tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/gridlock-13336/articlesGridlock – The Conversation2023-10-04T15:06:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2149932023-10-04T15:06:38Z2023-10-04T15:06:38ZOuster of Speaker McCarthy highlights House Republican fractures in an increasingly polarized America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552072/original/file-20231004-24-y82i7z.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C5973%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kevin McCarthy, just before he was ousted as speaker of the House. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-is-surrounded-by-staff-news-photo/1715424738?adppopup=true">Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The House of Representatives on Oct. 3, 2023, did something that had never been done before in the nation’s history: It <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555">ousted the speaker of the House</a>. Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, lost his job in a vote of 216 to 210. To look deeper than the surface machinations, The Conversation U.S. spoke with political scientist <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/">Charles R. Hunt</a> at Boise State University.</em></p>
<p><em>He offers a sense of what this historic development might mean for the government at the moment, as well as for American democracy over the longer term.</em></p>
<h2>What does the ouster say about the House’s ability to function, such as to pass a new budget in the next 45 days?</h2>
<p>It’s important to remember what the purpose of the speaker of the House is: to literally speak for the entire House, to guide legislation through. It’s an unruly chamber of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-house-of-representatives-has-435-seats-and-how-that-could-change-191629">435 members</a>.</p>
<p>So what you need, ideally, is someone who has the trust of the chamber – particularly of their own party, since the majority party at least traditionally has unilateral control over the business of the House. So both trust and party discipline are conducive to a smoothly functioning legislative process. </p>
<p>When Americans think of a functioning democracy, they might think of bills getting passed on time, of Congress getting things done. But voters of all party affiliations are frustrated by the gridlock here, particularly <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">over the past decade or two</a>. </p>
<p>The interesting thing about this situation with the speakership is that gridlock has traditionally been between the two parties. Right now, it’s within one party.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dark-haired woman walking down a hallway, talking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551917/original/file-20231003-23-xtl9h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rep-nancy-mace-arrives-for-a-house-republican-caucus-news-photo/1704665153?adppopup=true">Drew Angerer/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Do House members want to do what the public wants them to do – get things done?</h2>
<p>Americans say they <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-poll-shows-americans-want-congressional-cooperation-but-expect-gridlock">don’t want</a> to be focusing on these fights. But there are members of Congress for whom these fights are really important to how they represent — like Florida Republican Matt Gaetz — who hail from very Republican districts and have staked their reputations on fighting establishment figures in their own party like Kevin McCarthy. Likewise, many Democrats back in 2019 or 2020, when they held the majority in the House, felt they had a responsibility to their mostly Democratic constituents to bring the fight to President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>For some in the GOP, there is also this ideology of smaller government, less spending, lowering the national debt – the more typical conservative Republican priorities. They are not new, but there is now this sense that being anti-establishment, and trying to wield power to its greatest possible extent, is a goal in itself.</p>
<p>Some voters have looked at how the House has operated over the past couple of decades and thought, “we don’t want any more of that.” So they are willing to put their trust in the hands of some of these people who want to, figuratively at least, burn the place down – even if there is no clear exit strategy for what happens next. The <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-are-next-steps-us-house-searches-new-speaker-2023-10-03/">lack of a plan after McCarthy’s ouster</a> seems to show that obstruction is kind of the point.</p>
<h2>How can people understand these events in the context of America’s system of representative democracy?</h2>
<p>Gaetz has been saying he doesn’t like the process, that he wants to go back to “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-oust-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-remove-speaker-of-the-house/">regular order</a>,” in which budget proposals are voted on separately, instead of in huge omnibus spending bills. He and others just see that the way the House is conducting its business is not working. In Congress, those concerns are mainly coming from the far left and far right. They relate to the increasing polarization in this country, and Congress mirrors that growing division. </p>
<p>Democrats are getting more progressive, and Republicans in particular are getting more conservative over time. This is in part because <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-this-cycle-of-redistricting-is-making-gerrymandered-congressional-districts-even-safer-and-undermining-majority-rule-173103">districts are becoming more and more safe</a> for one party or the other. So the average district is less likely to produce a moderate member of Congress. That increases the influence of party primaries. The voters who participate in these elections tend to be pretty ideologically extreme Republicans and Democrats who don’t want to see their representatives working with the other side.</p>
<p>And the more polarized the country gets, the more you see this element of <a href="https://theconversation.com/bidens-dragging-poll-numbers-wont-matter-in-2024-if-enough-voters-loathe-his-opponent-even-more-204608">negative partisanship</a>, where a representative’s voters are more driven by how much their candidate is willing to fight against the other side, rather than how much they’re getting done for their own side. </p>
<h2>Why isn’t this kind of drama happening in the Senate?</h2>
<p>The cultures of the two institutions are really different, even today. George Washington is said to have described the House as a cup of hot tea that was going to overflow with the passions of the “common people,” and the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Created.htm">Senate would be the saucer</a> that would catch that overflow.</p>
<p>This session, both institutions are living up to those reputations.</p>
<p>The first reason is that House districts are smaller. They can be drawn in very specific ways and gerrymandered and are more subject to <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-explaining-elections-in-congress-gerrymandering-is-overrated-201454">geographic sorting</a>, so you end up with really extreme districts, politically. </p>
<p>Whereas in the Senate, they represent whole states. They typically have to represent a lot more people than a House district, a much broader constituency. That can lead to adopting a more consensus-driven tone.</p>
<p>The rules of the Senate are also much more consensus-driven. Rules like the <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture.htm">filibuster</a> and <a href="https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/rules-procedures/first-unanimous-consent-agreement.htm">Unanimous Consent Agreements</a> can force more moderate senators to work together to reach a kind of consensus. </p>
<p>Plus, because it’s a smaller body, there is generally more collegiality. These senators know each other better, and so even between the parties you get people teaming up on legislative proposals a lot more often. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in suits shake hands in front of the US Capitol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551920/original/file-20231003-19-fdn0eu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Senate is more inclined to bipartisanship than the House, as can be seen in the handshake between GOP Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, after both worked to pass toxic exposure legislation in 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-jon-tester-looks-on-as-sen-jerry-moran-and-senate-news-photo/1403310961?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Finally, Senate leadership is less powerful. Mitch McConnell, when he was the majority leader, wielded a great amount of procedural power, and Chuck Schumer does now, but much less than the speaker does in the House. This creates a lot of the friction in the House between leadership and rank and file that you don’t typically see in the Senate.</p>
<h2>What are the key differences that help explain how these different House members are behaving?</h2>
<p>This is the big question Americans ask: Why on Earth does Congress do any of the things it does? </p>
<p>It may not seem like it, but members of Congress have incentives for doing what they do. There are the incentives of Congress as a whole. There are the incentives of the two parties, which is why they meet in their conferences and caucuses to strategize.</p>
<p>But individual members also face <a href="https://theconversation.com/voters-want-compromise-in-congress-so-why-the-brinkmanship-over-the-debt-ceiling-206465">very different pressures</a> in their different districts, even if they’re in the same party. Consider Gaetz, whose district Trump won by almost 40 points. He faces no serious challenge in a general election against a Democrat because it’s mostly Republicans in the district. The only race that really matters in this district is the primary. </p>
<p>By contrast, think of a moderate Republican from New York in a district that Joe Biden won by four or five points. This person understands that to get reelected, they need some critical mass of independents and maybe even some Democrats to support them.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the only constituency that any member of Congress must be responsive to is the one in their district. In political science, we call it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07343469.2020.1811425">dyadic representation</a>. It’s a pairing, a dialogue, between a member and their constituents. And that is ultimately what they are thinking about, or, at least, they should be thinking about if they want to get reelected. This is how you get these divergent approaches to governing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214993/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Long gridlocked by fighting between the two major political parties, the US House is now split by conflict within the GOP, thanks in part to redistricting practices that boost extremism.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064652023-05-26T15:02:29Z2023-05-26T15:02:29ZVoters want compromise in Congress – so why the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C25%2C8575%2C5665&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, left, meets with President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit in the White House on May 22, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenDebtLimit/6f1e6ced06ab4a0b81026f02e69825f6/photo?Query=debt%20limit&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1596&currentItemNo=307">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>There’s progress on the debt limit. There’s no progress. Conservatives have revolted. Liberal Democrats are angry. Negotiators actually <a href="https://twitter.com/elwasson/status/1659250606370848773">ate a meal together</a>. That’s a good sign. No it isn’t. Who’s up? Who’s down?</em></p>
<p><em>Much of the breathless news coverage of the debt limit crisis relies on leaks, speculation, wishful thinking and maybe even the reading of tea leaves. The Conversation decided to tap an expert on congressional behavior, Northwestern University political scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cfH3-8sAAAAJ&hl=en">Laurel Harbridge-Yong</a>, and ask her what she sees when she looks at the negotiations. Harbridge-Yong is a specialist in partisan conflict and the lack of bipartisan agreement in American politics, so her expertise is tailor-made for the moment.</em> </p>
<h2>What do the debt limit negotiations look like to you?</h2>
