Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign by Frances E. Lee (PDF)

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As Democrats and Republicans continue to vie for political advantage, Congress remains paralyzed by partisan conflict. That the last two decades have seen some of the least productive Congresses in recent history is usually explained by the growing ideological gulf between the parties, but this explanation misses another fundamental factor influencing the dynamic. In contrast to politics through most of the twentieth century, the contemporary Democratic and Republican parties compete for control of Congress at relative parity, and this has dramatically changed the parties’ incentives and strategies in ways that have driven the contentious partisanship characteristic of contemporary American politics. With Insecure Majorities, Frances E. Lee offers a controversial new perspective on the rise of congressional party conflict, showing how the shift in competitive circumstances has had a profound impact on how Democrats and Republicans interact. For nearly half a century, Democrats were the majority party, usually maintaining control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate. Republicans did not stand much chance of winning majority status, and Democrats could not conceive of losing it. Under such uncompetitive conditions, scant collective action was exerted by either party toward building or preserving a majority. Beginning in the 1980s, that changed, and most elections since have offered the prospect of a change of party control. Lee shows, through an impressive range of interviews and analysis, how competition for control of the government drives members of both parties to participate in actions that promote their own party’s image and undercut that of the opposition, including the perpetual hunt for issues that can score political points by putting the opposing party on the wrong side of public opinion. More often than not, this strategy stands in the way of productive bipartisan cooperation—and it is also unlikely to change as long as control of the government remains within reach for both parties.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “With Insecure Majorities, Lee explores one of the most important questions for understanding American national politics today: how can we explain the emergence of the highly partisan contemporary Congress? With creativity and analytical rigor, she offers a compelling alternative to the conventional wisdom that increased ideological polarization has driven the conflict between the congressional parties. Lee argues instead that the ‘struggle for institutional power’ increases incentives for highly partisan behavior and lowers incentives for legislating solutions.” — Sarah Binder, George Washington University and the Brookings Institution“Insecure Majorities is a major contribution to our understanding of Congress and American national politics. Lee marshals an impressive array of evidence to convincingly argue that increasing ideological distance between the parties is not the only—or even the most important—factor driving the increased partisan conflict and changes in party strategy we have seen over the past three decades. Her cogent, engaging account of the nature of contemporary partisan conflict in Congress will be widely read and discussed beyond the field.” — Tracy Sulkin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign”I have great admiration for what Frances Lee has accomplished in Insecure Majorities. Her stimulating arguments and rich data will spark considerable theoretical debate and scholarly probing, as witnessed in my response here. Insecure Majorities is a landmark study that will provoke scholarly debate for years to come.” ― Congress & the Presidency”Frances Lee has published another tour de force. Building upon her argument in Beyond Ideology (2009) (and the other literature from the last few years surrounding it), she adds an important wrinkle into the current divide between the parties in Congress. . . . Lee marshals compelling evidence at the macro level to show how insecure majorities make governing exceedingly difficult.” ― Perspectives on Politics About the Author Frances E. Lee is professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. Her previous books include Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign and Beyond Ideology: Politics, Principles and Partisanship in the U.S. Senate

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I lived through the era covered by the book and considered myself fairly sophisticated and well-informed about political matters. I have retained my optimism and hope for good government, but I found this book eye-opening and overall discouraging. The research was impressive and the central thesis convincing. Perhaps best of all, in contrast to the tenor of much current writing, it was itself very nonpartisan, taking equal shots at both the Democrats and the Republicans.Surprisingly, given the argument presented and the damage it does to any optimism about better governing, the book was also highly entertaining, one of those books where I was frequently interrupting my husband’s own reading with some shocking or amusing factoid or quote, like when I learned that staffers sometimes track how much time senators from each of the parties have consumed on the floor and provide the metrics at the party’s weekly lunches. As Sen. John Cornyn said, “We’re a competitive lot, so when you tell Republican senators that we’re being out-spoken by Democrats, it gets them going.” I thought they just competed about things like taxes and policy! I also laughed at the quote from Rep. John Boehner, “What is the job of [a] Republican leader in the minority? It’s to hold the job for as short a time as possible.” Not all the good quotes are from politicians. Here is a sad-but-true one from economist J K Galbraith, “Politics is not the art of the possible. It consist in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”Although this book is primarily about the U.S. Congress, I know some people in my state legislature who have complained about a decline in bipartisanship at the state level, and I can easily believe the results of the analysis in the chapter on state legislatures. What a shame.I was very sorry that this book was written before the 2016 and 2020 elections and was left wondering what a revised edition would contain. It certainly remains valid today, and I recommend it highly.WARNING: This is a scholarly book, and there is a lot of good but sophisticated data analysis in this book. It is great stuff if you are so inclined, but you can skim/skip the presentation and still enjoy and learn a lot from the book. Don’t let it intimidate you.

⭐This is a topic never discussed on the TV news but at the core of the challenges we face in our reprentarive democracy. Worth the read if you’re a political science hack or just frustrated by the intransigence we face in Congress.

⭐This book gives an awesome explanation of how our political parties have gone to war in Congress. They have created massive propaganda machines and polarized the public. A top notch work of political science.

⭐Lee’s book is one of the best ever written on Congress and helps explain why politics is prioritized over governance in Washington.

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