Dilemmas of Party Leadership: Majority Whips in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1962-1982

This article examines party leadership in the context of personal ambition, institutional commitments and the representative's dilemma of choosing between a national vs. local perspective. The research focus is on the careers of five recent House Democratic party leaders and their tenure as appointed majority whips. From these case studies the whip, who occupies the third-ranking leadership post in the House, appears as an emerging leader who must develop strategies to enable him to balance a series of contradictory expectations: loyalty to leadership vs. self-promotion, service to the rank and file vs. policy impact, and support for national party positions vs. district preferences.     

Acting on the Hill: Congressional Assertiveness in U.S. Foreign Policy

A controversy has developed in recent years pitting those who see a resurgent Congress in U.S. foreign policy against those who argue that Congress remains largely acquiescent and uninvolved. This article addresses the disagreement, using a database of congressional foreign policy activity from 1946 to 1997 to weigh the competing claims. Our results show that congressional foreign policy activity has declined over the post-World War II era while congressional foreign policy assertiveness, relative to the administration's requests, has increased during this same period. Congress is thus less active but more assertive. Based on these results, we offer a two-dimensional model of congressional foreign policy behavior that better reflects the variety of congressional roles in U.S. foreign policy.     

Electoral and Partisan Forces in the Roosevelt Era: The U.S. Congressional Elections of 1938

Since nearly all studies of U.S. congressional elections test competing theories with data from the postwar era, we know very little about the applicability of contemporary theories to elections in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper takes a first step in exploring theories of electoral politics in the historical context of the 1938 elections. I believe a closer look at this particular election is valuable for a variety of reasons. First, turnover among incumbents in 1938 was extremely high by contemporary standards, yet no systematic explanation for the record number of losses exists. Additionally, this political era was characterized by intense polarization between Congress and the president even though the Democrats controlled both institutions. An extended analysis of this historical era can also explore the role strategic challengers played in the electoral arena before the emergence of candidate-centered elections. By exploring these significant events, I shed light on an otherwise neglected aspect of American political development.     

Drinking the Tea: The Tea Party Movement and Legislative Agendas in the U.S. Senate

This article empirically investigates the impact of the Tea Party movement in the U.S. Congress by examining senatorial legislative agendas, including bill and resolution introductions and cosponsorships. Specifically, we test how senators responded to the Tea Party movement by increasing their attention to specific Tea Party issues. Our analysis accounts for state-level and electoral factors, including the level of grassroots Tea Party activity in a senator’s home state and the presence of a Tea Party primary challenger. Our findings indicate that the Tea Party led Republican senators to focus more on economically conservative issues in their legislative agendas, and that this impacted the Republican Conference as a whole. Our study of the Tea Party movement in the Senate highlights how national forces can shape legislative activity in Congress.     

Party Leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives: Making Theoretical Sense of Ambition and Context

This article focuses on the policy-making activities of House Republicans in their early transition to power (104th Congress) as well as in their settling in (105th Congress). Key components of House governance, as practiced by the Democrats in the 103rd Congress, serve as a benchmark for comparison. The analysis reveals substantial differences between the size, scope, and thrust of the leaders' issue agendas. Over time, decision-making apparatus and strategies for building floor coalitions and publicizing party views vary as well. Using data from interviews with the principals and a host of sources from the government and the media, I find evidence that draws attention to the power of personal ambitions and political contexts.     

U.S. Imperialism in Central America

Thomas D. Schoonover. The United States in Central America, 1860–1911: Episodes of Social Imperialism and Imperial Rivalry in the World System .     

Party Voting in the U.S. Senate, 1877-1990: An Assessment of Long- and Short-Term Effects

Although party voting in the U.S. Senate has been affected by long-term and short-term factors, models in previous research have ignored this distinction. The author employs a relatively new tool, error correction modeling, to measure the long- and short-term effects of internal and external factors on party voting in the U.S. Senate. The results show that party voting for both major parties is a long-term equilibrium relationship with ratification of the 17th Amendment and that external factors are much more important than internal ones for explaining changes in levels of party voting.     

美国城市旅游

美国城市旅游对我国发展都市旅游有借鉴意义。本介绍了美国在散客旅游方式、旅游交通、城市旅游资源开发、旅游宣传资料以及旅馆业经营方式方面的一些做法。