Paradoxes of Parties in Congress

Abstract

This paper identifies four paradoxes of parties. These paradoxes illustrate not only substantive problems in their own right but also diverse ways that formal models can help to define and address problems in legislative research. Models are shown to clarify key concepts (such as majority party strength), to sharpen the definition of important problems of inference (observational equivalence of theories), to evaluate widely used measures (party voting), and to derive and test competing hypotheses (majoritarian versus majority-party determinants of legislative organization). [S]cholars havefound congressionalparties enigmatic and illusive. For eras of heightened partisanship, scholars have embraced journalistic characterizations of congressional leaders as bosses or czars, implying aparadox of direct arbitrary rule by party leaders over an atomized rank-and-file. For more quiescent times, partisan cleavages in Congress, such as they are, may be attributed to the inexorable pressures of constituency forces. Whatever their bent, scholars often find congressional parties difficult to capture ....

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