The Changing Roles of House Party Leadership Organizations: The House Republican Policy Committee

More than 100 members in each of the two House party caucuses participate in the parties’ formal organizations—the extended party leadership. What purposes do these institutional components of the parties serve, and how and why have they changed over the last three decades? This article begins to answer these questions through a case study of the Republican Policy Committee based on primary documents as well as quantitative analysis. I show that the Republican leadership has used the committee for participation, coordination, and communication functions within the Conference, but that the roles of the committee have changed substantially in response to strengthening party government conditions, GOP majority status, heightened competition for control of the House, and the individual goals of key Republican leaders. Among other changes, the committee became more important for coordinating policy positions and strategy during the 1980s, but the strong, centralized majority leadership in the 1990s diminished this important coordination function and left the committee with an emphasis on partisan communication.     

Social Movements,Political Elites and Political Opportunity Structures: The Case of the Woman Suffrage Movement from 1890-1920

Many contemporary theories of party leadership derive their concepts from organization theory and economic theories of rational choice. They stress the institutional contexts that shape leadership possibilities and the relationship between members (principals) and leaders (agents) in shaping leadership decisions. Both the macro (institutional context) and micro (principal-agent) theories assume that the main role of party leaders is to marshal majority support for legislation on which the party takes a position. Focussing on party position legislation, however, provides only a partial view of party leadership. This article expands this perspective by considering the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration reform bill, in which party leaders avoided taking a clear policy stand and pursued other interests instead. In broadening the assumptions inherent in organization theory to include behavior beyond taking party policy stands, we uncover leadership roles that are missed by those who adopt the policy-centered approach. Applying other organization theory concepts, we broaden principal-agent theories by explaining divergent leadership roles in the consideration of non-party position legislation as behavior that is typical for legislative leadership. We conclude that the nature of non-party position legislation provides party leaders a greater latitude to diverge from their expected party leadership roles and to behave according to their different strategic situations, district and state interests, philosophies, and personalities.     

Five Factions,Two Parties: Caucus Membership in the House of Representatives, 1994–2002

This paper examines the extent of ideological cohesion and distinction of two Republican congressional factions (the conservative Republican Study Committee and the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership) and three Democratic congressional caucuses (the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, the liberal Congressional Black Caucus, and the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus) in the House of Representatives from 1994 to 2002. Whereas much of the literature on congressional caucuses has focused on the reasons members join such groups and the policy and political orientations of those groups, this paper examines how much unity exists in the voting behavior of the members of Congress who join caucuses in comparison to their fellow partisans not in a faction. Although political parties are still a major unifying force for their respective party members, we do find that factional members are more ideologically cohesive than are nonfactional members. Joining a faction is not an insignificant activity for members. Factions allow like-minded colleagues to come together and vote on common issues, at times against direction of their party.     

Rules to Live By: Agenda Control and the Partisan Use of Special Rules in the House

A great deal of research in the 1990s was devoted to exploring the consequences of the ceding of greater agenda control to the majority leadership in the House during the era of Democratic control. The intent of this article is to build on that earlier work to discuss the continuing consequences of strengthened parties for decision making from the 1990s onward. Specifically, we find that as the parties became increasingly homogenous over time, partisan conflict over special rules votes grew as well. After the 1970s reforms, with the Democratic majority more homogeneous and the leadership having more influence over committees, the content of legislation coming out of committees became steadily more satisfactory to the majority (and less so to the minority) over time. These expectations did not change with the advent of a Republican majority, and the subsequent results did not change either. The Gingrich and Hastert speakerships continued the trend of increasing levels of partisanship on rules votes and majority control of satisfactory committee outcomes. We also find that a switch back to Democratic control in 2006, did not lead to lower levels of partisanship. The data suggest that Democrats were just as successful, if not more so, in using rules to control the legislative agenda during the 110th Congress as the Republicans were in the 109th.     

