Peverill Squire - Böcker

This book aims to better explain the Iowa caucuses and presents updated versions of the papers presented at a Shambaugh conference, "First in the Nation: Iowa and the Nomination Process," held at the University of Iowa, February 7-8, 1988.

This book aims to better explain the Iowa caucuses and presents updated versions of the papers presented at a Shambaugh conference, "First in the Nation: Iowa and the Nomination Process," held at the University of Iowa, February 7-8, 1988.

The institutional development of American legislatures, beginning with the first colonial assembly of 1619, has been marked by continuity as well as change. Peverill Squire draws upon a wealth of primary sources to document this institutional history. Beginning with the ways in which colonial assemblies followed the precedents of British institutions, Squire traces the fundamental ways they evolved to become distinct. He next charts the formation of the first state legislatures and the Constitutional Congress, describes the creation of territorial and new state legislatures, and examines the institutionalization of state legislatures in the nineteenth century and their professionalization since 1900. With his conclusion, Squire discusses the historical trajectory of American legislatures and suggests how they might further develop over the coming decades. While Squire's approach will appeal to historians, his focus on the evolution of rules, procedures, and standing committee systems, as well as member salaries, legislative sessions, staff, and facilities, will be valuable to political scientists and legislative scholars.

Although a great deal is known about the United States Congress, the differences and similarities between it and the legislatures and parliaments of other countries have not been extensively studied. This book--by a distinguished group of legislative specialists from ten countries--fills this gap by presenting legislative research from a comparative, cross-national perspective.Consisting of fourteen essays, this volume incorporates major areas of legislative research, including studies of recruitment of legislators and an overview of their careers, the evolution of legislatures, and the electoral systems by which legislatures are chosen. Each contributor reviews the principal research findings and emphasizes those concepts and methods that facilitate comparative research. The book assesses the state of knowledge in regard to U.S., European, Asian, and Latin American legislatures. The introductory chapter by the editors identifies how to comparatively test research findings while taking into account data availability and questions of conceptual equivalence. Each chapter provides an extensive bibliography, making the book an excellent guide to literature on legislative research. The contributors are David T. Canon, John M. Carey, Gary W. Cox, Frantisek Formanek, John R. Hibbing, Ewa Karpowicz, Junko Kato, Sadafumi Kawato, Michael Laver, Gary F. Moncrief, Chan Wook Park, Werner J. Patzelt, Bjorn Erik Rasch, Kenneth A. Shepsle, Steven S. Smith, and Rick K. Wilson.This book is designed for faculty and graduate students in political science and will also be of interest to members of legislative research staffs in this country and overseas, and to specialists on legislatures in history and law.Gerhard Loewenberg is University of Iowa Foundation Distinguished Professor of Political Science. D. Roderick Kiewiet is Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Political Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Peverill Squire is Professor of Political Science, University of Iowa.

Representation is integral to the study of legislatures, yet virtually no attention has been given to how representative assemblies developed and what that process might tell us about how the relationship between the representative and the represented evolved. The Rise of the Representative corrects that omission by tracing the development of representative assemblies in colonial America and revealing they were a practical response to governing problems, rather than an imported model or an attempt to translate abstract philosophy into a concrete reality. Peverill Squire shows there were initially competing notions of representation, but over time the pull of the political system moved lawmakers toward behaving as delegates, even in places where they were originally intended to operate as trustees. By looking at the rules governing who could vote and who could serve, how representatives were apportioned within each colony, how candidates and voters behaved in elections, how expectations regarding their relationship evolved, and how lawmakers actually behaved, Squire demonstrates that the American political system that emerged following independence was strongly rooted in colonial-era developments.

The Right of Instruction and Representation in American Legislatures, 1778 to 1900 provides a comprehensive analysis of the role constituent instructions played in American politics for more than a hundred years after its founding. Constituent instructions were more widely issued than previously thought, and members of state legislatures and Congress were more likely to obey them than political scientists and historians have assumed. Peverill Squire expands our understanding of constituent instructions beyond a handful of high-profile cases, through analyses of two unique data sets: one examining more than 5,000 actionable communications (instructions and requests) sent to state legislators by constituents through town meetings, mass meetings, and local representative bodies; the other examines more than 6,600 actionable communications directed by state legislatures to their state’s congressional delegations. He draws the data, examples, and quotes almost entirely from original sources, including government documents such as legislative journals, session laws, town and county records, and newspaper stories, as well as diaries, memoirs, and other contemporary sources. Squire also includes instructions to and from Confederate state legislatures in both data sets. In every respect, the Confederate state legislatures mirrored the legislatures that preceded and followed them.