<p>The difficulty that Congress and the White House are having in reaching compromises highlights two aspects of contemporary politics. The first: Since the 1970s, both the House and Senate have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">become much more polarized</a>. Members of the two parties are more unified internally and further apart from the opposing party. You don’t have the overlap between parties now that existed 50 years ago.</p>
<p>Even as we’ve had rising polarization, we still have <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/356174/democrats-big-political-tent-helps-explain-stalemate.aspx">important differences within the parties</a>. Not every Democrat is the same as another and not every Republican is the same. </p>
<p>This relates to a second point: Members’ individual and collective interests shape their behavior. For <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/06/republicans-debt-ceiling-mccarthy-freedom-caucus">Republicans in more competitive districts</a>, their own individual electoral interests probably say, “Let’s cut a deal. Let’s not risk a default that the Republicans get blamed for, and which is going to run really poorly in my district.” </p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-house-hardliners-could-try-block-debt-ceiling-deal-without-robust-cuts-2023-05-18/">House Freedom Caucus Republicans</a> come from really safe districts, and they care more about their primary elections than they do their general elections. So their own electoral interests say, “Stand firm, fight till the bitter end, try to force the hand of the president.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray haired man in suit and tie talking to reporters under a chandelier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., center, said on May 25, 2023, that he is optimistic that White House and GOP negotiators can reach a deal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-speaks-with-reporters-news-photo/1257988628?adppopup=true">Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These kinds of electoral interests occur at the individual and collective levels for members of a party. Since the 1980s, and accelerating into the 1990s, there’s been <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-072012-113747">a lot more competition for majority control</a>, and as a result the two parties don’t want to do things that let the other party look good. They don’t want to give the other party a win in the eyes of the voter. </p>
<p>So you now have many Republicans who are more willing to fight quite hard against the Democrats because they don’t want to give a win to Biden. </p>
<p>Democrats are also resistant to compromising, both because they <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/05/24/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-35/">don’t want to gut programs</a> that they put in place and also because they don’t want to make this look like a win for Republicans, who were able to play chicken and get what they wanted. </p>
<p>These dynamics, layered on top of policy interests, all contribute to the problems that we’re seeing now. </p>
<h2>What’s the role of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149861784/debt-ceiling-brinksmanship">brinkmanship in this conflict</a>?</h2>
<p>When I think of brinkmanship, I’m thinking about negotiating tactics that push things until the very last minute to try to secure the most concessions for your side. Right now that means <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/24/debt-ceiling-gop-demands/">coming to the edge of potential default</a> on the debt. </p>
<h2>Does brinkmanship work?</h2>
<p>I was looking back at some of the previous government <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-debt-ceiling-crises-and-the-political-chaos-theyve-unleashed-205178">shutdowns as well as debt ceiling negotiations</a>. In some instances concessions were granted, so brinkmanship paid off. In other instances it was less obvious that there was a win, and in some instances there was perhaps a penalty, when the parties couldn’t agree and there was a government shutdown. </p>
<p>One party may be banking on the fact that the other party’s going to get blamed by the public while their own party reputation won’t be hurt. In the 1990s, it seemed like it was the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">Republicans who took the brunt</a> of the blame for a government shutdown. </p>
<p>There have been instances in which parties get something out of brinkmanship, as in the government shutdown at the beginning of the Trump administration over <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/25/trump-shutdown-announcement-1125529">funding for the border wall</a>. The Democrats ended up giving some money for the border wall. It wasn’t all of what Trump wanted, but it was part of what Trump and the Republicans wanted.</p>
<p>Brinkmanship and gridlock are disproportionately consequential for Democrats, who generally <a href="https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/">want to expand government programs</a>, versus for Republicans, who tend to want to <a href="https://prod-static.gop.com/media/Resolution_Platform.pdf?_gl=1*gor9yy*_gcl_au*MTY3NTEyMDk2NC4xNjgyNTE4Nzc1&_ga=2.185781033.1441572001.1685048771-688242051.1682518780">constrict government programs</a>. So gridlock or forced spending cuts are easier for Republicans to stomach than Democrats. It may be part of why we see Republicans going harder on this kind of brinkmanship. </p>
<h2>How does the public see brinkmanship?</h2>
<p>On the whole, I think the public doesn’t like it. </p>
<p>My own work has shown that the <a href="https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/policy-briefs/harbridge-policybrief-2020.pdf?linkId=84025998">public does not like gridlock</a> on issues in which people agree on the end goal. The public, on average, even prefers a victory for the other side over policy gridlock. </p>
<p>A win for their own side is the best outcome, a compromise is next best, a win for the other side is next best after that. Gridlock is the worst outcome. </p>
<p>The place where it gets a little bit more challenging is that how people understand and interpret politics is heavily <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054">shaped by how politics is framed to them</a>. </p>
<p>Conservative politicians and media spin the debt ceiling very much as <a href="https://lucas.house.gov/posts/lucas-statement-on-house-gop-plan-addressing-debt-ceiling-applauds-passage-of-limit-save-grow-act">fiscal responsibility</a>, saying this is just like a family’s personal budget at home or that it’s really important to not just raise the debt limit without <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/us/politics/debt-limit-vote-republicans.html">spending concessions</a>. </p>
<p>Those on the Democratic side are hearing that the Republicans are <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5072354/congressional-democrats-accuse-republicans-holding-economy-hostage-debt-limit-talks">holding the country hostage</a>, we can’t give in to them, <a href="https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/speaker-mccarthy-puts-nation-s-economy-at-risk">this will gut really important programs</a>, and so forth.</p>
<p>So on the one hand, the public doesn’t like gridlock – especially gridlock when the consequences are so bad, as default would be. On the other hand, voters in each party’s base are hearing the story framed in very different ways. Both sides may <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/debt-ceiling-crisis-democrats-gop">end up blaming the other side</a>. They’re not necessarily going to be calling their legislators and asking them to compromise.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Many people in business clothing on a stage with signs that say 'MAGA Republicans' BAD DEAL.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., speaks about the debt limit and negotiations to reach a deal on May 24, 2023, in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/congressional-progressive-caucus-chair-rep-pramila-jayapal-news-photo/1257785190?adppopup=true">Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Democracy is about representation. As they conduct these negotiations, do lawmakers see themselves as representing voters?</h2>
<p>Many conservative Republicans who are holding firm may believe that they are good representatives of what the base wants. They represent very strongly partisan districts who may agree with them that they need to fight for concessions. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/rejecting-compromise/01F2DA900C72ACF02E1B3ECF4EED43D3">the recent book</a> that I wrote with Sarah Anderson and Daniel Butler, we found that legislators believe their primary voters want them to reject compromises. </p>
<p>But in today’s crisis, those constituents may not really understand the consequences of default. Sometimes good representation doesn’t just mean doing what the public wants – legislators have better information or understanding of how things work and should do what’s in the best interests of their constituents. </p>
<p>However, even if individual members are trying to represent their districts or their states, when we think about this at a more aggregate or collective level, we don’t see great representation. Individual legislators may be thinking they’re representing constituents, but that leads to an aggregate that is not representative of the country as a whole. </p>
<p>What the public as a whole – which tends to be more moderate – wants is compromise and resolution of this issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurel Harbridge-Yong has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, Unite America, the Electoral Integrity Project, and the Dirksen Congressional Center.</span></em></p>Brinkmanship means coming to the edge of potential default on the US debt ceiling. Are lawmakers negotiating the debt limit representing the wishes and interests of their voters?Laurel Harbridge-Yong, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1570382021-03-12T13:41:55Z2021-03-12T13:41:55ZDebunking the myth of legislative gridlock as laws and policy are made in the nation’s capital<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389145/original/file-20210311-13-166x09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C12%2C8484%2C5613&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joe Biden signs the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill into law Thursday. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-participates-in-a-bill-signing-in-the-news-photo/1306546739?adppopup=true">Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>So much for gridlock. </p>
<p>President Joe Biden just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/11/us/joe-biden-news#biden-signs-stimulus">signed a nearly $US1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package</a>. Its swift passage relied on a process known as “budget reconciliation,” which allowed Congress to enact the plan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/us/politics/biden-stimulus-senate-vote.html">without a single GOP vote</a>.</p>
<p>This massive legislation follows a flurry of executive orders on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/podcasts/the-daily/joe-biden-covid-environment-immigration-executive-orders.html">climate change, immigration, racial justice and more</a>.</p>
<p>Laws and policy are being made in the nation’s capital, despite its reputation as suffering from partisan gridlock.</p>
<p>The fact is that gridlock has always been a myth, resting on half-truths about the legislative process and a basic misunderstanding of how contemporary policymaking works. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A vote tally in Congress on a coronavirus aid package" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tally of the vote on approving the almost $500 billion coronavirus package in the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol, April 23, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakCongress/b82eec2da7ab44e69c69398535c23edf/photo?Query=U.S.%20House%20of%20Representatives%20voting&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=221&currentItemNo=16">House Television via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legislative obstacle course</h2>