Cultural retaliation: the cultural policies of the ‘new’ Front National

This study examines the conception of culture and the cultural policies of the French Front National. Tracing the developments of the party’s cultural agenda before and after Marine Le Pen took over the leadership of the party from her father, I show how the Front National has adapted its discourse on cultural policy to its wider programmatic profile. In the context of a strategy of de-radicalisation promoted by Marine Le Pen, recent years have witnessed focussed efforts by the party leadership to professionalise and modernise the party’s cultural policy programme. However, the analysis of the party’s current cultural policy agenda reveals a remarkable continuity in the way the party leadership conceives of national culture and of what cultural policy should promote. This programmatic continuity becomes apparent in the analysis of the local cultural policies of municipalities won by the Front National in 2014. Exploring the cultural agendas of ten local governments with a Front National majority, I argue that the cultural policies of the Front National remain deeply rooted in a nativist understanding of culture and a dirigiste approach that wilfully excludes postcolonial minorities.     

When Loyalty Is Tested: Do Party Leaders Use Committee Assignments as Rewards?

Theories of parties in Congress contend that one tool that party leaders possess to induce loyalty among rank-and-file members is control over committee assignments, but conventional tests of this linkage have failed to distinguish loyalty from simply voting one's preferences in accordance with party leaders. We characterize loyal legislators as having a higher propensity for voting with party leaders when it matters, even when their preferences diverge from the mainstream of their party. Testing this strong definition of loyalty on committee assignment data for 1991–2015, we show that majority party members who support their party on the subset of votes for which party leaders have taken positions in floor speeches are more likely to be rewarded with plum committee assignments, especially those members on the ideological extremes.     

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.     

Committee Influence Over Controversial Policy: The Reproductive Policy Case

Debates about legislative committee power have been fueled with empirical examples depending too much on distributive policies. I argue that answers to questions about the nature of committee influence can be enhanced by focusing on nondistributive policies that evoke broad national attention. For years scholars have not systematically tested committee influence over nondistributive policy because they have asserted that these policies are designed by the parent chamber or party. By using a methodology that traces the origin of legislation and identifies key policy activists, I demonstrate that committee influence over nondistributive controversial policy is more pronounced than others have maintained     

The evolution of the Chinese Communist Party's policy on the bourgeoisie (1949–1952)

From its very beginning, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had a shifting policy towards the bourgeoisie. Until the early 1940s, it maintained a relatively stable policy which successfully isolated the monied classes in China and helped it overthrow the rule of the KMT. But with the establishment of the new regime, the CCP Central Committee came under conflicting pressures: on the one hand it continued its former policy out of political expediency; on the other hand, based on traditional socialist political theory and Soviet experience, it kept a close watch on the bourgeoisie and even proposed targeting them as the chief enemy of next revolution. After the establishment of the PRC, as a result of the failing economy and the new government's lack of economic support and political experience, the CCP firmed up its policies on the bourgeoisie. However, with the bourgeoisie and capitalism still prominent elements in Chinese society, the communists became uncertain about which direction to take. As the CCP Central Committee had anticipated, officials of both the party and the government often gave way to corruption after taking over major cities. The Central Committee regarded this particular combination of money and power as a “violent attack” against the new communist regime by the bourgeoisie as a whole. In order to tighten its grip on national power, the Central Committee launched two anti‐corruption movements known as the Three‐Antis and the Five‐Antis. These movements were in fact aimed at the bourgeoisie as a whole, and succeeded in destroying the basis for capitalist business in the New China. Encouraged by this outcome, the CCP launched a policy of socialist transformation aimed at depriving Chinese capitalists of their means of production. Thus the CCP gradually and inevitably moved away from its original policy of cooperation with the national bourgeoisie.     

回顾与展望: 中国大陆地区的民国史研究

近30年来,中华民国史(1912-1949)的学术研究在大陆地区从无到有,有了巨大的发展,已经成为一个成果丰硕、相对完整的学科。大陆民国史研究的主导史观大致经过了从革命史观到民族主义史观、现代化史观的历程。进入21世纪后,民国史研究更呈现多元化的趋势,表现为新研究领域的开拓与新史料的运用。民国史研究若要进一步发展,需要对研究对象与范围进行重新界定,构建新的解释体系与加强国际学术界的合作与交流。     

The Multiple Roots of Party Loyalty: Explaining Republican Dissent in the U.S. House of Representatives

Why does any member of Congress choose to be loyal to one's party? The conventional wisdom is that party loyalty stems from constituent expectations, electoral concerns, or a lawmaker's ideological beliefs. However, this neglects two other, less-instrumental reasons for sticking with a political party: partisan identity and personal connections with party leaders. I test these alternative theories as well as conventional ones on a set of key moments in the 113th Congress (2013–2014) when rebellion against House Republican leadership by the rank-and-file was especially noteworthy. The results provide some support for both the party identity and personal connection hypotheses. They also indicate that although constituency characteristics help predict the likelihood of dissent from GOP leaders, there is little evidence for the electoral hypothesis, while cross-cutting ideological preferences as well as preferences along the traditional left-right spectrum prove statistically significant. In short, evidence reveals both personal and instrumental roots of party loyalty in Congress.     

