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Graduate School of International Studies

American Politics and American Foreign Policy/ Kim Jaechun


Student: Mara Beln Sols Ros (I38039)

Comment Paper
Divided government (in which Congress is being controlled by a party or coalition of them other than the
presidents party) as opposed to unified government is a feature unique to the presidential political system,
hence American politics. How does the divided party control make a difference in American politics? Or does
it make any difference at all?

When we first think about the American Government, the first thing that comes to mind the
existence of Republican and Democratic parties whose values define the policies being
implemented in the country. The division between parties is one of the main determining
factors in general, Republicans tend to oppose government programs as solutions to
national problems. Democrats tend to believe that government can and should act for good.
However, the parties' views on government's role often depend on the specific issue or
program in question.1
Hence, this paper will focus ont the concept of divided government that prevails in
the United States; particularly, the question of whether the divided party control make any
difference in the US politics will be discussed.
The idea of the divided goverment originates from the understading of
Monstesquieu, who called masterpiece of legislation to "a moderate government where
political forces acquire an order, which had a counterweight and a drag that would balance,
to put them in a state to resist to others" 2. This was the example followed by Madison,
Hamilton and Jay, founding fathers of American constitutionalism, which discussed the
benefits and dangers of a representative government. For them, the division of powers was
the necessary condition for the functioning of a democracy; dividing powers was then legal
imperative to prevent factions (political parties not included as the main actors of
democracy) monopolizing power. The federalists thought that the tyranny of one or many,
or a tyranny of notables elected, would be the same thing without a mechanism to separate
executive, legislative and judicial functions. The success of the formula would be precisely
secured in a judicious design of checks and balances in the exercise of political power.
The basic idea of divided government in the US, is that the branches of the state or
national government are controlled by a mix of political parties. Example: Governor is
democrat. Senate is republican. Assembly is democract. On the other hand, unifed
government means that one political party controls all branches. Example, in 2010
Obama, and he also was a member of the same party.

The Origins and Functions of Political Parties, An encyclopedic article from Grolier Online and The New
Book of Knowledge Available from: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/origins-and-functionspolitical-parties (12 September 2016).
2
Carlos de Secondat, barn de Montesquieu, Del espritu de las leyes, Libro V, Captulo XIV, Mxico, Ed.
Porra, 1990, p. 4

