Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1994
Abstract
The public policy benefits that parties-deliver are allocated by democratic procedures that devolve ultimately to majority rule. Majority-rule decision making, however, does not lead to consistent policy choices; it is "unstable." In this paper, we argue that institutions - and thereby policy coalitions -- can be stabilized by extra-legislative organization. The rules of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives dictate that a requirement for continued membership is support on the floor of Caucus decisions for a variety of key structural matters. Because membership in the majority party’s caucus is valuable, it constitutes a bond, the posting of which stabilizes the structure of the House, and hence the policy decisions made in the House. We examine the rules of the House Democratic Caucus and find that they do in fact contain the essential elements of an effective, extralegislative bonding mechanism.
Citation
Gary W. Cox & Mathew D. McCubbins, Bonding, Structure and the Stability of Political Parties: Party Government in the House, 19 Legislative Studies Quarterly 215-231 (1994)
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Federal government--United States, House of Representatives, Congress, Public policy (Law), Policy sciences
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/3291
Comments
This is an article pre-print.