Journal Articles

Effort, intensity and position taking: reconsidering obstruction in the pre-cloture senate

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Effort is a crucial element of the legislative process — writing bills, forming coalitions, crafting strategies, and debating.
We develop a model in which legislative decisions are the product of competitive effort by two teams,
one trying to pass new legislation, and the other to block it. Teams choose effort levels based on preferences over
the policy outcome, political rewards for effort, and opportunity costs, and the team that produces more effort wins. We apply this model to four cases of major legislation from the pre-cloture Senate: passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, the Ship Purchase Act of 1915, the Ship Arming bill of 1917, and the adoption of the Senate cloture rule in 1917. These cases demonstrate the value of looking beyond legislative voting and the rules that structure it, and of including effort as a key element of the legislative game.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Journal of Theoretical Politics

Call Number

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Publisher

California : Sage Publications India., 2008

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0951-6298

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Vol. 20, No. 1, January 2008. Page 67-92

Subject(s)

Effort
Preference intensity
Obstruction
Cloture
Position taking
Effort, Intensity and Position Taking

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