In recent election cycles, Republican members of Congress distanced themselves, at least rhetorically, from an unpopular party image and president. Why should the behavior of members change in the short-term if there are no changes in ideology or membership? This project explores two...

Studies of legislatures often link electoral conditions and party preferences to policy outcomes. These studies link electoral strategies and measures of party preferences to legislator behavior or government expenditures, such as support for welfare spending. In this paper, I further consider...

This paper examines conditions under which parties in parliamentary government establish dominance over the legislative process. We focus on two aspects of this dominance: negative agenda control and legislative success. We argue that the logic of organizing a legislature for majority control is...

Horizontal accountability is a key challenge to new democracies, and especially so in those regimes where "reactive" legislatures face dominant presidents. Although the 1988 Constitution gives impressive legislative and agenda-setting powers to the Brazilian president, it also equips the...