Suchergebnisse

IN THIS ESSAY, THE AUTHOR REVIEWS AND CRITIQUES THE SCHOLARLY LITERATURE ABOUT RULES AND OTHER STRUCTURAL ARRANGEMENTS IN CONGRESS. HIS FOCUS IS ON EMPIRICAL RESEARCH THAT HAS BEEN INFORMED BY RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY. HE EMPHASIZES THREE CATEGORIES OF RULES--COMMITTEE JURISDICTIONS, LEADERSHIP PREROGATIVES, AND FLOOR PROCEDURE. AN IMPLICATION IS THAT THE FORCES SHAPING PROCEDURAL POLITICS VARY DEPENDING ON THE ASPECT OF CONGRESSIONAL STRUCTURE UNDER CONSIDERATION.

THE AUTHOR, WHO REPRESENTS NELSON-CRESTON IN BRITISH COLUMBIA'S LEGISLATURE, DISCUSSES THE DIFFICULTIES OF REPRESENTING A LARGE, SPARSELY-POPULATED RURAL CONSTITUENCY.

Everyone understands what it is like to be accountable to someone, but often we think of accountability as something punitive. 'Living Accountably' defends the view that it is possible, under the right conditions to live accountably, welcoming accountability to those with proper standing, including being accountable to God (or some 'higher power').

"In The Whips, C. Lawrence Evans offers a comprehensive, systematic, and historical exploration of party coalition building and legislative strategy in the U.S. House and Senate, ranging from the relatively bipartisan, committee-dominated chambers of the 1950s to the highly polarized congresses of the 2000s. In addition to examining roll call votes, personal interviews with lawmakers and staff, and other standard techniques of congressional scholarship, Evans utilizes the personal papers of dozens of former members of the House and Senate leadership, especially former whips. These records allow Evans to create and examine a database of nearly 1,500 internal leadership polls about evolving member preferences on hundreds of significant bills across five decades of recent congressional history. The result is a rich and sweeping contribution to scholarly and public understanding of congressional party leaders at work. Since the whips regularly provide leaders and members with valuable political intelligence, examining them is essential to understanding how coalitions are forged and deals are made on the most important legislation considered on Capitol Hill. But their impact--and the impact of other leaders in the lawmaking process--is far more nuanced and interesting than is implied by most other treatments of partisan coalition building in Congress"--