Setting the Agenda

Gary W. Cox is a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. In addition to numerous articles in the areas of legislative and electoral politics, he is author of The Efficient Secret (winner of the Samuel H. Beer dissertation prize in 1983), coauthor of Legislative Leviathan (winner of the Richard F. Fenno Prize in 1993), and author of Making Votes Count: Strategic Coordination in the World's Electoral Systems (1997), which was awarded APSA's awards for the best book in political science (Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award), the best book in comparative politics (Gregory Luebbert Prize), and for the best book in political economy. His latest book, Elbridge Gerry's Salamander, analyzes the political consequences of the reapportionment revolution in the United States. Cox is a former Guggenheim Fellow and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996. Mathew D. McCubbins is a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. His authored works include Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House (1993); Under the Watchful Eye: Managing Presidential Campaigns in the Television Era (1992); Recent co-edited books include The Origins of Liberty: Political and Economic Liberalization in the Modern World (1997); and Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality (2000). His most recent book is Stealing the Initiative: How State Government Responds to Direct Democracy (2001) with Elisabeth Gerber, Arthur Lupia, and D. Roderick Kiewiet. McCubbins is also the author of numerous articles in journals such as Legislative Studies Quarterly; Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization; Law and Contemporary Problems; and the American Journal of Political Science. He is the coordinator of the Law and the Behavioral Sciences Project and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for 1994–95.

"In this follow up to their previous work on congressional parties, Cox and McCubbins have made a major contribution to the scientific understanding of Congress. The theoretical argument is tightly reasoned and persuasive, and the evidence is extensive and convincing. Setting the Agenda will be widely adopted in courses and will shape the research agendas of other scholars for years to come." David Rohde, Michigan State University

• 1. Introduction; Part I. Why Party Government?: 2. Procedural Cartel theory; Part II. Negative Agenda Power: 3. Cartel agenda model vs. floor agenda model; 4. The primacy of Reed's rules in house organization; 5. Final passage votes; 6. The costs of agenda control; 7. The textbook congress and the committee on rules; 8. The bills reported from committee; 9. Which way does policy move?; Part III. The Consequences of Positive Agenda Power and Conditional Party Government: 10. Positive agenda power; 11. Conclusion.