For understading this scenario one of the most important authors is David Mayhew.
He is a current profesor of Yale University and it has been working with the American
politics for a long period of time. In 1991 he wrote the book Divided We Govern, which its
principal thesis was that a government would be more effective under divided control
that is, when one party holds the presidency and the other has a majority in the House and
or the Senate as it is when one party controls all three.
Republicans used to be the most dominate ones in American politics, before the
Democrats. After the Civil War, for 7 decades, the Republicans typically controlled the
White House and both houses of Congress (Black, Earl, and Merle Black, 2007.) Under
Roosevelt, Democrats became the country's new majority party and they held the White
House and both branches of Congress in 9/10 elections from 1932-1950. Overtime,
between 1952-2004, 63% of elections resulted in divided partisan control meaning one
party controlled two institutions, and the other party controlled the third one. Between
1980-2004, Republicans were more successful than Democrats in controlling the Senate.
Democrats held the House in all but 2/32 congressional elections from 1930-1992 (Black,
Earl, and Merle Black, 2007.).
Mayhew makes an exhaustive analysis between 1946-1990, a period when the US
government went through many divisions. He is proposing the idea that a divided
government is as productive as unified government regarding major legislative enactments.
The meaning of divided government is the term used to define the situation in which
one political party controls the presidency, and the political party in the opposition controls
one or both chambers of Congress. Divided government is also referred to as coalition
government (Sundquist, 1988) or split party control of the presidency and Congress
(Conley, 2003). Until World War II, the American people commonly voted either for the
Republican or for the Democratic Party for all federal offices, and that resulted in one party
taking control of both Congress and the Presidency; there were exceptions when occasional
midterm elections resulted in a change of the party controlling one or both chambers of
Congress, providing short periods of divided government. This situation was changed after
the electoral reform around the turn of the century when an interesting and puzzling
phenomenon appeared in American politics and became evident in the post-World War II
era: the electorate chose to use a voting strategy that resulted in electing a presidential
candidate of one political party and a congressional candidate of the opposition party. This
strategy of splitting the ballot between the two major political parties of the United States
came to be known as split-ticket voting. This phenomenon is seen as one of the main causes
of the occurrence of divided government, being a common practice among the moderate
electorate; it can also be explained by the expansion of candidate centered electoral
strategies, helped by increased media coverage, as well as by the declining party loyalty of
the electorate.
One of his most important observations (1991) of high-profile investigations was
their decreasing frequency over time. Mayhew has offered a number of explanations for
this trend, from changing patterns of media coverage and the rise of independent
investigative reporting, to a growing reliance on extracongressional investigations of
executive behavior (General Accounting Office, for instance) and the post-Watergate era of
the Independent Counsel (1991, 2829). To account for this general downward arc, is
included a yearly time variable in the model. Finally, because the unit of analysis is the
chamber-year, the models also include a dummy variable for the Senate to examine
interchamber differences in investigatory activity. Because senators share important
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executive functions with the president and the upper chamber is viewed as a constitutional
vanguard against majoritarian tyranny, the Senate may be more likely than the House to
engage in oversight.
Mayhews used two concepts: Sweep One and Sweep Two, through this
methodology he identifed significant enactments in contemporary sources. The first sweep
is done by examining journalists annual end-of-session wrap-up stories written in the New
York Times and Washington Post (Mayhew 2005, 37). These pieces thoroughly studied
each Congresss effectiveness and covered pieces of legislation by analyzing these well
written probes of each Congress. Mayhew was able to determine which laws passed by
Congress were worthy of being labelled significant and ultimately included in his study.
Sweep Two took a different approach when determining what was considered to be
significant legislation. Mayhew relied on retrospective evaluations of policy experts in
relation to the actual effectiveness of legislation. By drawing on the long-term
perspectives of policy specialists about what enactments have counted most in their areas, it
adds a dimension of expertise It pursues the effects of laws, not the promise attached to
them when they were passed (Mayhew 2005, 44). This sweep relies on the political
scientists. Finally, Mayhew blends the two sweeps results together by using the acts that
appear in both sweeps, as well as other acts he considers to be significant.
Mayhew also used a Sweep Two methodology for corroboration, and he tested the
data collected in Sweep One against retrospective scholarly analyses for the years 19461991. Sweep Two methodology is clearly not feasible in this study, given the short time
interval, as it was not feasible for Mayhews epilogue: The Record during 1991-2002.
(Mayhew, 2005). Nevertheless, instead of the Sweep Two methodology, this study validated
the information already collected in the first phase using another contemporary, wellestablished and reliable source, the Congressional Quarterly Almanac Plus, published
annually which provides comprehensive legislative reports for each session of Congress.
The content of legislation is difficult to quantify, but it can be assessed according to the
potential impact on the American society and on the political mechanisms at work in
Washington. The magnitude of the impact determines the significance of the enacted
legislation. Experienced political commentators judged the significance of the legislation
passed each year in end-ofthe-year articles on congressional activity. This study included
in the law inventory only the enactments considered important by them. Following
Mayhews model, all legislation included in the inventory was deemed to be significant.
Still, some nuances can be made, as it is evident that some laws have a stronger impact than
others. Moreover, experience shows that the historical perspective changes the hierarchy of
the importance of these laws. The initial data obtained, already corroborated by the
Congressional Quarterly Almanac Plus, can be further validated from a future perspective
as well, because the political scientists are certain to scrutinize George W. Bushs
presidency and the legislation enacted during his time in office. For the time being, we rely
on the sources mentioned above in order to set up our inventory of important, significant
legislation.
When you think of a split between the Congress and presidential government,
immediately turns to gaze the United States of America. The reasons for this association are
clear: In the United States, the government divided during the first half of the twentieth
century was a rarity. But, as a whole, from 1832-1992, 40% of the years of divided
government have been in political hands. Four years must be added between 1994 and 1998
when the Democratic Party regained the presidency but unexpectedly lost both houses in
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Republican hands. Since 1956, in 6 of 10 elections, presidents-elect have failed to gain


