The Atomistic Congress

First Published in 1993. This volume is based upon an April 1990 Carl Albert Center conference commemorating the bicentennial of the United States Congress and the centennial of the University of Oklahoma. The conference was entitled, Back to the Future: the United States Congress in the Twenty-first Century. Its focus was on the nature of change in Congress and on the likely direction of congressional change as the new century approaches.

Mexico is reinventing itself. It is moving toward a more tolerant, global, market oriented, and democratic society. This new edition of "Changing Structure of Mexico" is a comprehensive and up-to-date presentation of Mexico's political, social, and economic issues. All chapters have been rewritten by noted Mexican scholars and practitioners to provide a lucid and informative introductory reader on Mexico. The book covers such topics as Mexico's foreign economic policy and NAFTA; maquiladoras; technology policy; and Asian competition; as well as domestic economics such as banking, tax reform, and oil/energy policy; the environment; population and migration policy; the changing structure of political parties; and values and changes affecting women.

Congress occupies a central place in the U.S. political system. Its reach into American society is vast and deep. Overtime, the issues it has confronted have increased in both quantity and complexity. At the beginning, Congress dealt with a handful of matters, whereas today it has its hands in every imaginable aspect of life. It has attempted to meet these challenges and has changed throughout the course of its history, prodded by factors both external and internal to the institution. The essays in this volume argue therefore that as society changed throughout the twentieth century, Congress responded to those changes.

The American Congress, in the mid-1990s, remains the object of voter discontent. Public outcries against special interests and unresponsive incumbents have amplified an already pervasive scepticism towards Beltway politics. The book covers policy towards agricultural issues in particular.

Congress: Games and Strategies, fourth edition, is an up-to-date look at the 21st century Congress from the perspective of a professional political scientist and congressional staff member turned academic. As such, it provides both academic and real-world insights into the unique and often impenetrable world of our national legislature. Using the most recent academic literature as well as quotes from current members of Congress, it seeks to explore the overlap between theory and reality. The book uses a game analogy as an organizing theme and as a toolbox, recognizing that much of Congress' activity is understood by analyzing the players, the rules under which they work, the strategies they employ and the pattern of winning and losing that result. Updated through the 2008 election, the book includes a host of features intended to enhance comprehension, including boxes that allow students to hear what congressmen and congresswomen themselves say about the institution.

In the past thirty years, Congress has dramatically changed its response to unpopular deficit spending. While the landmark Congressional Budget Act of 1974 tried to increase congressional budgeting powers, new budget processes created in the 1980s and 1990s were all explicitly designed to weaken member, majority, and institutional budgeting prerogatives. These later reforms shared the premise that Congress cannot naturally forge balanced budgets without new automatic mechanisms and enhanced presidential oversight. So Democratic majorities in Congress gave new budgeting powers to Presidents Reagan and Bush, and then Republicans did the same for President Clinton. Passing the Buck examines how Congress is increasing delegation of a wide variety of powers to the president in recent years. Jasmine Farrier assesses why institutional ambition in the early 1970s turned into institutional ambivalence about whether Congress is equipped to handle its constitutional duties.

An electoral earthquake hit the American political landscape in 1994. As the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1954 and control of the Senate for the first time since 1986, the longest uninterrupted period of single party rule in the entire history of the United States Congress came to an end. The new congressional majorities were the most conservative in 50 years and immediately proceeded to dominate the political agenda in Washington. Scholars from Britain and the United States document these momentous developments, evaluating their impact on America's political institutions and political culture and their significance for the future development of American politics and government.

For almost four decades, the editors of Congress Reconsidered, Lawrence C. Dodd and Bruce I. Oppenheimer have delivered the best contemporary work from leading congressional scholars in a form that is both analytical and accessible. The tradition continues in this Eleventh Edition as contributing authors focus on the many ways Congress has changed over time and examine the conditions that foster these developments. Some of the most noted names in congressional studies address topics from broad dynamics affecting the institution, elections and constituencies, parties and internal organization, inter-branch relations, and policymaking. This new edition also ends with a capstone chapter on the milestone 2016 elections. Simply put, this bestselling volume remains on the cutting edge of scholarship, identifying patterns of change in Congress and placing those patterns in context.