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The Folkways of the United States Senate: Conformity to Group Norms and Legislative Effectiveness

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  • Matthews, Donald R.

Abstract

The Senate of the United States, we are told, is a “club.” The image, while hopelessly imprecise and occasionally quite misleading, does have at least one advantage: it underscores the fact that there are unwritten but generally accepted and informally enforced norms of conduct in the chamber. These folkways influence the behavior of senators to a degree and in directions not yet fully understood. “There is great pressure for conformity in the Senate,” one member (mercifully varying the simile) has recently said. “It's just like living in a small town.” And, as in small-town life, so too in the Senate there are occasional careers to be made out of deliberate nonconformity, sometimes only skin-deep, but sometimes quite thorough-going.

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  • Matthews, Donald R., 1959. "The Folkways of the United States Senate: Conformity to Group Norms and Legislative Effectiveness," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 1064-1089, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:53:y:1959:i:04:p:1064-1089_07
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    Cited by:

    1. Kathleen Bawn & Gregory Koger, 2008. "Effort, Intensity and Position Taking," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(1), pages 67-92, January.
    2. Ekor, Maxwell & Katz, Menachem & Iweala, Ola, 2014. "Estimating Legislative Effectiveness in Nigeria," MPRA Paper 107696, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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