Title
Leadership Power, Preference Homogeneity, and Legislative Party Conflict
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
Over the past few decades, there has been a considerable increase in the level of partisan conflict. What explains the extent of partisan conflict experienced in legislatures? To examine this question, we develop aggregate-level measures of inter-party conflict from roll-call voting data on procedural and final passage votes during the 1999–2000 and 2003–2004 sessions to examine the mechanisms of polarisation in U.S. state legislatures. We systematically model inter-party conflict as a function of institutional rules and preferences. Our results suggest that the level of inter-party conflict (i.e. party polarisation) in legislative voting is largely related to the homogeneity of members’ electorally-induced preferences. However, we also uncover interesting institutional effects. Although minority party rights is the only institutional variable associated with inter-party conflict on final passage votes, majority party leaders’ committee appointment rights, committees’ discretion in reporting bills to the floor, and minority party rights each are strongly associated with inter-party conflict on procedural roll-call votes.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2019.1698112
Recommended Citation
Clark, Jennifer Hayes and R. Lucas Williams. "Leadership Power, Preference Homogeneity, and Legislative Party Conflict." The Journal of Legislative Studies 25, no. 4 (2019): 489-510. doi: 10.1080/13572334.2019.1698112. Please note that the Recommended Citation may not be appropriate for your discipline. For help with other citation styles, please visit http://libguides.misericordia.edu/citationguide.