Why parties become cartels
Cox and McCubbins (1993) argued that even if individual members act for reelection, the party's reputation is a shared public good, so members delegate authority to leaders. Aldrich (1995) likewise described parties as devices that solve legislators' collective action problems. Leaders and chairs with delegated power act as a cartel controlling the agenda and in return protect the party brand. This connects to how voters' party identification relies on party labels.
Negative agenda control
Cox and McCubbins (2005) argued that the core of majority power lies less in passing desired bills than in blocking unwanted ones. As evidence they pointed to the 'roll rate', showing that the majority party is almost never defeated on final passage votes. Gailmard and Jenkins (2007) found these fingerprints clearer in the House than the Senate, and Cox and Katz (2007) showed that the majority's choice of what to vote on alone distorts members' voting records.
Critiques and related theories
From the standpoint of informational theory, Krehbiel (1993) countered that apparent party effects may simply reflect member preferences. Rohde's (1991) conditional party government holds that leaders gain strong powers only when preferences within the party are homogeneous, a complementary view. Today the cartel model is used alongside pivotal politics theory as a leading account of US lawmaking.
FAQ
- What is procedural cartel theory in simple terms?
- The majority party holds the keys to the legislative schedule and simply never brings up bills that would split its own members.
- What is negative agenda control?
- The power to keep unwanted bills from reaching a vote, rather than the power to pass desired ones.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Cox, G. W., & McCubbins, M. D. (1993). Legislative leviathan: Party government in the House. University of California Press. The first statement of the cartel model.
- Cox, G. W., & McCubbins, M. D. (2005). Setting the agenda: Responsible party government in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cambridge University Press. Negative agenda control in full.
- Aldrich, J. H. (1995). Why parties? The origin and transformation of political parties in America. University of Chicago Press. Parties as solutions to collective action.
- Rohde, D. W. (1991). Parties and leaders in the postreform House. University of Chicago Press. Conditional party government.
- Krehbiel, K. (1993). Where's the party? British Journal of Political Science, 23(2), 235–266. The skeptical view of party effects.
- Gailmard, S., & Jenkins, J. A. (2007). Negative agenda control in the Senate and House: Fingerprints of majority party power. The Journal of Politics, 69(3), 689–700. Testing negative agenda control.
- Cox, G. W., & Katz, J. N. (2007). Gerrymandering roll calls in Congress, 1879–2000. American Journal of Political Science, 51(1), 108–119. Agenda effects on roll calls.