<p>Today’s political environment is undoubtedly difficult for lawmakers who want to pass legislation. <a href="https://voteview.com/articles/party_polarization">Party polarization levels are historically high</a>, and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/12/01/slim-majorities-have-become-more-common-in-the-u-s-senate-and-house/">slim House and Senate majorities are increasingly common</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-is-the-senate-filibuster-and-what-would-it-take-to-eliminate-it">filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass bills in the Senate, is now routinely used</a> to block legislation. Under these circumstances, Congress crosses fewer items off its to-do list. Congress’ failure rate on key issues – the percentage of issues that are not addressed on its policy agenda through legislation – <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-3001-1.html">has more than doubled from 30% to over 60% since World War II</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there is still <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/unorthodox-lawmaking/book243858">significant room to maneuver</a>, and <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300102888/divided-we-govern">Congress gets more done than you might think </a>.</p>
<p>Consider the <a href="https://history.house.gov/Congressional-Overview/Profiles/115th/">115th Congress</a>, which convened after President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the last time the same political party controlled the House, Senate and Oval Office.</p>
<p>That Congress enacted <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/25/a-productivity-scorecard-for-115th-congress/">442 laws, the most in a decade</a>. A chunk of these laws were mostly symbolic, enacting such measures as designating national days of recognition. But an estimated 306 – 69% – were substantive, according to the Pew Research Center, including a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/25/a-productivity-scorecard-for-115th-congress/">$1.5 trillion tax cut and bipartisan measures on criminal justice reform, farm policy, the opioid crisis and sanctions on Russia</a>. </p>
<p>This places the 115th Congress on par with earlier sessions, which have passed <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/21/nothing-lame-about-this-lame-duck-116th-congress-had-busiest-post-election-session-in-recent-history/">an average of 311 substantive laws since 1989</a>.</p>
<h2>Policy is more than legislation</h2>
<p>The gridlock narrative focuses too narrowly on Congress and the bills it does or doesn’t pass. </p>
<p>Policy is the set of principles and goals that guide governmental decision-making. Congress may have the sole power to write new laws, but it does not have a monopoly on making policy.</p>
<p>Most obviously, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-an-executive-order-and-why-dont-presidents-use-them-all-the-time-150896">executive branch can shift policy through executive orders</a>, which <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-orders">averaged 36 per year under President George W. Bush, 35 under President Obama and 55 under President Trump</a>. President Biden is already up to <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-orders">37 executive orders and counting</a>. The executive branch also uses less visible means to change policy, <a href="https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Wayne%20Crews%20-%20Mapping%20Washington%27s%20Lawlessness%202017.pdf">such as internal guidance memos, circulars, bulletins and other arcane directives</a>. </p>
<p>These policy initiatives fall outside the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/waynecrews/2015/07/12/congress-better-fix-regulatory-dark-matter/?sh=184268f97970">normal review processes, which require extensive notice and opportunities for public comment</a>. The Trump administration reportedly issued over <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/08/the-race-to-dismantle-trumps-immigration-policies">1,000 changes to immigration policy using these methods, helping to slash legal immigration to the United States by half</a>. </p>
<p>There are other avenues of policymaking that bypass the legislative process: </p>
<p>• Sometimes officials engage in “policy conversion,” which means <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4145310?seq=1">repurposing old laws to new ends</a>. In that way, the law stays the same, but the underlying policy sends it in different and sometimes surprising directions. For example, antitrust laws initially targeted business trusts, forbidding organizational practices “in restraint of trade.” Businesses persuaded federal judges to apply this general ban to unions, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/advances-in-comparativehistorical-analysis/drift-and-conversion-hidden-faces-of-institutional-change/6484F82F28B944279F239F14722C07AF">directing the law to new targets</a>. Similar shifts of policy from guarding one set of interests to protecting another can be found in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12089">consumer protection law </a>, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801444173/disability-rights-and-the-american-social-safety-net/#bookTabs=1">disability policy</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/structuring-politics/ideas-and-the-politics-of-bounded-innovation/804C13C315DF5E8B1F1C5B80A81DEF82">social programs</a>.</p>
<p>• Sometimes Washington makes policy by doing nothing at all. President Biden’s original COVID-19 relief package proposed to increase the federal minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2007. <a href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com">That $7.25 is now worth less than $6 because of inflation</a>. The Senate balked at this provision and it was dropped, although some Democrats have vowed to revisit the issue <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/us/minimum-wage-senate.html?searchResultPosition=3">after the relief package is signed into law</a>. In this example, congressional inaction for over a decade effectively has cut the minimum wage by over 15% and will continue to chip away until a new law is passed. Scholars call this process “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-american-political-development/article/abs/political-effects-of-policy-drift-policy-stalemate-and-american-political-development/5C8D958E44A647C481D22B9AD87F6AC8">policy drift</a>” and argue it has been central to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4145310?seq=1">shrinking the functional size of the social safety net since the 1980s</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President Biden at his desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden signs executive orders related to immigration Feb. 2 in the Oval Office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-signs-executive-orders-related-to-news-photo/1230936282?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Policy complexity, not gridlock</h2>
<p>The point is that policy can change in many ways, as a house does. Most visibly, you can demolish a house and rebuild it. Often this is impractical, and it’s easier to add a new room. Less visibly, you can remodel, converting a basement or garage without changing the house from the outside. Most subtly, changing circumstances can diminish a house’s usefulness, as when when a starter home fails to keep pace with the needs of a growing family.</p>
<p>Given these dynamics, myopically focusing on Congress and its purported gridlock mischaracterizes the real risk of legislative stalemate, which is not policy paralysis. It is shifting power to bureaucrats and judges, who are less publicly accountable and engage in <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/kludgeocracy-in-america">more obscure and technical forms of policymaking</a>. </p>
<p>After decades of financial decline, the media have fewer reporters who can untangle policy intricacies. It often exacerbates the problem by <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo22723661.html">covering the conflict of the day</a> rather than detailing the less provocative-looking silent progress of behind-the-scenes policy change. </p>
<p>Tracking the often subterranean ways that policy is actually made is admittedly difficult, but it is essential for both holding policymakers accountable and appreciating the political system’s true capacity for change.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/debunking-the-myth-of-legislative-gridlock-154329">an article</a> originally published on Feb. 17, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeb Barnes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea that Washington, D.C., is paralyzed by gridlock rests on half-truths about the legislative process and a basic misunderstanding of how contemporary policymaking works.Jeb Barnes, Professor of Political Science, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1543292021-02-17T19:52:38Z2021-02-17T19:52:38ZDebunking the myth of legislative gridlock<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384500/original/file-20210216-13-1gywv8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C48%2C5296%2C3574&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Laws and policy are being made in Washington -- both inside Congress and out.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-crosses-north-capitol-street-on-m-street-during-the-news-photo/1209502088?adppopup=true">Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>So much for gridlock. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/16/us/joe-biden-trump#the-house-moves-to-finalize-the-next-stimulus-package">President Joe Biden’s US$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan</a> is moving steadily through a series of crucial votes in the House and Senate. Its progress toward passage is part of a process known as “reconciliation,” which would allow <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/us/politics/biden-stimulus-senate-vote.html">Democrats to enact the plan without a single GOP vote</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, the massive bill could still be derailed, but Biden has already forged ahead on a flurry of executive orders on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/podcasts/the-daily/joe-biden-covid-environment-immigration-executive-orders.html">climate change, immigration, racial justice and more</a>. </p>
<p>Laws and policy are being made in the nation’s capital, despite its reputation as suffering from partisan gridlock.</p>
<p>The fact is that gridlock has always been a myth, resting on half-truths about the legislative process and a basic misunderstanding of how contemporary policymaking works. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A vote tally in Congress on a coronavirus aid package" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384521/original/file-20210216-15-1bozmx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tally of the vote on approving the almost $500 billion coronavirus package in the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol, April 23, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakCongress/b82eec2da7ab44e69c69398535c23edf/photo?Query=U.S.%20House%20of%20Representatives%20voting&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=221&currentItemNo=16">House Television via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Legislative obstacle course</h2>
<p>Today’s political environment is undoubtedly difficult for lawmakers who want to pass legislation. <a href="https://voteview.com/articles/party_polarization">Party polarization levels are historically high</a>, and <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/12/01/slim-majorities-have-become-more-common-in-the-u-s-senate-and-house/">slim House and Senate majorities are increasingly common</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-is-the-senate-filibuster-and-what-would-it-take-to-eliminate-it">filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass bills in the Senate, is now routinely used</a> to block legislation. Under these circumstances, Congress crosses fewer items off its “to do” list. Congress’ failure rate on key issues – the percentage of issues that are not addressed on its policy agenda through legislation – <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-3001-1.html">has more than doubled from 30% to over 60% since World War II</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there is still <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/unorthodox-lawmaking/book243858">significant room to maneuver</a>, and <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300102888/divided-we-govern">Congress gets more done than you think </a>.</p>
<p>Consider the <a href="https://history.house.gov/Congressional-Overview/Profiles/115th/">115th Congress</a>, which convened after President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the last time the same political party controlled the House, Senate and Oval Office.</p>