Japan's Political Leadership Deficit

Analysts have long pondered the question: 'Who rules in Japan?'. Prime Ministers who have exercised strong leadership have been the exception rather than the rule. Despite the widespread acknowledgment that Japan's political leadership deficit undermines the ability of the government to act swiftly in a crisis and to exercise international leadership in trade and foreign policy, a systematic explanation for Japan's weak political executive is yet to be advanced. While historical and cultural factors cannot be ignored, more relevant in a contemporary context are institutional factors that restrict the power of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. A parliamentary Cabinet system is not incompatible with strong leadership but, in Japan's case, the inability of the political executive to exercise indisputable authority, or indeed, merely to exercise the legitimate prerogatives of Prime Ministerial and Cabinet Office, is directly attributable to the constraints imposed by a collection of informal power structures within the ruling conservative party and by an autonomous central bureaucracy, all of which have held power away from the political executive. Various institutional remedies are currently being pursued to enhance the leadership of the executive branch. They are part of a deliberately engineered shift in power from non-elected bureaucrats to elected politicians. The reforms will also help to diminish the influence of ruling party factions over personnel selections to executive office and the ascendancy of internal policy cliques within party policymaking.     

Grassroots authority in rural Guangdong during late Qing and early Republican times

Gongju, or public offices, controlled by the local gentry class, were the grassroots authorities in rural Guangdong during the late Qing. These offices maintained their own armed forces and usually had powers of administration, tax collection, and self-defense, as well as judicial powers. They were considered the extension of prefecture and county governments. With the authorization of the prefecture and county governments, these offices had the power to deal with important legal cases. Although they came under attack during the 1911 Revolution, these offices were able to recover quickly in different forms. In the late Qing era, local gentry with official titles earned in middle-level or lower-level civil service examinations took the leadership roles in such grassroots offices, but they were replaced by people who had direct control over the armed forces during Republican times.     

农村革命展开中的地方领导群体

地方领导群体在发动武装暴动后,面临着革命向核心目标展开的更为复杂的形势和艰难的任务。他们在内外多重因素影响下,坚持继续推进革命,但在土地问题上发生犹疑和失误,陷入阶级政策的贯彻与出身认定的危机,在根据地之领导权集中与发展战略上与红军前委产生尖锐的矛盾。他们具有在革命源起时曾经发挥过重要作用的地方文化、社会条件等优势,但随着中心任务、组织形式和动力要求的变化,上述优势逐渐失去功用,而他们中的有些人甚至成为革命的对象。地方领导者的境遇说明,革命是一个艰难复杂的问题,在早期,即使是在革命队伍内部,人们也需要付出沉重的代价,才能找到合适的道路与对策。     

The campaigns and elections of congresswomen Edith Green and Julia Butler Hansen

The Third Congressional Districts of Oregon and Washington face each other across the Columbia River. It is not surprising that for more than a decade each district had been represented in Congress by the same representative or that they were both Democrats. Though Oregon's Third District is much more urban and compact than Washington's, they share some of the demographic and economic characteristics which are usually associated with Democratic constituencies outside of the South, namely, a relatively high proportion of persons employed in manufacturing or other heavily unionized occupations, who are relatively mobile, or of fairly recent ethnic stock. What is not so expected is that both incumbent Congressmen were Congresswomen — Edith Green of Oregon and Julia Butler Hansen of Washington. Mrs Green and Mrs Hansen were chosen as the specific subjects of this study because they had both demonstrated political longevity in retaining Congressional office throughout see‐sawing political changes in party domination in both their states and the national administration. They were both longstanding members of the Democratic Party. They were both from the Pacific Northwest, giving them common regional interests, and indeed, while from different states, their districts are continuous with the Columbia River as a common boundary adding specific common district interests. Each had attained what are generally recognized as powerful positions within the structure of the Congress as chairpersons of important subcommittees: Mrs Green as Chairman of the Special Subcommittee on Education of the House Committee on Education and Labor; Mrs Hansen as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations for the Interior and Related Agencies of the House Appropriations Committee. And finally, both women were in their early sixties.     

