In this Book
- Doing the Right Thing: Collective Action and Procedural Choice in the New Legislative Process
- Book
- 2005
- Published by: The Ohio State University Press
- Series: Parliaments and Legislatures
summary
Doing the Right Thing examines the use of extraordinary legislative procedures in four cases in the U.S. Congress to accomplish policy objectives that many political scientists would argue are impossible to achieve. It not only shows that Congress is capable of imposing parochial costs in favor of general benefits but it argues that Congress is able to do so in a variety of policy areas through the use of very different kinds of procedural mechanisms that are underappreciated. The book opens by developing a theory of procedural choice to explain why Congress chooses to delegate in differing degrees in dealing with similar kinds of policy problems. The theory is then applied to four narrative case studies—military base closures, the Yucca Mountain Project, NAFTA, and the Tax Reform Act of 1986—that both show the variety of factors that impact procedural choice and highlight how our national legislature was able to “do the right thing. The book concludes by pointing to the variety of ways in which Congress will be confronted with similar policy problems in the coming years and offering some lessons from these cases about what kinds of procedures and policy outcomes we might expect. In short, I find that Congress is remarkably adept at “doing the right thing,” even under difficult circumstances, but only when legislators are willing to manipulate procedures in all the necessary ways.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Table of Contents
- pp. v-vi
- List of Tables
- pp. vii-viii
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- Chapter 1. Introduction
- pp. 1-14
- Chapter 2. Base Closure
- pp. 15-35
- Chapter 3. Nuclear Waste Disposal
- pp. 36-66
- Chapter 4. NAFTA
- pp. 67-96
- Chapter 5. Tax Reform
- pp. 97-132
- Chapter 6. Conclusion
- pp. 133-142
- Bibliography
- pp. 153-158
Additional Information
ISBN
9780814272817
Related ISBN(s)
9780814209851
MARC Record
OCLC
607500283
Pages
164
Launched on MUSE
2015-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
Yes