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"Explores the state of the federal judicial selection system. Reconstructs the history and contemporary practice of advice and consent, identifying political, institutional causes of conflict over judicial selection and consequences of such battles. Advocates pragmatic reforms of the institutions of judicial selection that harness incentives of presidents and senators together"--Provided by publisher

The United States Senate is marching, Senate style, toward majority rule. Chamber rules have long required super, rather than simple, majorities to end debate on major and minor matters alike. But occasionally over its history – and several times over the past decade – the Senate has pared back procedural protections afforded to senators, making it easier for cohesive majorities to secure their policy goals. Both parties have pursued such changes – sometimes imposed by simple majority, other times by a bipartisan coalition. Why has the pace of change accelerated, and with what consequences for the Senate? In this article, I connect rising partisanship and electoral competition to the weakening of partisan commitments to Senate supermajority rule. No one can predict with any certainty whether the Senate will yet abolish the so-called "legislative filibuster." But pressures continue to mount towards that end.

The ongoing Eurozone crisis has brought to the fore the discourse of "austerity." A number of countries, most dramatically Greece, have been called upon to institute policies of fiscal austerity as a condition of further support from the international financial community. The situation has generated some serious disagreements among economists, policymakers, and indeed important financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Mark Blyth's Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea speaks directly to these ongoing current debates. We have invited a range of political scientists working on related issues to comment on the book's arguments and their relevance to the work that they do.

Is the US Congress dysfunctional? The American public thinks so: In the summer of 2014, just 7% approved strongly of Congress ( Riffkin 2014 ). Still, legislative scholars disagree about the severity of Congress's legislative challenges. Is legislative deadlock a sign that Congress can no longer identify and resolve major public problems? Or are Congress's difficulties temporary and correctable? In this article, I review theoretical and empirical literatures on the dynamics of lawmaking and evaluate alternative methods for testing lawmaking theories. Finally, I draw on recent research to put contemporary stalemate into historical perspective. I argue that even when Congress and the president have reached agreement on the big issues of the day, Congress's problem-solving capacity appears to have fallen to new lows in recent years. Whether and how well our political system can or will self-correct in the coming years remains an open question.