Stalemate: Causes and
Consequences of Legislative Gridlock.
By Sarah H. Binder. (
Over the course of the last decade, Sarah Binder has emerged as one of the top legislative scholars. Each of her books features rich and detailed history, clear, concise, theoretical development, and empirical testing of novel data sets and/or measures. Each of her books has challenged the conventional thinking about Congress as proclaimed both by legislative scholars as well as in the popular press and culture. In this regard, Stalemate is no exception.
In Stalemate, Binder challenges the conventional wisdom that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution intended to create a system of government characterized by frequent gridlock. Relying heavily on the writings of Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, she argues that while the Framers intended to diffuse power throughout the government, their intent was not to produce a form of government that would so frequently and pervasively in a state of gridlock. Indeed, she frequently describes modern gridlock as an unintended consequence. Binder argues that two factors, the emergence of the U.S. Senate as a pro-active legislative institution, and the rise and polarization of modern political parties, were both unimaginable to the Framers and are two of the root causes of modern gridlock. Thus, according to Binder, modern gridlock was an unintended consequence in the development of the American political system.
As in her previous books, Binder offers some rather novel measures and empirical tests. One of her most important contributions is a measure of policy gridlock for the 80th to the 105th Congress. Noting that Mayhew’s measures of legislative productivity developed in Divided We Govern focused exclusively on bills that were passed, she creates a new measure of gridlock that uses a revised version of Mayhew’s landmark laws as the numerator (i.e. the laws that were passed) while using as a denominator the possible universe of legislative action based on daily New York Times unsigned editorials. Binder’s new gridlock quotient thus accounts for varying degrees of policy possibilities that exist over time. Binder’s efforts are rewarding: her findings are intuitively convincing, although many of them are in strong contrast with Mayhew’s and will undoubtedly be challenged in future examination by legislative scholars.
Much of Binder’s empirical analysis is dedicated to examining the precise causes of gridlock. Many of her findings challenge conventional wisdom. For example, Binder demonstrates that the House is nearly as likely as the Senate to be the source of gridlock, while conference committees, frequently vilified by both the media and political pundits, are not the dominant source of legislative gridlock either. Rather, Binder demonstrates that at least at the end of the 1990s, bicameralism is frequently the source of gridlock. Binder also finds that gridlock is more likely during divided versus unified government, although the difference is quite small (54 v. 48 percent respectively). Gridlock is also more likely to be encountered during the consideration of domestic legislation rather than foreign affairs.
Binder goes beyond the institutional factors that produce gridlock and also considers other factors, such as electoral factors. As electoral districts become increasingly homogenous, and as members from those districts become increasingly ideologically extreme, legislative scholars have observed a significant polarization in the modern Congress. Not surprisingly, Binder finds that the decreased level of ideological moderation makes stalemate more likely. However, she finds that higher amounts of gridlock did not have much effect on the reelection prospects for incumbent members of Congress.
Binder offers some suggestions for lessening the frequency of gridlock. Some of her proposals include creating joint task forces on major public policy issues and limiting filibuster options in the Senate similar to the fast-track protections used in recent base-closing bills.
To conclude, Binder argues that the current gridlock experienced in the American system was largely unintended by the Framers. Stalemate, like Binder’s earlier texts, is rich in history, and challenges much of the conventional wisdom about gridlock. I strongly recommend the book to both those who are interested in legislative politics as well as those who have a substantive interest in government responsiveness.
Greg Thorson,