Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives

Abstract

Setting the Agenda: Responsible Party Government in the U.S. House of Representatives. By Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 336p. $70.00 cloth, $24.99 paper. In this volume, Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins elaborate on the “cartel” theory of parties in the U.S. Congress that was first set forth in their earlier book, Legislative Leviathan (1993), and present a substantial body of new evidence in support of this theory. The central thesis of the new book is that a form of party government has been present continuously in the House of Representatives since the adoption of the Reed Rules in the 1890s.