Congress: Structure & Policy

First published in 1987, Congress: Structure and Policy is a review of congressional research from an institutional perspective. The selections blend theoretical material found in the fields of discussion theory, political economy, social choice and game theory, with classics on such standard topics as elections and campaigning, controlling the bureaucracy and oversight, norms of behaviour, committees and committee assignments reform, budgeting, presidential influence, and the party and its leadership. Together, these readings present an institutional theory of Congress. They are integrated in order to address both the short-run issue of how congressional institutions shape policy and the long-run question of why congressional organization has evolved the way it has. In their introductions to the chapters, the editors, Professors McCubbins and Sullivan, not only address the themes of the individual readings but place the chapters in the larger context of the political economy.

Series editors' preface; Preface; Introduction: institutional aspects of decision processes; Part I. Representation: 1. The electoral connection and the Congress David R. Mayhew; 2. The case of the vanishing marginals: the bureaucracy did it Morris P. Fiorina; 3. Running scared: elections and congressional politics in the 1980s; Part II. The Shape of Congressional Institutions; Section 1. The Development of Institutional Arrangements: 4. The institutionalization of the US House of Representatives Nelson W. Polsby; 5. A rational choice perspective on congressional norms Barry R. Weingast; Section 2. Committees: 6. Congressmen and committees: a comparative analysis Richard F. Fenno, Jr.; 7. Democratic committee assignments in the House of Representatives: strategic aspects of a social choice process David W. Rohde and Kenneth A. Shepsle; 8. Reforming the structure of the House appropriations process: the effects of the 1885 and 1919-20 reforms on money decisions David Brady and Mark A. Morgan; Section 3. Parties: 9. The decline of party in the US House of Representatives, 1887-1968 David Brady, Joseph Cooper, and Patrica A. Hurley; Section 4. Leadership: 10. Joseph G. Cannon and Howard W. Smith: an essay on the limits of leadership in the House of Representatives Charles O. Jones; 11. Presidential leadership in Congress: securing commitments Terry Sullivan; Part III. The Impact of Institutional Arrangements: Implications for the study of Congress: 12. Votes, strategies, and institutions: an introduction to the theory of collective choice Thomas Schwartz; 13. Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models Kenneth A. Shepsle; 14. Sophisticated committees and structure-induced equilibria in Congress Keith Krehbiel; Part IV. The Impact of Institutional Arrangements on the Development of Public Policy: 15. A theory of congressional delegation Mathew D. McCubbins and Talbot Page; 16. Congressional oversight overlooked: police patrols versus fire alarms Mathew D. McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz; 17. The structure of agency decision processes John A. Ferejohn; 18. The political foundations of regulatory policy Roger Noll; 19. Congressional influence over policy making: the case of the FTC Randall L. Calvert, Mark J. Moran, and Barry R Weingast; 20. Legislators, bureaucrats, and locational decisions R. Douglas Arnold; Index.