Jeffery A. Jenkins, Michael H. Crespin,
and Jamie L. Carson
Abstract
The authors examine the degree to which parties
act as procedural coalitions in Congress by testing predictions
from the party-cartel theory (Cox and McCubbins 1993, 1994, 2002),
which suggests that party leaders (especially majority-party leaders)
pressure party members to toe the line on votes that affect the
legislative agenda in the House, with the promise of “carrots”
for good behavior and the threat of “sticks” for bad
behavior. They obtain leverage on the question of institutional
party influence by focusing on a “natural experiment”
involving the behavior of exiting House members. They argue that
retiring House members are no longer susceptible to party pressure,
making them the perfect source (when compared to higher-office
seekers and re-election-seeking members) to determine the existence
of party influence. Results from a pooled, cross-sectional analysis
of the 94th through 105th Congresses (1975-98) suggest that party
influence is indeed present in Congress, especially where the
party-cartel theory predicts—on procedural, rather than
final-passage, votes. Moreover, they find that procedural party
influence is almost exclusively the domain of the majority party.
This latter finding is especially important as most prior studies
have been limited solely to investigating interparty influence.
These results underscore the significant effect parties have on
member behavior.
Jeffery A. Jenkins, Political
Science and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University Michael H. Crespin, Political Science, Michigan
State University Jamie L. Carson, Political Science, Florida International
University
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