Legislatures are ubiquitous in the American political experience. First created in Virginia in 1619, they have existed continuously ever since. Indeed, they were established in even the most unlikely of places, notably in sparsely populated frontier settlements, and functioned as the focal point of every governing system devised.  Despite the ubiquity of state legislatures, we know remarkably little about how Americans have viewed them as organizations, in terms of their structures, rules, and procedures. But with the rise of modern public opinion surveys in the twentieth century, we now have extensive data on how Americans have gauged legislative performance throughout the many years. That said, the responses to the questions pollsters typically pose reflect partisanship, policy, and personality. Generally, respondents respond favorably to legislatures controlled by their own political party and those in power during good economic times. Incumbent lawmakers get ratings boosts from having personalities, “home styles” that mesh with those of their constituents. These relationships are important indicators of people’s thoughts regarding the current performance of their legislatures and legislators, but they tell us nothing about attitudes toward the institution and its organizational characteristics.  This study offers a unique perspective on what American voters have historically thought about legislatures as organizations and legislators as representatives. Rather than focusing on responses to surveys that ask respondents how they rate the current performance of lawmakers and legislatures, this study leverages the most significant difference between national and state politics: the existence of ballot propositions in the latter. At the national level Americans have never had any say over Congress’s structure, rules, or procedures. In contrast, at the state level they have had ample opportunities over the course of more than two centuries to shape their state legislatures. The data examined here look at how people have voted on more than 1,500 state ballot propositions targeting a wide array of legislative organizational and parliamentary features. By linking the votes on these measures with the public debates preceding them, this study documents not only how American viewed various aspects of their legislatures, but also whether their opinions held constant or shifted over time. The findings reported paint a more nuanced picture of Americans’ attitudes toward legislatures than the prevailing one derived from survey research. When presented with legislative reform measures on which concrete choices were offered and decisions on them had to be made, the analyses presented here reveal that, counter to the conventional wisdom that people loved their representatives but hated the legislature, voters usually took charitable positions toward the institution while harboring skeptical attitudes about lawmakers’ motives and behaviors.

What might the members of the first Virginia assembly think if they could visit today’s Virginia House of Delegates? The air-conditioning and diversity of the current membership surely would surprise them, but would the legislative process itself strike them as odd? In his latest work, Peverill Squire demonstrates that the way the modern legislature goes about its work would seem familiar to visitors from the past. Squire traces a nearly uninterrupted path from that first assembly in Virginia in 1619 to the contemporary Virginia General Assembly, and to the U.S. Congress and the other forty-nine state legislatures. Each chapter examines discrete topics rather than historical eras, distinguishing the book from other studies of American legislatures. Topics covered include the fundamentals of legislative structure and operation, how qualification standards for legislative service became more inclusive, and how legislative professionalization unfolded at both congressional and state levels. Though covering more than 400 years, Squire manages to present a comprehensive and accessible history of American legislatures that both scholars and students will find valuable.

A concise and provocative introduction to state legislative politics, State Legislatures Today is designed as a supplement for state and local government courses and upper level courses on legislative politics. The book examines state legislatures and state lawmakers, putting them in historical context, showing how they have evolved over the years, and differentiating them from Congress. It covers state legislative elections (including the impact of redistricting, candidate recruitment, etc.), the changing job description of state legislators, legislatures as organizations, the process by which legislation gets produced, and the influences upon legislators.

A concise and provocative introduction to state legislative politics, State Legislatures Today is designed as a supplement for state and local government courses and upper level courses on legislative politics. The book examines state legislatures and state lawmakers, putting them in historical context, showing how they have evolved over the years, and differentiating them from Congress. It covers state legislative elections (including the impact of redistricting, candidate recruitment, etc.), the changing job description of state legislators, legislatures as organizations, the process by which legislation gets produced, and the influences upon legislators.

When it comes to voting, taxes, environmental regulations, social services, education, criminal justice, political parties, property rights, gun control, marriage and a whole host of other modern American issues, the state in which a citizen resides makes a difference. That idea—that the political decisions made by those in state-level offices are of tremendous importance to the lives of people whose states they govern—is the fundamental concept explored in this book. Gary F. Moncrief and Peverill Squire introduce students to the very tangible and constantly evolving implications, limitations, and foundations of America’s state political institutions, and accessibly explain the ways that the political powers of the states manifest themselves in the cultures, economies, and lives of everyday Americans, and always will.