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An Examination of Five Reform Periods in the U.S. House of Representatives in the Twentieth Century
Author(s) -
Schousen Matthew M.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.2004.tb00186.x
Subject(s) - nominate , order (exchange) , house of representatives , reform act , isolation (microbiology) , political science , public administration , law , legislature , economics , statistics , mathematics , microbiology and biotechnology , finance , biology
This paper addresses the research questions of why, in the United States House of Representatives, so few Congresses attempt major institutional reforms and why some reforms succeed where others fail. Rejecting the most common approach of analyzing individual reform eras in isolation, I create three conditions that must be met in order for major institutional rule changes to be successfully implemented and apply those conditions to the five most recent major reform periods in the House of Representatives. Using the Congressional Record, other primary sources, the rich scholarly literature, and Poole and Rosenthal's DW‐NOMINATE scores, I analyze the reform eras of 1910 ‐ 1911, the mid‐1940s, the early and mid‐1970s, 1992 ‐ 1993, and 1994 ‐ 1995. The comparative analysis suggests that the three conditions outlined help move us away from explanations of individual reform eras and towards a more general theory of institutional reform.