Title Turning the legislative thumbscrew : minority rights and procedural change in legislative politics / Douglas Dion

Published Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c1997

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 291 p.) Series Book collections on Project MUSE UPCC book collections on Project MUSE. Archive Political Science and Policy Studies Foundation Contents Minority Rights in Legislatures -- A Partisan Theory of Obstruction and Procedural Change -- Evidence from the U.S. House, 1837-95 -- Testing Assumptions and Links -- Rules Changes in the Antebellum House -- Rules Changes in the Gilded Age -- The Missing Rules Changes -- Evidence from Other Institutions -- The U.S. Senate -- Going Abroad: The House of Commons and the Austrian Parliament Summary The use of filibusters in the U.S. Senate by small numbers of members to prevent legislative action apparently desired by a majority of the members - as evidenced by the battles over civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s - is legendary. Similar situations have existed in other legislative bodies over time. The fear that they will at some time be in the minority has inhibited actions by the majority groups to control the right of minority groups to block legislative action. And yet from time to time the majority in a legislative body has forced a change in the rules to control the rights of the minority. When does the majority seek to limit minority rights to obstruct legislation? Douglas Dion, in a unique study, develops a formal model to set out the conditions under which majorities will limit minority rights. He finds that when majorities are small, they will be more cohesive. This majority cohesion leads to minority obstruction that in turn leads to majority efforts to force procedural change to control the ability of the minority to obstruct legislation. Dion then tests his findings in a rich consideration of historical cases from the nineteenth century U.S. House of Representatives, the nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. Senate, the British House of Commons, and an account of the Austro-Hungarian Parliament from Mark Twain Analysis Legislative bodies United States Parliamentary practice United States United States / Congress Rules and practice Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-288) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL Description based on print version record; resource not viewed digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject United States. Congress -- Rules and practice United States. Congress -- Rules and practice. SUBJECT United States. Congress fast United States. Congress -- Rules and practice. nli Subject Parliamentary practice -- United States Legislative bodies -- United States. LAW -- Constitutional. LAW -- Public. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- General. Legislative bodies Parliamentary practice Parlamentsrecht Minderheitsfraktion CONGRESSO NACIONAL -- ESTADOS UNIDOS. PODER LEGISLATIVO -- ESTADOS UNIDOS. Parliamentary practice -- United States. Legislative bodies -- United States. United States USA Genre/Form Rules Form Electronic book LC no. 2020749615 ISBN 9780472022694 0472022695

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