探寻美国革命的思想渊源——保罗·拉厄的《古代和现代的共和国》与共和主义范式之争

保罗.拉厄的《古代和现代的共和国:古典共和主义与美国革命》以共和主义为主题探讨了古典共和主义与美国革命的关系。拉厄力图开辟研究美国革命和建国的新路径,对共和学派的主旨和研究方法提出修正。《古代和现代的共和国》不仅体现了拉厄对共和学派主将波科克的挑战与批判,而且反映了20世纪60年代以来美国早期史研究领域的派别之争以及史学理论和研究方法的变动。他同时受到施特劳斯学派和自由主义传统史学的影响,卷入了施特劳斯学派与共和学派之间,"新洛克派"与共和学派之间的学术辩论。但他又不是完全照搬两派的主旨和研究方法,而是在两派的核心观点和研究方法基础上提出了新见解。     

布列斯特和约质疑

关于列宁在签订布列斯特和约问题上的立场 ,史学界向无争议 ,实际上通过对一战中东线的战略地位及德国在十月革命后面临的战略选择 ,布尔什维克党内围绕签约问题所展的三方争论和布列斯特和约所造成的实际后果等问题进行重新思考 ,可以看出该条约的签订是苏俄早期外交上的一次重大失误     

Ideological Warriors and Constituent Servants: Understanding the Determinants of Participation on Health Care Legislation in the Polarized Senate

Recent scholarship on the Senate indicates that partisanship and polarization have fundamentally changed the dynamics and the nature of policy making in the institution. To understand how senators balance their roles as constituent servants and partisan warriors, we examine senators’ participation in floor amending on major health legislation over a 10-year period (2000–2010). Health care is central to the ideological divide over the nature of the welfare state and has a significant impact on constituents. Unlike previous studies, we develop a fuller picture of the factors that motivate senators to participate by analyzing both amendments filed to a bill and amendments considered on the floor. We find that minority party status and ideology, both the liberal-conservative dimension and ideological extremism, are important indicators of participation. Furthermore, senators elevate ideology in comparison to constituent need when an issue is a presidential priority. Finally, the influence of constituency factors varies by party. For Democrats, their ideological commitment to the social welfare state makes them more likely to participate on health issues regardless of constituent need. However, Republican senators become more likely to sponsor amendments as the level of observable constituent factors increases.     

Wading Knee Deep in Words,Words, Words": Senatorial Rhetoric in the Johnson and Clinton Impeachment Trials

A probit analysis of National Election Studies data finds that unlike earlier midterm elections, Republican mobilization significantly increased the vote for Republicans from Republicans in 1994, as Democratic mobilization did for and among Democrats in 1998. In these elections, mobilization asymmetrically increased perceptions of party differences, party preferences, and party loyalty in voting. In 2002, both Republican and Democratic mobilization efforts affected vote choice, significantly increasing support from independents.     

The Presidency and Political Equality

When black Americans and white Americans want the president to do different things, who wins? When low-income earners prefer different government action than do middle and high-income earners, whose preferences are reflected in presidential behavior? Recent studies show that congressional behavior often most closely follows the preferences of the white and the wealthy, but we know relatively little about presidential behavior. Since the president and Congress make policy together, it is important to understand the extent of political equality in presidential behavior. We examine the degree to which presidents have provided equal representation to these groups over the past four decades. We compare the preferences of these groups for federal spending in various budget domains to presidents’ subsequent budget proposals in those domains from 1974 to 2010. Over this period, presidents’ proposals aligned more with the preferences of whites and high-income earners. However, Republican presidents are driving this overall pattern. Democratic presidents represent racial and income groups equally, but Republicans’ proposals are much more consistent with the spending preferences of whites and high-income earners. This pattern of representation reflects the composition of the president's party coalition and the spending preferences of groups within the party coalition.