Party Ideology and Unexpected Policy in American Political Development

• In Event: Parties and Ideologies in American Politics

Abstract

The dominant models of U.S. lawmaking theorize that U.S. public policies are the product of the particular distribution of the ideological spatial preference points of members of Congress, the president, and Supreme Court judges at any given time (Krehbiel, 1998; Hacker & Pierson, 2005). However, these models fail to explain how landmark legislation is often enacted by unexpected actors and parties who, prior to the legislative enactment, developed reputations for being opposed to the eventual policy program. This paper examines several episodes of major policymaking in American political development to help us better understand this surprising phenomenon.

Author

• Verlan Lewis, Harvard University