The Oxford Handbook of the American Congress
Edited by George C. Edwards III, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler
Abstract
The Oxford Handbook of the American Congress, written by leading scholars in the field, takes stock of the impressive and diverse literature published about the American Congress. No legislature in the world has a greater influence over its nation's public affairs than the US Congress. Congress's centrality in the US system of government has placed research on Congress at the heart of scholarship on American politics. Generations of American government scholars working in a wide range of methodological traditions have focused their analysis on understanding Congress, both as a law-making and a representative institution. Each article of this text focuses on a particular aspect of congressional politics, including the institution's responsiveness to the American public, its procedures and capacities for policymaking, its internal procedures and development, relationships between the branches of government, and the scholarly methodologies for approaching these topics. The book also includes articles addressing timely questions, including partisan polarization, congressional war powers, and the supermajoritarian procedures of the contemporary Senate. Beyond simply bringing readers up to speed on the current state of research, the book offers critical assessments of how each literature has progressed—or failed to progress—in recent decades. The articles identify the major questions posed by each line of research and assess the degree to which the answers developed in the literature are persuasive. This is one of The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics—a set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of scholarship on American politics.
Keywords:
legislature,
influence,
nation's public affairs,
US system of government,
law-making institution,
representative institution,
American public,
procedures,
capacities,
policymaking
Bibliographic Information
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Print Publication Date:
- Mar 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199559947
- Published online:
- May 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199559947.001.0001
Editors
George C. Edwards III,
editor
George C. Edwards III is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University and holds the Chair in Presidential Studies. A leading scholar of the presidency, he has written or edited 23 books on American politics and public policy making. He is also editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly and consulting editor of The Oxford Handbook of American Politics series. Professor Edwards has served as president of the Presidency Research Section of the American Political Science Association, which has named its annual dissertation prize in his honor and awarded him its Career Service Award.
Frances E. Lee,
editor
Frances E. Lee is Professor of Government and Politics at University of Maryland-College Park. He is the author of Beyond Ideology, coauthor of Sizing Up The Senate, and co-author of a comprehensive textbook on the U.S. Congress, Congress and Its Members. Her research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. Lee's work has received national recognition, including the APSA's E. E. Schattschneider Award for the best dissertation in American Politics, the D. B. Hardeman Award presented by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation for the best book on a congressional topic, and the APSA's Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Award for the best book on legislative politics published.
Eric Schickler,
editor
Eric Schickler is Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of California-Berkeley. He is the author of Disjointed Pluralism, and co-author, with Greg Wawro, of Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate. Both books received APSA's Richard F. Fenno Award for the best book published on legislative politics. He is also co-author of Partisan Hearts and Minds (with Donald Green and Bradley Palmquist), and has authored or co-authored articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Studies in American Political Development, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Social Science History.
