The US Senate and the Commonwealth

McConnell, Mitch; Brownell, Roy E.

doi:10.2307/j.ctvfjcx4c

Cited by 2 publications

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“…37 After voting against impeachment on the grounds that the president was not "constitutionally eligible for conviction," McConnell excoriated Trump as "practically and morally responsible for provoking the events" of January 6. 38 Regardless of the various arguments offered, as a constitutional matter, Senate Republicans possessed the opportunity to prevent Trump from serving as president again, and they chose not to do so. They not only declined to support impeachment, but in most cases they also refused to denounce Trump.…”

Section: Presidential Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism, democracy, and the post‐2020 Republican Party in Congress

Lee

2023

Pres Stud Q

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Populist chief executives tend to weaken democracies by undermining the rule of law and horizontal accountability. For insight into the resilience of American democracy against such threats, this article takes a close look at how the Republican Party in Congress responded to President Donald J.Trump's attack on the legitimacy of American elections following his loss in the 2020 elections. It examines post‐2020 congressional Republicans’ decisions about party positioning, legislative party leadership and membership, and Trump's status as party leader. In each set of decisions, congressional Republicans pursued their own interests rather than echoing Trump's claims or taking direction from him. Congressional Republicans, however, largely declined to criticize Trump directly in light of their voters’ continued support for him, support that was evident in the 2022 Republican primaries. The overall conclusion is that the self‐interest of separately elected members of Congress offers a significant, albeit imperfect defense against a populist chief executive's bid for hegemony.

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Section: Presidential Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism, democracy, and the post‐2020 Republican Party in Congress

Lee

2023

Pres Stud Q

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Unbundling Polarization

Canen

Kendall

2020

ECTA

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This paper investigates the determinants of political polarization, a phenomenon of increasing relevance in Western democracies. How much of polarization is driven by divergence in the ideologies of politicians? How much is instead the result of changes in the capacity of parties to control their members? We use detailed internal information on party discipline in the context of the U.S. Congress—whip count data for 1977–1986—to identify and structurally estimate an economic model of legislative activity in which agenda selection, party discipline, and member votes are endogenous. The model delivers estimates of the ideological preferences of politicians, the extent of party control, and allows us to assess the effects of polarization through agenda setting (i.e., which alternatives to a status quo are strategically pursued). We find that parties account for approximately 40% of the political polarization in legislative voting over this time period, a critical inflection point in U.S. polarization. We also show that, absent party control, historically significant economic policies would have not passed or lost substantial support. Counterfactual exercises establish that party control is highly relevant for the probability of success of a given bill and that polarization in ideological preferences is more consequential for policy selection, resulting in different bills being pursued.

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The US Senate and the Commonwealth

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Populism, democracy, and the post‐2020 Republican Party in Congress

Populism, democracy, and the post‐2020 Republican Party in Congress

Unbundling Polarization

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