronger position to influence legislative outcomes than Truman. Prior quantitative studies of postwar executive-legislative relations have excluded Truman because of problems associated with identifying his legislative stands (Edwards 1980, 1989; Peterson 1990; Bond and Fleisher 1990). I construct a proximate measure of Truman's roll call success rate and congressional support for his legislative positions in the 80th Congress, which I compare with Clinton's in the 104th Congress. …

Politics and Policy in the 103rd and 104th Congresses: Evaluating the Effects of Divided Government in the Postreform Era

In his systematic analysis of the significant legislation passed since 1946, Mayhew (1991) demonstrates that divided government may not, in fact, affect the amount of significant legislation enacted into law. In a recently published article, Krehbiel (1996) develops a formal model that makes such a prediction. Krehbiel argues that "unified government is neither necessary nor sufficient for gridlock to be broken." Such conclusions are at odds with the more conventional view of divided government, such as those of Sundquist (1988), Ripley (1983), and Key (1964). Does divided government affect the legislative process? If so, how? In this paper, we analyze the significant legislation passed during the 103rd and 104th Congresses. We find that the formation of partisan coalitions on final votes of passage occurs much more frequently during periods of unified government than during periods of divided government. We also provide indirect evidence that the legislation that was passed during unified government was more ideologically extreme than the legislation passed during divided government. We discuss the implications of these findings, particularly in light of earlier research done on the effects of divided government. Political scientists have long disagreed as to the relative influence that political

Issues, Coalitions, and Divided Government

This study analyzes House roll-call votes from 1957-1990 in order to assess the effects of divided government on support for the president's preferred legislation once it reaches the House floor. By disaggregating analysis into specific policy areas, the results demonstrate that the impact of divided government on presidential support varies systematically across policy areas by the degree to which the policy cross-cuts society. Broadly cross-cutting policy areas are more prone to partisan conflict and, hence, to the effects of divided government, while more sector-specific policy areas generate conflict along bipartisan and institutional lines as well as along partisan ones. Support scores on sector specific policies, as a result, are not significantly prone to the influence of divided government. The results suggest caution in drawing conclusions that imply a uniform impact of divided government or a single remedy to reform our system of government.