Suchergebnisse

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Agenda, Policy, and Alignment Change: A Framework for Analysis -- 2. Agenda and Policy Change during a Realigning Era, 1925-1938 -- 3. Expansion of the Political Agenda: Civil Liberties and International Involvement, 1937-1952 -- 4. Aftershocks of Realignment and the Return to Normal Politics: Social Welfare, Government Management of the Economy, and Agricultural Policy, 1939-1952 -- 5. The Eisenhower Interlude, 1953-1960 -- 6. Policy Change without Realignment: New Frontier and Great Society, 1961-1968 -- 7. Divided Government in a Time of Turmoil, 1969-1976 -- 8. Democratic Control and Liberal Malaise, 1977-1978 -- 9. Agenda, Policy, and Alignment Change: Determinants and Interrelationships -- Notes -- References -- Index

In evaluating leaders, the leader's own criteria or the evaluator's can set the mark and the two may well lead to quite different judgments. If our primary aim is to understand leadership strategy and behavior, we need to focus on the first; but if we also want to say something about how the institution performs, we often need to tackle the second as well. In this essay, I contend that the procedures and practices of unorthodox lawmaking, especially the most actively used ones, are now mostly tools of party leaders--of the majority leadership in the House and, to a considerable extent, of the minority leadership in the Senate. I focus here on how the Pelosi leadership team in the House and the McConnell team in the Senate are employing what used to be unorthodox practices and procedures as central elements of their leadership strategies, and the consequences thereof for Congress as an institution.

When a political party wrests control of either house of Congress
from the other, expectations for change are usually high and that
was certainly the case in January 2007 when Democrats took
majorities in both chambers for the first time in 12 years. What did
the new majorities—and specifically their leaders—promise? To what
extent have they delivered? And how do the experiences of the new
majorities during their first nine months conform with or raise
questions about our theories of Congress? This is perforce an
interim report but, even so, it can perhaps shed some light on our
theories as well as provide a first assessment of the new majorities
and their leaders. In addition to the
references cited here, this paper is based on interviews,
observation and news accounts.

In evaluating leaders, the leader's own criteria or the evaluator's can set the mark and the two may well lead to quite different judgments. If our primary aim is to understand leadership strategy and behavior, we need to focus on the first; but if we also want to say something about how the institution performs, we often need to tackle the second as well. In this essay, I contend that the procedures and practices of unorthodox lawmaking, especially the most actively used ones, are now mostly tools of party leaders--of the majority leadership in the House and, to a considerable extent, of the minority leadership in the Senate. I focus here on how the Pelosi leadership team in the House and the McConnell team in the Senate are employing what used to be unorthodox practices and procedures as central elements of their leadership strategies, and the consequences thereof for Congress as an institution. Adapted from the source document.