The Party Whip Organizations in the United States House of Representatives

1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall B. Ripley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Present System ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Party Government

In the literature on political parties in the United States Congress two points are usually stressed. First, it is said that the political party label lacks a precise programmatic content because “party government” in the British sense is absent in the American Congress. Second, however, it is contended that the party label is the single most important and reliable attribute in predicting the voting behavior of a Senator or Representative.Between these two contentions lies a sizeable area of unexplored territory. If party is the best predictive device in analyzing voting behavior in Congress then, despite the lack of “party government,” the party machinery in both houses must have effects that deserve study. Professor Huitt has suggested the necessity and importance of this kind of study: “… the preoccupation with reform has obscured the fact that we have no really adequate model of party leadership as it exists in Congress, and that none can be constructed because we lack simple descriptions of many of the basic working parts of the present system.” Huitt himself and a few others have filled some of these gaps.

Electoral Change and Policy Representation in Congress: Domestic Welfare Issues from 1956–1972

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter J. Stone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Policy Representation ◽  
Electoral Change ◽  
Institutional Features

Many students of the United States Congress have contended that the institution is too closely tied to the interests of members' local constituencies. While the responsiveness this charge implies may seem laudable, the localism said to exist, especially in the House, weakens national agents of representation such as the political parties. Institutional features like seniority and the norm of reciprocity are often criticized for the premium they place upon members' success in their local constituencies, and the narrow, particularistic policy which results. Those who prefer a legislature responsive to national interests lament the disproportionate influence of constituencies with well-placed representatives on the committees and subcommittees in the House, and the fragmented, ‘distributive’ character of the legislative process.

Plus ça Change: The 1922 U.S. Congressional Debate on the Balfour Declaration

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106
Author(s):  
Khaled Elgindy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Palestinian Arab ◽  
The U.S

This essay looks at the hearing held by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in April 1922 on the subject of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, as well as the broader congressional debate over the Balfour Declaration at that crucial time. The landmark hearing, which took place against the backdrop of growing unrest in Palestine and just prior to the League of Nations' formal approval of Britain's Mandate over Palestine, offers a glimpse into the cultural and political mindset underpinning U.S. support for the Zionist project at the time as well as the ways in which the political discourse in the United States has, or has not, changed since then. Despite the overwhelming support for the Zionist project in Congress, which unanimously endorsed Balfour in September 1922, the hearing examined all aspects of the issue and included a remarkably diverse array of viewpoints, including both anti-Zionist Jewish and Palestinian Arab voices.

RHETORIC OF THE STANDARDS: THE DEBATE OVER GOLD AND SILVER IN THE 1890s

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyatt Wells
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Precious Metal ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
The Future

AbstractIn the 1890s, questions about whether to base the American currency upon gold or silver dominated public discourse and eventually forced a realignment of the political parties. The matter often confuses modern observers, who have trouble understanding how such a technically complex—even arcane—issue could arouse such passions. The fact that no major nation currently backs its currency with precious metal creates the suspicion that the issue was a “red herring” that distracted from matters of far greater importance. Yet the rhetoric surrounding the “Battle of the Standards” indicates that the more sophisticated advocates of both sides understood that, in the financial context of the 1890s, the contest between gold and silver not only had important economic implications but would substantially affect the future development of the United States.

The Leadership of the United States in the Postwar World

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-248
Author(s):  
Clarence A. Berdahl
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
United States Navy ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Unanimous Vote ◽  
International Court ◽  
The Hague

It is now more than one hundred years since the substance of the Connally Resolution was first adopted by a legislative body in the United States; it is almost fifty years since the United States, at the Hague Conferences, took the lead in pressing for an international court with much more power than the Court we have since failed to join; it is about thirty-five years since Congress itself, by a unanimous vote in both houses, adopted a resolution urging that the United States Navy be combined with other navies into an international police force for the preservation of peace; it is not quite thirty years ago that the political parties, without any of the present hullabaloo on the point, and at a time when the United States was not itself at war, achieved such a unity of position in their stand for effective American participation in world order as to make debate between them on that issue virtually nil; and it is not quite thirty years ago that the man soon to become the Republican leader in the Senate joined from the same platform with the Democratic President in an appeal for a League of Nations, and a League with force, both economic and military, at its command.