control of both chambers for the same party. From 1968 until today, only one-sixth of the
governments period, the presidency and both houses have remained under the control of
the same party. The percentage of electoral districts that have opted to choose a party and
deputy president has reached a maximum of 45% in 1984.
Lyndon Johnson would be a president that ran under a unified government.
Johnson's strategy of bipartisanship was in November 1954 election. The democrats
regained control of the House. Lyndon was majority leader, and the majority leader was
powerful. For 2 years, he had the power of a minority leader, over determining the order of
business, over deciding when a bill vital to a senator, over deciding if a bill would come to
the floor3.
The main opposition came from anti-trade Republicans. Although both parties can
disagree, the benefit is that it brings them closer together so they won't bump heads all the
time.4 During this period the Democratic and Republican parties much more polarized
ideogically.
Bill Clinton (1993-2001) was president who ran under the divided government. In
the 1990s, the Democratic Party, where Clinton was the head, held control of the Congress
for only the first two years of his two terms office, resulting in a divided government for six
of the eight years of his presidency. The Republicans and Clinton definitely did not agree
on everything. When he signed in 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement. Clinton
supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton supported free trade
measures. The main opposition came from anti-trade Republicans. Although both parties
can disagree, the benefit is that it brings them closer together so they won't bump heads all
the time.5 During this period the Democratic and Republican parties much more polarized
ideogically.
Is this polarization of the those parties in recent years has changed the tenor of
presidental-congressional relations.6
In Latin America, for example -for a cultural, historical and the sociological
reasons- multiparty system and proportional representation have been the response to an
asymmetric, fragmented and diverse society. In these cases, non unified situations can
occur in the absence of a parliamentary majority. This type of formations, considered as a
kind of divided government, are called non-majority, precisely because has as characteristic
a party in the Executive which does not hold a majority in the Congress and at the same
time, a legislature where no political party has enough seats to become the majority group.
At the same time in this region of the world, a greater tendency toward division is
observed. The difficulties of democracy under the presidential regime in Latin America
have been different from what has possibly faced the United States. For example, while in
the American Union, since its inception, the division of powers due to the criterion of
checks and balances, in Latin America the criterion for dividing power was reduced to a
3

Ibid
The Differences Between Unified And Divided Government Politics Essay. Available from
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/politics/the-differences-between-unified-and-divided-governmentpolitics-essay.php (12 september 2016)
5
The Differences Between Unified And Divided Government Politics Essay. Available from
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/politics/the-differences-between-unified-and-divided-governmentpolitics-essay.php (12 september 2016)
6
Fine, Jeffrey A. The problema of Divided Government in an Era of Polarized Parties p.35
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logic of functional boundaries. The consequence in the American case was an institutional
structure that inhibited the possibility of power to invade the sphere of another, while in
Latin America the result was a constant temptation for the executive and legislative
branches, to steamroll the other power.
The political instability that has suffered much of the region's countries has been
traditionally attributed to a kind of structural dysfunction of presidentialism. In the words of
Lijphart, this imbalance to excessive concentration of power should not be as one might
think, but to the presence of "too little government" directly to the problem of formation of
stable majorities allusion and, therefore, a conflict between the powers. In the same vein,
Linz developed the most eloquent criticism of the presidential system in Latin America by
arguing that the continued presence of executive powers without a parliamentary majority
has been the detonator of political crises and the collapse of democracy; Chile during the
government of Salvador Allende is always the common reference.7
On the fourth attempt, Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity won elections in
Chile with 36% of the votes and without a majority in Congress, Allende Gossens became
the first president of Left political movements who reached the government of a country. It
was called "Chilean road to socialism.8
Mayhew's conclusion is that the government lacks unified control or any influence
on the legislative production during the postwar era. Like the author I think that a divided
government does not affect the political. As an example, the years of the great society,
Kennedy-Johnson governments (1961-68), where solutions were usually carried urgently
according to the law before the problems were understood. The old problem of checks and
balances.

7
8

Juan Linz, 1997, The Perils of Presidentialism, en Journal of Democracy, nm. 1, 1990, pp. 51-69.
Educar Chile, Efemeride. 4 de septiembre de 1970: Salvador Allende gana las elecciones con la UP

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