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Divided and Governed? Recent Research on Divided Government in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

David McKay
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Type
Review Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 517 - 534
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Fiorina, Morris, ‘Divided Government in the States’, in Cox, Gary W. and Kernell, Samuel, eds. The Politics of Divided Government (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 179–202, Figure 8.1.Google Scholar

2 Gallup, , Harris, and the CBS/New York TimesGoogle Scholar polls all show a lower public regard for federal political institutions compared with state and local institutions.

3 Fiorina, , ‘Divided Government in the States’, p. 183.Google Scholar

4 Fiorina, , ‘Divided Government in the States’, pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

5 Fiorina, , ‘Divided Government in the States’, p. 193.Google Scholar

6 Fiorina, , ‘Divided Government in the States’, pp. 193–5.Google Scholar

7 I am grateful to Alan Ware for suggesting this possible research agenda.

8 Jacobson, Gary C., The Electoral Origins of Divided Government: Competition in the US House Elections, 1946–1988 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990).Google Scholar

9 For a summary, see Jones, Charles O., ‘New Directions in the US Congressional Research’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 6 (1981), 455–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For developments since the early 1980s, see Bauer, Monica and Hibbing, John R., ‘Which Incumbents Lose in House Elections: A Reply to Jacobson's “The Marginals Never Vanished”’, American Journal of Political Science, 33 (1989), 262–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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16 Jacobson, , Electoral Origins, p. 135 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

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18 See Wattenberg, Martin P., The Rise of Candidate Centred Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of this point.

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22 In one year, fiscal 1978–79, federal outlays as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) fell 0.5 per cent on the previous year, although Carter was unable to prevent spending increases in subsequent years (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1991 (Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce, 1991)Google Scholar, Table 507).

23 Petrocik, John R., ‘Divided Government: Is It All in the Campaigns?’Google Scholar; Wattenberg, Martin P., ‘The Republican Presidential Advantage in the Age of Party Disunity’Google Scholar, both in Cox, and Kernell, (eds), The Politics of Divided Government, pp. 13–38, 39–56.Google Scholar

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25 Morris Fiorina acknowledges the importance of the 1988 result while rejecting historically specific explanations of the outcome of presidential elections as ‘facile’ (Fiorina, , Divided Government, pp. 1–3).Google Scholar

26 Wattenberg, in Cox, and Kernell, , eds, The Politics of Divided Government, p. 39.Google Scholar

27 For a summary of this literature see Fiorina, , Divided Government, chap. 6.Google Scholar

28 Sundquist, James L., ‘Needed: A Political Theory for the New Era of Coalition Government in the United States’, Political Science Quarterly, 103 (1988), 613–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his Constitutional Reform and Effective Government (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1987)Google Scholar; Cutler, Lloyd, ‘Now is the Time for All Good Men’, William and Mary Law Review, 30 (1989), 387–402Google Scholar; and Pfiffner, James E., ‘Divided Government and the Problem of Government’, in Thurber, James A., ed., Divided Democracy: Cooperation and Conflict Between the President and Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1991), pp. 39–60.Google Scholar

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30 Quoted in Sundquist, , ‘Needed: A Political Theory’, p. 622.Google Scholar

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37 For a summary of the literature offering a critique of Johnson's Great Society, see McKay, David, Domestic Policy and Ideology; Presidents and the American State 1964–1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chap. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Such measures include bank and savings and loan deposit insurance legislation, the state-federal matching-basis status of the welfare provisions in the 1935 Social Security Act and the 1937 Public Housing Act.

39 Fiorina, , Divided Government, p. 90.Google Scholar

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41 Peterson, Paul E. and Greene, Jay P., ‘Why Executive-Legislative Conflict in the United States is Dwindling’, British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), 33–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Peterson, and Greene, , ‘Executive-Legislative Conflict’, p. 15.Google Scholar

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52 In constant 1982 dollars, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Tables 510 and 698. Of course, federal spending did increase massively in absolute terms during these years, as it did in constant dollars, but in relation to the size of the national economy which was growing rapidly throughout, it fell. Most commentators – and certainly most economists – measure public sector size as a proportion of the total size of the national economy.

53 Cox, Gary W. and McCubbins, Matthew D., ‘Divided Control of Fiscal Policy’Google Scholar, in Cox, and McCubbins, , eds, Divided Government, pp. 155–75, at p. 171.Google Scholar

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55 Weatherford, M. Stephen, ‘Responsiveness and Deliberation in Divided Government: Presidential Leadership in Tax Policy Making’, British Journal of Political Science, 24 (1994), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 The 1957–58 tax-policy negotiations ended in an effective compromise given the agenda had changed. See Weatherford, , ‘Responsiveness and Deliberation’.Google Scholar

57 Nixon's 1971 price and wage freeze was passed by Congress with relative ease and was, initially, very popular; see Stein, , Presidential Economics, pp. 176–90.Google Scholar

58 The successful progress of Reagan's 1981 economic legislation is well documented, for a summary see Weatherford, M. Stephen and McDonnell, Lorraine M., ‘Ideology and Economic Policy’, in Berman, Larry, Looking Back on the Reagan Presidency (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 122–55.Google Scholar

59 In contrast to Bill Clinton's accommodating style, Jimmy Carter was intent on doing ‘what was right’, rather than ‘what was political’. History will judge which of the two was most successful, but the early signs are not encouraging for Bill Clinton. For a discussion of Carter's relations with Congress, see Jones, Charles O., The Trusteeship Presidency: Jimmy Carter and the United States Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.)Google Scholar

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69 Michael Laver and Kenneth A. Shepsle discern broadly similar dynamics between the American system under divided government and European multi-party systems under proportional representation, ‘Divided Government: America is not Exceptional’, Governance, 4 (1991), 250–69Google Scholar. However, their analysis is purely theoretical. They certainly entertain the possibility of coalition politics producing ‘effective government’, in both systems, but provide no real world examples either of effective coalition politics (the Netherlands) or transparently ineffective coalition politics (Italy). Crucially, the failure of the Italian system and its subsequent reform was not precipitated so much by policy incoherence – which, it could be argued, was no worse in the 1990s than earlier – but by a crisis of the legitimacy of the political system. For a further discussion of the comparative position of the United States under divided government, see Fiorina, , Divided Government, chap. 7.Google Scholar