Stalemate : Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock

policy gridlock might instead be an unintended consequence of constitutional design. Next, she explores the ways in which elections and institutions together shape the capacity of Congress and the president to make public law. She examines two facets of its institutional evolution: the emergence of the Senate as a coequal legislative partner of the House and the insertion of political parties into a legislative arena originally devoid of parties. Finally, she offers a new empirical approach for testing accounts of policy stalemate during the decades since World War II. These measurements reveal patterns in legislative performance during the second half of the twentieth century, showing the frequency of policy deadlock and the legislative stages at which it has most often emerged in the postwar period. Binder uses the new measure of stalemate to explain empirical patterns in the frequency of gridlock. The results weave together the effects of institu [Publisher's text]