<p>That Congress enacted <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/25/a-productivity-scorecard-for-115th-congress/">442 laws, the most in a decade</a>. A chunk of these laws were mostly symbolic, doing things like designating national days of recognition. But an estimated 306 – 69% – were substantive, according to the Pew Research Center, including a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/25/a-productivity-scorecard-for-115th-congress/">$1.5 trillion tax cut and bipartisan measures on criminal justice reform, farm policy, the opioid crisis and sanctions on Russia</a>. </p>
<p>This places the 115th Congress on par with earlier sessions, which have passed <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/21/nothing-lame-about-this-lame-duck-116th-congress-had-busiest-post-election-session-in-recent-history/">an average of 311 substantive laws since 1989</a>.</p>
<h2>Policy is more than legislation</h2>
<p>The gridlock narrative focuses too narrowly on Congress and the bills it does or doesn’t pass. </p>
<p>Policy is the set of principles and goals that guide governmental decision-making. Congress may have the sole power to write new laws, but it does not have a monopoly on making policy.</p>
<p>Most obviously, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-an-executive-order-and-why-dont-presidents-use-them-all-the-time-150896">executive branch can shift policy through executive orders</a>, which <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-orders">averaged 36 per year under President Bush, 35 under President Obama and 55 under President Trump</a>. President Biden is already up to <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-orders">31 executive orders and counting</a>. The executive branch also uses less visible means to change policy, <a href="https://cei.org/sites/default/files/Wayne%20Crews%20-%20Mapping%20Washington%27s%20Lawlessness%202017.pdf">such as internal guidance memos, circulars, bulletins and other arcane directives</a>. </p>
<p>These policy initiatives fall outside the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/waynecrews/2015/07/12/congress-better-fix-regulatory-dark-matter/?sh=184268f97970">normal review processes, which require extensive notice and opportunities for public comment</a>. The Trump administration reportedly issued over <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/08/the-race-to-dismantle-trumps-immigration-policies">1,000 changes to immigration policy using these methods, helping to slash legal immigration to the United States by half</a>. </p>
<p>There are other avenues of policymaking that bypass the legislative process: </p>
<p>• Sometimes officials engage in “policy conversion,” which means <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4145310?seq=1">repurposing old laws to new ends</a>. In that way, the law stays the same, but the underlying policy sends it in different and sometimes surprising directions. For example, antitrust laws initially targeted business trusts, forbidding organizational practices “in restraint of trade.” Businesses convinced federal judges to apply this general ban to unions, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/advances-in-comparativehistorical-analysis/drift-and-conversion-hidden-faces-of-institutional-change/6484F82F28B944279F239F14722C07AF">directing the law to new targets</a>. Similar shifts of policy from guarding one set of interests to protecting another can be found in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12089">consumer protection law </a>, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801444173/disability-rights-and-the-american-social-safety-net/#bookTabs=1">disability policy</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/structuring-politics/ideas-and-the-politics-of-bounded-innovation/804C13C315DF5E8B1F1C5B80A81DEF82">social programs</a>.</p>
<p>• Sometimes Washington makes policy by doing nothing at all. President Biden’s COVID-19 relief package proposes to increase the minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2007. <a href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com">That $7.25 is now worth less than $6.00 due to inflation</a>. The fate of this provision remains uncertain. The House supports it, but a bipartisan group in the Senate has signaled its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/us/politics/biden-stimulus-senate-vote.html">opposition</a>. In this example, congressional inaction for over a decade effectively has cut the minimum wage by over 15% and will continue to chip away until a new law is passed. Scholars call this process “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-american-political-development/article/abs/political-effects-of-policy-drift-policy-stalemate-and-american-political-development/5C8D958E44A647C481D22B9AD87F6AC8">policy drift</a>” and argue it has been central to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4145310?seq=1">shrinking the functional size of the social safety net since the 1980s</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President Biden signing an executive order at his desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384527/original/file-20210216-15-19h1ea6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden signs executive orders related to immigration in the Oval Office, Feb. 2, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-signs-executive-orders-related-to-news-photo/1230936282?adppopup=true">Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Policy complexity, not gridlock</h2>
<p>The point is that policy can change in many ways, like a house. Most visibly, you can demolish a house and rebuild it. Often this is impractical, and it’s easier to add a new room. Less visibly, you can remodel, converting a basement or garage without changing the house from the outside. Most subtly, changing circumstances can diminish a house’s usefulness, as when when a starter home fails to keep pace with the needs of a growing family.</p>
<p>Given these dynamics, myopically focusing on Congress and its purported gridlock mischaracterizes the real risk of legislative stalemate, which is not policy paralysis. It is shifting power to bureaucrats and judges, who are less publicly accountable and engage in <a href="https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/kludgeocracy-in-america">more obscure and technical forms of policymaking</a>. </p>
<p>After decades of financial decline, the media has fewer reporters who can untangle policy intricacies. It often exacerbates the problem by <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo22723661.html">covering the conflict of the day</a> rather than detailing the less provocative-looking silent progress of behind-the-scenes policy change. </p>
<p>Tracking the often subterranean ways that policy is actually made is admittedly difficult, but it is essential for both holding policymakers accountable and appreciating the political system’s true capacity for change.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s election newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeb Barnes has received funding from the National Science Foundation and support from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation</span></em></p>The idea that Washington, DC is paralyzed by gridlock rests on half-truths about the legislative process and a basic misunderstanding of how contemporary policymaking works.Jeb Barnes, Professor of Political Science, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022492018-08-29T05:16:53Z2018-08-29T05:16:53ZOur new PM wants to ‘bust congestion’ – here are four ways he could do that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234000/original/file-20180829-86135-15mu49t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Building more roads will not help reduce congestion.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Road <a href="https://bitre.gov.au/publications/2015/is_074.aspx">congestion is costing Australia</a> more than an avoidable A$16 billion every year. This is set to almost double to A$30 billion by 2030. That’s why we have a new minister for cities and urban infrastructure, Alan Tudge, who says he’s looking forward to “congestion busting”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1033632068868091904"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s also why state election campaigns repeatedly focus on reducing congestion. The Victorian Labor government’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-28/melbourne-suburban-train-loop-promised-by-labor/10172184">recent announcement</a> of a plan to build “the biggest public transport project in Australian history” is a good example. </p>
<p>The proposed A$50 billion underground rail link will allow commuters to travel between suburbs without having to go into the city. And transport minister Jacinta Allan said it will take 200,000 cars off major roads.</p>
<p>While the project’s 2050 timeline is disappointing, this is a step in the right direction. If federal, state and local governments are <a href="https://theconversation.com/spills-and-city-deals-what-turnbulls-urban-policy-has-achieved-and-where-we-go-from-here-102184">serious about congestion</a>, the discussion must continue to move beyond our obsession with more roads. </p>
<p>Building more roads is not a long-term solution to solving congestion. Most new roads, and the temporary de-congestion they may bring, simply lure more people into their cars. Eventually congestion increases, except now with more cars on the road, further exacerbating the original problem.</p>
<p>Here are four alternative measures to “bust” congestion and improve our overall quality of life.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/traffic-congestion-is-there-a-miracle-cure-hint-its-not-roads-42753">Traffic congestion: is there a miracle cure? (Hint: it's not roads)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>1. Invest in mass, rapid, zero-emissions public transport</h2>
<p>This type of transport includes <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/Projects/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.dspPage&n_proj_id=4871">electric bus rapid transit</a>, where buses have dedicated roads and priority at intersections, and <a href="https://www.boringcompany.com/chicago/">high-speed, electric underground systems</a>, such as where passengers are transported in autonomous so-called “electric skates” that travel at over 200km/h.</p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/259707751" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">These high-speed, underground electric skates are an example of the kind of public transport governments should be investing in.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Australia has been sorely lacking investment in mass, rapid public transport over recent decades. But this is slowly changing with the announcements of future projects, including: <a href="https://www.sydneymetro.info/">Sydney Metro</a>, <a href="https://metrotunnel.vic.gov.au/">Melbourne Metro</a>, <a href="https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-transport/public-transport/brisbane-metro">Brisbane Metro</a>, the recent <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-28/melbourne-suburban-train-loop-promised-by-labor/10172184">Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop</a>, and <a href="https://www.crossriverrail.qld.gov.au/">Brisbane Cross River Rail</a></p>
<p>But much more effort is needed to ensure these projects are implemented quickly and expanded beyond inner-city suburbs. Peak-hour bus lanes should be introduced to provide congestion-free bus rapid transit routes to and from metro stations. </p>
<p>And these new projects must move towards zero-emission vehicles to reduce the 1,700 premature deaths <a href="https://energy.unimelb.edu.au/news-and-events/news/vehicle-emissions-cause-40-more-deaths-than-road-toll">caused every year</a> in Australia due to vehicle pollution - 40% more than in motor vehicle accidents.</p>
<h2>2. Enable public transport subscriptions</h2>
<p>The difference between public and private transport pricing in Australia is perverse. Those who own a car mainly pay a fixed upfront fee every year, no matter when or where they travel. </p>
<p>Ironically, the exact opposite is true for public transport users who are often charged more to travel during peak-hour traffic (see fares in <a href="https://translink.com.au/tickets-and-fares/fares-and-zones/current-fares">Queensland</a>, <a href="https://transportnsw.info/tickets-opal/opal/fares-payments/adult-fares">New South Wales</a>, and <a href="https://www.adelaidemetro.com.au/Tickets-fares/Fares">South Australia</a>), and have to pay for each individual trip, at a higher cost, the further they travel. This pricing structure effectively penalises commuters.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-many-people-make-a-good-city-its-not-the-size-that-matters-but-how-you-use-it-101102">How many people make a good city? It's not the size that matters, but how you use it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Enabling monthly and annual public transport tickets, with unlimited trips, would encourage commuters to use public transport more often, to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6435.1999.tb01443.x">get the best bang for their buck from their subscription ticket</a>.</p>
