Integration and Fragmentation: Key Themes of Congressional Change

Walter J. Oleszek

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1983, vol. 466, issue 1, 193-205

Abstract: Congress is a fragmented, decentralized, and undisciplined institution. These essential qualities constitute both its strength and its weakness. On the one hand, Congress's fragmentation, as manifested by features such as bicameralism and collegial decision making, promote its representative and oversight roles. On the other hand, Congress has a difficult time getting its policymaking act together because it lacks sufficient integrative mechanisms, such as party and procedural devices, that would aggregate issues and interests. Throughout congressional history, the themes of integration and fragmentation have warred against each other with the forces of dispersal typically being victorious. This article's objective is to highlight certain complexities and anomalies in structural and procedural changes designed to constrain or impose order on Congress's diffused power. Two recent developments—committee modernization and renewed interest in oversight of administrative activities—provide the case material for the analysis.

Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716283466001013 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:466:y:1983:i:1:p:193-205

DOI: 10.1177/0002716283466001013

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().