Product Description
Politicians and pundits alike have complained that the divided governments of the last decades have led to legislative gridlock. Not so, argues Keith Krehbiel, who advances the provocative theory that divided government actually has little effect on legislative productivity. Gridlock is in fact the order of the day, occurring even when the same party controls the legislative and executive branches. Meticulously researched and anchored to real politics, Krehbiel argues that the pivotal vote on a piece of legislation is not the one that gives a bill a simple majority, but the vote that allows its supporters to override a possible presidential veto or to put a halt to a filibuster. This theory of pivots also explains why, when bills are passed, winning coalitions usually are bipartisan and supermajority sized. Offering an incisive account of when gridlock is overcome and showing that political parties are less important in legislative-executive politics than previously thought, Pivotal Politics remakes our understanding of American lawmaking.
Average Customer Review:
15 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Brainy prof painlessly debunks gridlock assumptions, 1999-09-15
I had very low expectations, to be sure. All said and done, however, this is a v. fine book, considering that my brother-in-law wrote it.But, really now. Even as a total non-scientist I actually did find the book (o-k, the parts I read) interesting and informative. And even though I of necessity skipped right past the math and grids and charts and doodles and stuff, the substance made sense because of "the author's" down-to-earth narrative style. (I suppose it may also have helped that he explained the whole theory, or as much as he thought his brother and I could grasp, over beers one night. Be that as it may.) I, under no threats or inducements, sincerely recommend this book to anyone interested in looking beyond the common assumption that Party X in the White House and Party Y controlling Congress ("divided government" I recall to be the super-duper scientific term) is likely to result in the dreaded Gridlock. Or the gridded Dreadlocks. Music Up: "It Ain't Necessarily So...."