<p>Governments should also support integrating other transport services into these subscription tickets, including taxis, bike-sharing and even car hire. Such schemes have already been introduced overseas, including in the <a href="https://whimapp.com/uk/">UK</a> and <a href="https://nordic.businessinsider.com/this-finnish-startup-aims-to-seize-a-trillion-dollar-market-with-netflix-of-transportation--and-toyota-just-bought-into-it-with-10-million-2017-7/">Finland</a>, given their potential to reduce car ownership and <a href="https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/shared-mobility-simulations-helsinki.pdf">congestion</a> under the right <a href="https://imovecrc.com/news-articles/intelligent-transport-systems/governance-framework-smart-mobility-congestion/">policy settings</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Invest more in active transport</h2>
<p>Investment in dedicated active transport infrastructure, such as separated lanes, is paramount for encouraging active transport. It will also ensure the safety of pedestrians and cyclists, while minimising motor vehicle conflicts.</p>
<p>Additionally, the arrival of electric bikes, scooters, and skateboards, has opened up other modes of transport as a viable option for more Australians. These devices are particularly important for addressing the <a href="https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/9780784413210.007">“first and last mile transport problem”</a>, where commuters do not use public transport because stations are too far to walk to and/or from.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234017/original/file-20180829-86123-6og19u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Forms of active transport, such as electric scooters (these are in Washington DC), are becoming a viable alternative in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While there are challenges with <a href="http://acrs.org.au/files/papers/arsc/2015/DowlingR%20071%20Use%20of%20personal%20mobility%20devices%20for%20first%20and%20last%20mile%20travel.pdf">regulating some of these devices</a>, and ensuring they are safe to use, it is important governments invest in infrastructure - such as electric bike charging at public transport stations - to support their use in addressing the first and last mile problem.</p>
<h2>4. Introduce dynamic road pricing</h2>
<p>Finally, while public and active transport is crucial for reducing congestion, infrastructure to support these services comes at a cost. Most road taxes, such as annual registration fees, do not accurately reflect how and when car owners drive.</p>
<p>Is it fair for a pensioner who drives to the shops a couple of times a week, outside peak-hour, to pay the same fees as someone who drives to and from the city, every day, during peak-hour traffic? We need to progressively introduce cost-reflective road pricing, which is not simply focused on how far car owners drive, but on when, where and what they drive.</p>
<p>Road pricing should be used to disincentivise peak-hour, urban commuting to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X11001284">minimise congestion</a>, while raising revenue to fund both public and active transport alternatives, as well as <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/41488/">reduce tolls on roads that bypass city centres</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/city-wide-trial-shows-how-road-use-charges-can-reduce-traffic-jams-86324">City-wide trial shows how road use charges can reduce traffic jams</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One pathway forward could be a voluntary (low-fee) road pricing scheme for electric vehicle owners. This would be in exchange for waiving existing road taxes, such as registration, stamp duty, import duty and fuel excise. Such a scheme could initially act as an incentive to <a href="https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/the-future-is-electric-queensland-s-electric-vehicle-strategy/resource/7e352dc9-9afa-47ed-acce-2052cecfec8a">encourage the uptake</a> of this technology. </p>
<p>As electric vehicles become more affordable, the pricing scheme could be increased and expanded to the entire vehicle fleet, reducing <a href="https://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au/">emissions</a> and <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/projects/electricvehicles/about/compare">travel costs</a>, at the same time as minimising congestion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Jake Whitehead is a Research Fellow at The University of Queensland's School of Civil Engineering, and is the Director of Transmobility Consulting. He has received funding in the past to conduct research on congestion and road pricing schemes.</span></em></p>Busting congestion requires some creativity - and evidence-based methods. Here are four of these.Jake Whitehead, Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856412017-11-08T10:02:27Z2017-11-08T10:02:27ZThe world is in economic, political and environmental gridlock – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192064/original/file-20171026-13331-15k6sti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fitria Ramli/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Foa%26Mounk-27-3.pdf">crisis of contemporary democracy</a> has become a major subject of political science in recent years. Despite this, the symptoms of this crisis – the vote for Brexit and Trump, among others – were not foreseen. Nor were the underlying causes of this new constellation of politics.</p>
<p>Focusing on the internal development of national polities alone, as has typically been the trend in academia, does not help us unlock the deep drivers of change. It is only at the intersection of the national and international, of the nation-state and the global, that the real reasons can be found for the retreat to nationalism and authoritarianism.</p>
<p>In 2013, <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745662390.html">we argued</a> that the concept of “gridlock” is the key to understanding why we are at a crossroads in global politics. Gridlock, we contended, threatens the hold and reach of the post-World War II settlement and, alongside it, the principles of the democratic project and global cooperation. Four years on, we have published <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1509515712.html">a new book</a> exploring how we might tackle this situation.</p>
<p>But before we look into this, what exactly is gridlock?</p>
<h2>Gridlock</h2>
<p>The post-war institutions, put in place to create a peaceful and prosperous world order, established conditions under which a plethora of other social and economic processes associated with globalisation could thrive. This allowed interdependence to deepen as new countries joined the global economy, companies expanded multinationally, and once distant people and places found themselves increasingly — and, on average, beneficially — intertwined. </p>
<p>But the virtuous circle between deepening interdependence and expanding global governance could not last: it set in motion trends that ultimately undermined its effectiveness.</p>
<p>In the first instance, reaching agreement in international negotiations is made more complicated by the rise of new powers like India, China and Brazil, because a more diverse array of interests have to be hammered into agreement for any global deal to be made. On the one hand, multipolarity is a positive sign of development; on the other, it brings both more voices and interests to the table. These are hard to weave into coherent outcomes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192087/original/file-20171026-13355-1kc8rmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The General Debate of the 71st Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Golden Brown / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Next, the problems we are facing on a global scale have grown more complex, penetrating deep into domestic policies. Issues like climate change or the cross-border control of personal data deeply affect our daily lives. They are often extremely difficult to resolve. Multipolarity coincides with complexity, making negotiations tougher and harder.</p>
<p>In addition, the core multilateral institutions created 70 years ago, the UN Security Council for example, have proven resistant to adapting to the times. Established interests cling to outmoded decision-making rules that fail to reflect current conditions. </p>
<p>Finally, in many areas, transnational institutions, such as the <a href="https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/">Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria</a>, have proliferated with overlapping and contradictory mandates. This has created a confusing fragmentation of authority.</p>
<p>To manage the global economy, prevent runaway environmental destruction, reign in nuclear proliferation, or confront other global challenges, we must cooperate. But many of our tools for global policy making are breaking down or inadequate – chiefly, state-to-state negotiations over treaties and international institutions – at a time when our fates are acutely interwoven.</p>
<h2>Crisis of democracy</h2>
<p>Compounding these problems, gridlock today has set in motion a self-reinforcing element, which contributes to the crisis of democracy.</p>
<p>We face a multilateral, gridlocked system, as previously noted, that is less and less able to manage global challenges, even as growing interdependence increases our need for such management.</p>
<p>This has led to real and, in many cases, serious harm to major sectors of the global population, often creating complex and disruptive knock-on effects. Perhaps the most spectacular recent example was the 2008–9 <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/global-financial-crisis-447">global financial crisis</a>, which wrought havoc on the world economy in general, and on many countries in particular.</p>
<p>These developments have been a major impetus to significant political destabilisation. Rising <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/economic-inequality-15917">economic inequality</a>, a long-term trend in many economies, has been made more salient by the financial crisis. A stark political cleavage between those who have benefited from the globalisation, digitisation, and automation of the economy, and those who feel left behind, including many working-class voters in industrialised countries, has been reinforced. This division is particularly acute in spatial terms: in the schism between global cities and their hinterlands. </p>
<p>The financial crisis is only one area where gridlock has undercut the management of global challenges. For example, the failure to manage terrorism, and to bring to an end the wars in the Middle East more generally, have also had a particularly destructive impact on the global governance of migration. With <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/refugee-crisis-20183">millions of refugees</a> fleeing their homelands, many recipient countries have experienced a potent political backlash from right-wing national groups and disgruntled populations. </p>
<p>This further reduces the ability of countries to generate effective solutions to problems at the regional and global level. The resulting erosion of global cooperation is the fourth and final element of self-reinforcing gridlock, starting the whole cycle anew.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192080/original/file-20171026-13315-hysy1t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The vicious gridlock cycle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beyond Gridlock</h2>
<p>Modern democracy was supported by the post-World War II institutional breakthroughs that provided the momentum for decades of sustained economic growth and geopolitical stability, even though there were, of course, proxy wars fought out in the Global South. But what worked then does not work now. Gridlock freezes problem-solving capacity in global politics. This has engendered a crisis of democracy, as the politics of compromise and accommodation gives way to populism and authoritarianism. </p>
<p>While this remains a trend which is not yet set in stone, it is a dangerous development.</p>
<p>In our new book, <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1509515712.html">Beyond Gridlock</a>, we explore these dynamics at much greater length as well as how we might begin to move through and beyond gridlock. While there are no easy solutions, this does not mean there are no ways forward. There are some systematic means to avoid or resist these forces and turn them into collective solutions.</p>
