Bullettin n. 1/2011
June 2011
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Beckmann Matthew N., Kumar Vimal
    Opportunism in Polarization: Presidential Success in Senate Key Votes, 1953-2008
    in Presidential Studies Quarterly , Volume 41, Issue 3, September ,  2011 ,  488-503
    That Congress has experienced increased polarization is clear, and burgeoning is the literature investigating its causes and consequences. Here we examine a counterintuitive wrinkle on the latter. Drawing from a simple game-theoretic model in which a president strategically allocates scarce “political capital” to induce changes in legislators' votes, we show congressional polarization can actually improve a president's prospects for winning key roll-call votes—a hypothesis that emerges inasmuch as polarization enables presidents to concentrate their resources lobbying fewer members (compared to a more homogenous chamber). We test this hypothesis by investigating presidents' success on Congressional Quarterly's “key” Senate roll-call votes, 1953-2008.
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