scholarly journals What Determines Foreign Policy in Latin America? Systemic versus Domestic Factors in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, 1946–2008

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Octavio Amorim Neto ◽  
Andrés Malamud
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
International System ◽  
The United States ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
The Political ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
Systemic Variables

AbstractIs it domestic politics or the international system that more decisively influences foreign policy? This article focuses on Latin America's three largest powers to identify patterns and compare outcomes in their relations with the regional hegemon, the United States. Through a statistical analysis of voting behavior in the UN General Assembly, we examine systemic variables (both realist and liberal) and domestic variables (institutional, ideological, and bureaucratic) to determine their relative weights between 1946 and 2008. The study includes 4,900 votes, the tabulation of 1,500 ministers according to their ideological persuasion, all annual trade entries, and an assessment of the political strength of presidents, cabinets, and parties per year. The findings show that while Argentina's voting behavior has been determined mostly by domestic factors and Mexico's by realist systemic ones, Brazil's has a more complex blend of determinants, but also with a prevalence of realist systemic variables.

Presumption of Cessation of Citizenship: Its Effect on International Claims

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Lambie
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
The Political ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Diplomatic Protection ◽  
Considerable Discussion

Although the Constitution of the United States declares in the Fourteenth Amendment that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States, Congress has enacted legislation affecting the diplomatic protection of citizens abroad which makes a material distinction between persons born in the United States and those who have been naturalized in this country. This distinction has caused considerable discussion as to the political status of naturalized American citizens against whom the presumption of cessation of citizenship has arisen by virtue of the provisions of Section 2, Act of March 2, 1907, and recently has been interestingly illustrated before international claims commissions.

Party Voting in the United States Congress

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel C. Patterson ◽  
Gregory A. Caldeira
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Party Voting ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

By the standard of most European parliaments, levels of party voting in the United States Congress are relatively low. Nevertheless, party voting does occur in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the American context, a party vote occurs when majorities of the two congressional parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, oppose one another. The authors construct measurements of levels of party voting in Congress in the years after the Second World War. They then develop a model to test the effects of a number of independent variables that influence fluctuations in party voting levels over time. The study models the time series for party voting and demonstrates striking differences between the House and Senate in the correlates of partisan cleavage.

The State Delegations and the Structure of Party Voting in the United States House of Representatives

1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1023-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
David B. Truman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Congressional Voting ◽  
Minor Significance ◽  
Party Voting ◽  
The Individual ◽  
State Delegations

Recent controversies over the degree of responsibility displayed by American parties have underscored at least one feature of voting in the Congress. Whatever the merits of the contending interpretations and demands, the facts adduced on both sides suggest relatively fluid, unstructured voting patterns, especially in the House of Representatives. Although the party label is clearly the single most reliable indicator of congressional voting behavior, it is admittedly somewhat less than perfect. The individual Representative may fairly often dissent from the views of most of his party colleagues, not only on matters of local or minor significance but also on issues of national or even global import.The Representative's “independence” is most commonly, and in a good many instances accurately, ascribed to peculiarities of his constituency which generate demands for a non-conforming vote or, perhaps more frequently, are expected to be the source of recriminations and penalities if he does not display independence of his party colleagues on certain types of issues. But the Member of Congress is by no means always able to predict the electoral consequences of his choices even though he is sure that they may produce repercussions in his district.

The Dynamics of Structural Realignment

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 775-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Elaine Macdonald ◽  
George Rabinowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political System ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Congressional Behavior ◽  
The U.S

Governments render decisions on how resources and values are allocated in a society. In the United States, Congress is the institution in which most of the key allocating decisions are made. To the extent the U.S. political system is integrated, the coalitions that form around the issues debated in Congress should be reflected in the coalitions that support presidential candidates and those that support the major political parties. We formulate a spatial theory of political change in which new ideological cleavages appear in congressional behavior and presidential elections and gradually reorganize the mass party base. The theory leads us explicitly to consider the question of dealignment and to specify conditions under which the parties will lose support from voters.

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