<p>Different actors and agencies are devising new ways to solve global challenges, be it <a href="https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/">philanthropies teaming up with governments to tackle disease</a>, <a href="http://www.c40.org/">cities teaming up</a> across borders to fight climate change, or local communities <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/how-sanctuary-cities-are-plotting-to-resist-trump-w453239">taking in migrants</a>. Ambitious agreements like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/paris-agreement-23382">Paris Agreement</a> or the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/un-sustainable-development-goals-11649">UN Sustainable Development Goals</a> point toward common projects. And <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/26/profound-transformation-macron-lays-out-vision-for-post-brexit-eu">in some countries</a>, politicians are even winning elections by promising greater cooperation on shared challenges.</p>
<p>If we succeed in building a better global governance in the future, we will sap a key impetus behind the new nationalism. If we fail, we fuel the nationalist fire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research that underpinned the work in Beyond Gridlock was funded by the Global Challenges Foundation (Sweden) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Global Challenges Foundation supported two workshops that helped produce our book Beyond Gridlock. </span></em></p>How can we sort out the crisis of contemporary democracy?David Held, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Durham UniversityThomas Hale, Associate Professor in Public Policy, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453532015-08-07T05:29:20Z2015-08-07T05:29:20ZCity transport needs saving from itself – here’s how to do it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90481/original/image-20150731-17135-14vf3ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Clemens v. Vogelsang/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cities are growing rapidly. According to UN estimates, the <a href="http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/swm_cities_zaragoza_2010/pdf/facts_and_figures_long_final_eng.pdf">world’s urban population grows by two people</a> every second, 7,200 every hour. This means that within two decades, nearly 60% of the world’s population – five billion people – will be city dwellers. In Europe, this figure is already higher – <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Statistics_on_European_cities">four out of five people</a> (80%) live in cities.</p>
<p>Rapid urbanisation comes with a series of challenges and opportunities for cities. For example, urban areas are responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions and <a href="http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/swm_cities_zaragoza_2010/pdf/facts_and_figures_long_final_eng.pdf">consume three-quarters of the world’s resources</a>. But there are ways cities can address these and other challenges in an integrated way providing safety, security, good quality of life and environmental sustainability.</p>
<p>To do this we must make cities “smart”, by using computer systems and the internet to better balance demand for things like energy, transport and waste management with secure and reliable supply. This will increase the resilience of our infrastructure to both man-made and natural disasters, and reduces cities’ ecological footprint.</p>
<h2>Cars as batteries</h2>
<p>Already cities are electrifying their mobility services, with electric cars gaining popularity alongside the electrification of rail networks, trams and bus routes. This reduces transport emissions – a major cause of air pollution in cities, but which also has an impact on the grid. The challenge is to integrate them.</p>
<p>Some <a href="http://w3.usa.siemens.com/powerdistribution/us/en/product-portfolio/electricvehicle/versicharge/Pages/ResidentialSG.aspx">smart phone apps</a> already do this in a way, allowing drivers to schedule the charging of their electric vehicles (EVs) at night when electricity is cheaper. But through smart grid technologies, cities are moving towards dynamic demand responsive charging, where EVs are automatically charged at times when electricity demand is lowest or when <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239317/ultra-low-emission-vehicle-strategy.pdf">excess renewable energy is available</a>. Smart grids can match charging patterns to the intermittency of renewables such as wind and solar.</p>
<p>Ultimately, EVs could be used as a back-up power supply for our homes during peak times or in emergencies. What’s more, old EV batteries could be reused as back-up to meet short-term peak demand in other systems – for example anaerobic digesters (which break down organic waste to produce biogas) or other energy technologies that otherwise would <a href="http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sustainability/funding/secondlifebatteries.htm">require costly upgrades to connect to the grid</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90482/original/image-20150731-17172-1r5utid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Complex intelligence needed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gaellery/2280539366/in/photolist-4twmUf-p2EA2N-4xKD3c-qixk9G-ux23uj-64RF79-638r5y-zdtLV-pkP9Rq-purhv2-7U6DTe-o1cAuj-3HYuJr-7XAyWd-4eywz9-bf26Mn-f3uhBW-evEVxG-jwBjrb-o5XGrU-h7ZnxK-aFkUV5-e1CVma-6fThcC-rKwVn9-m6TcQp-hQWjZy-bejzdX-6kdRMF-j7aLoX-azc2Xr-dXW1zi-7JLWV-dadwuc-nQhXJA-pxZ97M-jQPfea-3KzUGb-4pnmSC-8P9D6K-9dGC5B-9jyCF7-amQ9fh-dhdxan-eZD2f3-dhPaxU-dYV4XH-cbHBBj-vo5TaU-ier9H3">Gaellery/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many <a href="http://time.com/3769773/traffic-congestion-tomtom-survey/">cities are grid-locked</a> and are struggling to address congestion on their roads and rail networks. To increase capacity, we have a choice between expanding our existing infrastructure, or to use it more intelligently. Instead of infrastructure upgrades that take decades to plan, smart cities use high-speed internet access and sensors to inform, manage, and nudge individuals and freight operators to optimise their journeys.</p>
<p>A trial from the EU-funded <a href="http://www.compass4d.eu/">Compass4D project</a> equipped key routes in seven EU cities with intelligent traffic lights that provide speed advice to drivers that cross them. This allows the drivers to receive information on a sat nav on how fast to drive in order to get through a series of green traffic lights. It reduces fuel consumption and helps the driver adopt an eco-driving style, reducing emissions in congested urban areas. Early results from the trial show that the use of Compass4D yielded improvements in average journey times, speeds, time spent stationary and power consumption.</p>
<h2>Smarter traffic control</h2>
<p>The same technology can be used to give priority at intersections for certain vehicle types, such as emergency vehicles to allow them to reach an incident more quickly. Similarly, delayed buses could be given priority at smart intersections, making public transport more reliable and attractive to commuters. Estimates have shown that implementing this technology along all bus priority routes in the northeast of England (approximately 65km of road) would cost the same as laying 200 metres of new asphalt.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this technology could be used to better manage the movement of freight vehicles within urban areas. Trucks could be platooned together and drive autonomously in a convoy or they could be given priority on roads designated as freight corridors, making logistics operations both more energy efficient and reliable.</p>
<p>There are a wide variety of benefits to smart cities but to take full advantage of them they need to be tested at scale and within different contexts as not all cities are the same. They require thinking differently about how we live in cities and improving our understanding of the interaction between cities’ energy, water, transport, waste and digital control systems.</p>
<p>Smart cities are not without risks. The scale and complexity of these urban networks coupled with their ever growing interdependencies could also potentially increase vulnerabilities to climate change and terrorist threats. But the opportunities for managing cities in a more efficient and cost-effective manner are simply too great to not be taken up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne Huebner receives funding from the European Commission, EPSRC, UK Government and Innovate UK.</span></em></p>Worldwide, everyone’s moving to the city - we need to work smart to stay moving and avoid global gridlock.Yvonne Huebner, Science central inward investment manager, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/390112015-03-26T10:29:39Z2015-03-26T10:29:39ZFilibusters make for strange bedfellows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75717/original/image-20150323-17716-1yfe9yz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress in 2009 </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Obama_Health_Care_Speech_to_Joint_Session_of_Congress.jpg">Lawrence Jackson </a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>American humorist Will Rogers once quipped, “This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.” </p>
<p>Today the “hammer” seems to be the Congressional filibuster even though Congress doesn’t seem to exactly know what to do with this tool and often appears to be aiming for the foot.</p>
<p>Leaders, typically in the majority, complain about the filibuster – until they, having moved into the minority, seek to use it. </p>
<h2>Strange bedfellows seek to end filibusters</h2>
<p>The Senate’s use of the filibuster has played a critical role for more than 200 years. Time and again it has been used to protect the privileges of the minority, particularly the rights to debate and to offer amendments. Democracy, after all, requires a balancing of majority rule with the protection of the rights of the minority.</p>
<p>However, last month President Obama <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/obama-end-routine-filibuster-115019.html">declared</a> that the use of the filibuster in the Senate “almost ensures greater gridlock and less clarity in terms of the positions of the parties.” He added, “There’s nothing in the Constitution that requires it.” </p>
<p>Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy seemed to jump into bed with the president when on NBC’s Meet the Press he <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/house-majority-leader-senate-should-change-filibuster-rules-n315171">called on</a> Senate Republicans to invoke the “nuclear option” to sweep away the filibuster. This would allow the majority to control the Senate much as is done in the House where debate and amendments are tightly restricted. </p>
<p>Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer has demanded the abolition of the filibuster altogether, writing in the National Review: “Goodbye moderation and sweet reason. No more clinging to constitutional and procedural restraint. It’s time to go nuclear” and brush away the filibuster. </p>
<p>Senators from both parties, ranging from Democrat Elizabeth Warren to Republican Richard Shelby, have called for sweeping reforms and/or elimination of the filibuster.</p>
<h2>Senate remains in gridlock</h2>
<p>Republicans now control both houses of the 114th Congress. Yet the Senate still displays the kind of gridlock which characterized it during the Democratic-controlled 112th and 113th Congresses.</p>
<p>Back then, Senate Democrats and many observers blamed this gridlock on Republican abuse of the filibuster rules. Critics pointed to the 368 cloture votes required in those Congresses as evidence of Republican obstruction of the majority agenda. (Cloture votes are used by the majority to cut off debate and thus end a filibuster. A supermajority of 60 votes is necessary.) </p>
<h2>The use of the nuclear option</h2>
<p>Republicans and their allies bitterly criticized then-Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Democratic caucus for their legislative tactics. They objected to his use of a parliamentary procedure known as “filling the amendment tree” to block Republicans from offering amendments on the Senate floor. </p>
<p>They were most offended, however, by Reid’s use of the “nuclear option,” a controversial parliamentary slight-of-hand which allowed a simple majority (made up entirely of Democrats) to change the way the Senate’s cloture rule was interpreted. </p>
<p>By overturning a ruling by the Senate’s presiding officer, the Democrats changed the interpretation of its rule requiring a 3/5th supermajority of the Senate to a simple majority to end debate on presidential nominations (except for the Supreme Court). This became known as the “nuclear option.” </p>
<p>Frustrated by repeated and unjustified filibusters of President Obama’s judicial nominations, Democrats adopted this tragically flawed means to reach seemingly reasonable ends – although I believe those ends to be <a href="http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/10/should-seats-on-the-supreme-court-be-left-to-the-presidents-party-alone/">misguided</a>. Thus, Democrats have now established the principle that a simple majority in the Senate can change any rule at any time.</p>
<p>Many Republicans vowed to reverse the nuclear option to restore the filibuster so as to avoid presidents stacking the courts when the president’s party has a majority in the Senate. Now that Republicans are the majority, they have apparently lost interest in doing so.</p>
<h2>Democrats have rediscovered the filibuster</h2>
<p>Democrats, who were understandably outraged by Republican overuse of the filibuster, have now themselves filibustered much of the legislation which the Republican leadership has brought to the Senate floor. They have thus forced a series of cloture votes as the Republican leadership has sought to cut off debate and end those filibusters. </p>
<p>Since convening on January 6, the Senate has already held 17 cloture votes. Democrats used the filibuster to delay passage of the Keystone Pipeline bill and forced an unprecedented cloture vote on the override of President Obama’s veto of that bill. Ending the filibuster would only take 60 votes, but overriding the president’s veto would take even more, 67. </p>
<p>A threatened filibuster was used to force Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to back down from his plans to have the Senate consider legislation to require congressional review of any comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran. Democrats have even blocked cloture on the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act in a battle over abortion language in that bill. </p>
<p>Perhaps most noteworthy, Democrats used the filibuster to force Republicans to strip language from the Homeland Security appropriations bill that had been designed to block President Obama’s executive orders protecting more than five million undocumented immigrants from deportation.</p>
<h2>Keep the nuclear option changes</h2>
<p>Many conservative leaders, taking the same position as many progressive organizations, <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/conservatives-dont-bring-back-filibuster/article/2555816">oppose</a> restoring the filibuster rule regarding nominations to its pre-nuclear option status. This would re-establish the requirement for 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to end a filibuster on nominations. </p>
<p>Some Senate Republicans, including Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, simply want to hang on to the advantages which the Democrats seized with the nuclear option when they were the majority. </p>
<p>Hatch argued in a Wall Street Journal <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/orrin-g-hatch-and-c-boyden-gray-after-harry-reid-the-gop-shouldnt-unilaterally-disarm-1415232867">op-ed</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The nuclear option allowed President Obama and his allies to reshape the judicial branch dramatically to suit their far-left agenda… It will fall to the next Republican president to counteract President Obama’s aggressive efforts to stack the federal courts in favor of his party’s ideological agenda. But achieving such balance would be made all the more difficult — if not impossible — if Republicans choose to reinstate the previous filibuster rule now that the damage to the nation’s judiciary has already been done.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Both sides change their positions</h2>
<p>Two years ago as Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid launched the nuclear option, Krauthammer had a different position. At that time, he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/abolish-the-filibuster/2015/02/19/ca7d30d2-b86b-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html">complained,</a> “If a bare majority can change the fundamental rules that govern an institution, then there are no rules.” </p>
<p>Reid himself, just five years before invoking the nuclear option, decried the Republicans’ 2005 flirtation with this course of action, unequivocally declaring, “What the Republicans came up with was a way to change the country forever.” He went on to promise that the nuclear option would not be used, “as long as I am the leader…” He called the Republican threat to use it, “a black chapter in the history of the Senate” and declared he believed it would “ruin our country.”</p>
<p>Krauthammer and Reid are hardly alone in leaping from one side to the other on this issue. Then-senator Obama, on the Senate floor in 2005, declared, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The American people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and the gridlock will only get worse.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Majority Leader McCarthy, too, has shown great “flexibility.” He called Senator Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster “fantastic.” </p>
<h2>Switching positions</h2>
<p>On this issue consistency is hard to find. </p>
<p>Among those standing up in defense of the Senate filibuster are former Senators Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican. Arizona Republican Senator John McCain has been steadfast. During the 2005 battle, he and Snowe broke with Republicans calling for the nuclear option and both were among the “Gang of 14,” a bipartisan group of senators who fashioned a compromise to end the crisis. </p>
<p>In July 2013, McCain and Levin designed yet another bipartisan compromise to avoid the nuclear option. Democractic Senator Chuck Schumer <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/nuclear-option-averted-senators-strike-tentative-deal-to-confirm-nominees-without-reforming-filibuster">hailed </a>the agreement saying, “Senator McCain frankly initiated these calls because he was so eager to avoid having a blow up on the rules.” Schumer compared the prospect of a one-party rules change to “Armageddon.” </p>
<p>Four months later the Senate experienced that “Armageddon.” </p>
<p>Now some in McCain’s own party want to keep the changes brought about by the nuclear option to benefit their party by allowing a future Republican president to place his judicial nominees on the federal courts for life with only the support of his/her own majority in the Senate. Some others want to go farther and include Supreme Court nominees. Still others would like to eliminate the filibuster entirely, even for legislative matters.</p>
<p>McCain, however, has stood firm.</p>
<p><a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/226398-republicans-clash-on-reversing-nuke-option">Asked </a>whether Republicans now in the majority should reverse the effects of the nuclear option, he declared, “I think it’s rank hypocrisy if we don’t… If we don’t, then disregard every bit of complaint that we made, not only after they did it but also during the campaign.” </p>
<p>He added, “I’m stunned that some people want to keep it.” </p>
<h2>What’s at stake</h2>
<p>It is critical to end the procedural firefight which can only lead to more extreme partisanship and gridlock. Each party should examine its own behavior and resist the temptation to escalate.</p>
<p>Like Senator McCain, I hope the Republicans will reverse the current inexplicable misinterpretation of the filibuster rules and avoid the near inevitable consequences, the eventual use of the nuclear option to eliminate filibusters. This would enable the Senate’s majority to run the Senate much as the majority controls the House of Representatives. </p>
<p>In these times of polarized partisan warfare in the Congress, it will be difficult but all the more important that senators in the majority defend the rules that protect minority rights and that senators in the minority avoid further abusing the filibuster.</p>
<p>One party rewiring the rules by simple majority fiat does not reduce partisanship, it exacerbates it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Arenberg has in the past received funding from the Dirksen Congressional Center. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Social Security Works and the Board of Directors of the Social Security Works Education Fund. He is a Senior Congressional Fellow at the Stennis Center for Public Service Leadership.</span></em></p>When Republicans took over Congress, many observers predicted a goodbye to gridlock. Not so fast, however. Politicians say they hate filibusters – until they want to use them.Richard A. Arenberg, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Political Science, Brown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328542014-11-11T10:47:44Z2014-11-11T10:47:44ZBlame government for political gridlock? Try looking closer to home<p>Now that Capitol Hill has turned red, the debate has turned to whether this will increase gridlock or not. </p>
<p>Certainly from the perspective of the President it will. He can expect vastly more difficulty doing those things, in particular, that depended on the lone scrutiny of the Senate, such as confirming judicial appointees.</p>
<p>From the Republicans’ perspective there may be a reduction in gridlock. The impediments to the implementation of their policy agenda have been reduced – albeit not wholly eliminated thanks to the power of the presidential veto. </p>
<p>As for the perspective of We the People, it seems that we are unable to make a consistent collective decision about whose party program we want to enact into law. After all, we – our divided and polarized society – just elected all these Republican senators. We have only ourselves to blame if they just make matters worse. </p>
<p>And perhaps those of us on the left, who would be expected to support the president and bemoan the Republican Senate, would prefer a little bit more gridlock. Two days after the midterm elections a one-page story in the Wall Street Journal announced that President Obama and Senator McConnell expected to be able to work together on at least one thing: the reauthorization of more military force in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Yet politically engaged citizens - from both sides of the partisan fence - often bemoan gridlock in the American government. The political system, as they see it, simply makes it too hard to get anything done.</p>
<h2>One gridlock narrative</h2>
<p>Consider the outlook for a left-leaning advocate of health care reform. The Democrats first tried to do something about this back in the Clinton administration, but were rebuffed by Republicans in Congress. </p>
<p>Then, President Obama managed to enact the Affordable Care Act, but was forced by opposition to include a number of compromises that undermined the goal of making health care accessible to all Americans. </p>
<p>First, single-payer health care was off the table. This meant government could not act as the sole primary insurer, as is the case in so many of our other liberal democracies such as Canada and the UK. </p>
<p>Shortly thereafter the “public option,” a provision that could have allowed citizens to select a government insurer in competition with private insurers, was also dropped. </p>
<p>Even when the President managed to push the bill, limping and bleeding from countless wounds, through Congress, there was one branch of the federal government that had not yet had a crack at it. Accordingly, opponents of the legislation immediately started filing lawsuit after lawsuit. </p>
<p>First, they challenged the individual mandate, the requirement that people actually get health insurance. This aspect of the policy was designed to eliminate an economic problem called “adverse selection,” which is what happens when only the sickest and most expensive to insure actually buy policies. </p>
<p>Individual mandate was attacked on the grounds that the federal government lacked the authority to make people buy health insurance. The challengers <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf">lost that one</a>, if barely, thanks to a surprise vote by Republican-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts. </p>
<p>The bill was less lucky in a challenge brought in the same case against the Medicaid expansion, which provided states with funding to expand health coverage for the poor in exchange for requiring them to do so. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court, in a party-line vote, <a href="http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/a-guide-to-the-supreme-courts-decision/">held</a> that Congress lacked the authority to do that, permitting states to refuse the money and the expansion and undermining the administration’s attempt to create a uniform national system of health care access. </p>
<p>Next they went after the employer requirements, and we now have yet another party-line Supreme Court ruling that it violates the religious liberty of a crafting conglomerate named <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/03/25/294385167/birth-control-mandate-goes-under-high-court-microscope">Hobby Lobby</a> to require it to pay the premiums for an insurance plan that allows the women they employ to acquire contraception. </p>
<p>To our hypothetical left-leaning health care activist, all this might look like an indictment of our system of government. Political scientists speak of “veto points”, the places in our policymaking structure at which an initiative can be brought to a screeching halt. </p>
<p>And the US Constitution does have rather a lot of them, located everywhere from Congressional committees to the Oval Office, the Supreme Court, and the bureaucracy. </p>
<h2>Not always greener in other political systems</h2>
<p>By contrast, parliamentary systems like those of the UK, in which the legislative and executive powers are controlled by the same party, seem to supply much more policy flexibility. Our government seems to be too gridlocked to actually pass needed reforms.</p>
<p>Some, however, disagree with this diagnosis. They point out, for example, that Democrats in Congress did as much as the Republicans did to kill the Clinton healthcare bill. </p>
<p>European parliamentary systems are also plagued by gridlock, particularly in multi-party states where no party or coalition can get a working majority, as happened, for example, last spring in Italy. Typically in parliamentary systems this gets resolved by the blunt instrument of holding a new election. </p>
<p>The culprit of our current gridlock, on this account, is not the structure of our government but the polarization of our ideologies. </p>
<p>Moreover, the American government seems to have produced a number of staggeringly ambitious policy initiatives through its history: consider the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror – to say nothing of the numerous actual wars we’ve waged over the centuries. </p>
<h2>Too much government?</h2>
<p>And for all those who decry the way that gridlock keeps the government from getting anything done, there seem to be just as many who decry the rise of uncontrollable government power. </p>
<p>For example, many are of the opinion that the executive branch has arrogated excessive power to itself and located it in democratically unaccountable agencies which do everything from pervasive industrial regulation to operating secret domestic spying programs. </p>
<p>What all this suggests is that government is a double-edged sword. There is, doubtless, a bare minimum of government capacity that a state needs to survive. </p>
<p>A state that so badly lacks the tools of governing that it cannot provide basic public goods like military defense, or a rudimentary legal system, to its people is not long for this earth – as Francis Fukuyama <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/opinion/sunday/thomas-l-friedman-isis-boko-haram-and-batman.html?referrer=">was recently quoted</a> as suggesting with respect to ISIS. </p>
<p>The Framers of the US Constitution famously thought that the initial Articles of Confederation drafted in Philadelphia in 1776-7 deprived the government of those minimum capacities through, for example, its failure to make any provision for federal taxation. </p>
<p>Beyond that minimum, we can tinker with the structure and procedure of government, and, in doing so, either increase its capacity to enact good things (like laws to improve public access to health care), but only at the price of also increasing its capacity to enact bad things (like regulations to create secret “no-fly” lists and a pariah-class of American travelers). </p>
<h2>Time for a bit of self-criticism</h2>
<p>It seems to me that the real answer to both gridlock and governmental self-aggrandization lies in the relationship between the people and their state. For both of those problems are, in part, what economists call “principal-agent problems” – only if the people are unable, or unwilling, to adequately control their state will it be able to enact bad laws and unable to enact good ones. </p>
<p>The right institutional prescription for our government, then, is for structures to promote greater democratic accountability, including structures to give individual voices a real chance of making a political difference. </p>
<p>Proposals being floated around academia, such as for various kinds of citizen juries selected to deliberate on public policy, seem promising in this respect.</p>
<p>Of course, greater democratic accountability only works if the people are both competent and well-disposed. Americans must learn how to distinguish good policies from bad, and must develop the virtuous dispositions necessary to, for example, protect minority rights and resist the urge to hysterical scapegoating of the sort that was directed against Muslims after 9-11. </p>
<p>We must learn to critically evaluate the arguments of our media and our leaders, and to enter politics with open-mindedness rather than blind ideological affiliation. </p>
<p>The government can help in these tasks, of course, such as through education, but the point remains: reforms to the government will do us no good unless they also come paired with reforms to ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Gowder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Now that Capitol Hill has turned red, the debate has turned to whether this will increase gridlock or not. Certainly from the perspective of the President it will. He can expect vastly more difficulty…Paul Gowder, Associate Professor, University of IowaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338222014-11-05T06:02:34Z2014-11-05T06:02:34ZGOP: united against Obama, divided on American foreign policy<p>The midterm elections have come and gone. After months of speculation, the results were largely predictable. The Republicans solidified their position in the House and took the Senate. A sixth year president’s political party has suffered a defeat, and we have moved to a situation of even more starkly divided government. </p>
<p>The Republicans are understandably buoyed by control of both parts of Congress and enthusiastic about their prospects for the 2016 presidential election. President Obama will spend the next two years relying to a greater degree on Executive Orders and his capacity to veto in what will largely be a rearguard political action. </p>
<p>And in case you didn’t think it was possible, the Republican criticism of his presidency will grow even more voluminous despite his offer to work with the new Congress. </p>
<p>The congressional Democratic leadership, in contrast, have a terrible choice: they will either become relatively mute presidential cheerleaders or will vocally blame their misfortune on the president, risking a fissure within the party and of isolating themselves even further from the halls of power. Aficionados of the show The West Wing have seen this script before.</p>
<p>The main battleground will likely be over domestic issues: economic ones such as the budget, taxation and welfare, and social issues such as reproductive rights and immigration reform. It is a perfect scenario for legislative paralysis.</p>
<p>So what about the foreign policy issues that have preoccupied Washington in the last few months – from Russia to “Syrac” and Ebola? How will the new Congressional configuration influence the President’s strategy in the aftermath of the election?</p>
<h2>What ‘water’s edge’?</h2>
<p>In 1948, as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Senator <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Featured_Bio_Vandenberg.htm">Arthur Vandenberg</a> coined the phrase “politics stops at the water’s edge.” The sentiment was that, while domestic politics may vehemently divide Americans, we thought about foreign policy issues rather differently. Vandenberg was referring to the creation of NATO at the time, an organization that has served America’s national security interests well. In the period after World War Two, suggested Vandenberg, the traditional wrangling about partisan party interests clearly had no place.</p>
<p>Becoming a well-worn cliché, Vandenberg’s quote was perennially invoked for much of the remainder of the twentieth century when it came to negotiations between presidents and the congressional leadership over foreign policy. Foreign policy was regarded as bi-partisan, as sacrosanct. Yes, there were major exceptions. Indeed, by the end of his term as presidency, Vandenberg’s Republican colleagues berated Harry Truman for his ambitious foreign policy. Over a decade later, Americans were deeply divided over the Vietnam War and debates were seeped in party politics. </p>
<p>Yet, the truce often held. And faced with a threat, consensus (if not unanimity) has still been the most routine response. Congress supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with little more than a whimper. Although on a far smaller scale, and with only the flimsiest of threats, the same was true of the invasions of President George H W Bush’s invasion of Panama and Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada. </p>
<p>But the ethos of bi-partisanship in foreign policy truly began to ebb away with Republican criticism of Bill Clinton’s efforts at intervention in the Bosnian war and has largely been abandoned during the Obama Presidency. There have been few Republican voices in support of the president on any foreign policy issue. Hawks among their ranks, like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have characterized the president as timid and hesitant. Isolationists describe him as too deferential to foreign governments and the United Nations.</p>
<p>So ironically, for three reasons, Tuesday’s results will change very little when it comes to foreign policy.</p>
<h2>Gridlock in the White House’s favor on foreign policy</h2>
<p>First, the president has much more latitude when it comes to foreign policy than domestic politics. Congressional refusal to declare war in Iraq and Syria may be addressed in a lame duck session. And criticism of the intervention, and the lack of a formal vote, will certainly grow if things go alarmingly wrong. But presidents have found the means to by-pass congressional disapproval in the past and Obama will be no different on that score.</p>
<p>Second, Republicans have learned to oppose the president as a matter of principle. But they have no unified position on any of the major foreign policy issues. They are divided on what to do about the big issues like Russia or the Islamic State. They generally don’t care about the small ones as long as they are seen as patriotic. The only thing that unites them is, their criticism of the president. </p>
<p>And finally, the only place where they can really hit the president hard is in the President’s wallet – in this case in the military’s budget. Yet the sequestration process initiated in 2013 has had very little effect on the nation’s military expenditure. The Pentagon’s base budget was cut by <a href="https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2014/sequestration-impact-on-military-spending-2013-2014/">an estimated $37.2 billion</a> in 2013 (about 5.7%) and is forecast to remain flat this year. But these figures obscure rather than reveal the truth: off-budget loopholes, including congressionally approved funds for wars, largely mitigate the effects of these cuts. Looking ahead, the Republicans are traditionally wedded to their identity as the party of strong national security policy. And so even though a few Republican voices might call for greater and more effective cuts, most within the party are unlikely to regard that as a winning strategy in the run up to the 2016 elections.</p>
<p>So Vandenberg’s bi-partisanship may be a thing of the past. But continuity rather than change is the most likely scenario for the next two years. The new Republican Congress will be frustrated in its efforts to stymie presidential initiatives in foreign policy, and the president will be frustrated in his attempts to reason with the new Congress. </p>
<p>Many things may change. But if history is any guide, when it comes to foreign policy, gridlock will favor the president.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The midterm elections have come and gone. After months of speculation, the results were largely predictable. The Republicans solidified their position in the House and took the Senate. A sixth year president’s…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.