BIBFRAME Work

Title

Divided parties, strong leaders

Type

• Text
• Monograph

Contribution

• Bloch Rubin, Ruth (author)

Subject

• United States--Politics and government--1989- (LCSH)
• Intra-party disagreements (Political parties)--United States (LCSH)
• United States--Politics and government--1945-1989 (LCSH)
• United States. Congress. House--Speakers--History--21st century. (LCSH)
• United States. Congress. House--Speakers--History--20th century. (LCSH)
• Political leadership--United States (LCSH)

Language

• English

Classification

• LCC: JK1411 .B56 2025 (Assigner: dlc) (Status: used by assigner)
• DDC: 324.27309/04 (Assigner: dlc)

Content

• text

Supplementary content

• index
• bibliography

Summary

"For decades, legislative scholars have viewed divided parties as a critical constraint on congressional leadership. The more a party's rank and file agree with one another, the stronger their leaders are predicted to be; as member preferences diverge, leader power is thought to diminish. In a powerful corrective to this received wisdom, Ruth Bloch Rubin argues that party divisions are not inherently limiting. In defense of this thesis, Divided Parties, Strong Leaders highlights variation in how members of party factions choose to work together. Bloch Rubin shows that leaders of divided parties will exercise power most forcefully when the collaborative efforts of their coalitions' competing factions are evenly matched. By contrast, their capacity to exercise power is more limited when one faction has out-collaborated its competition. Presenting detailed case studies of some of the most storied leaders of the postwar Congress, including Speakers Sam Rayburn and Nancy Pelosi, the book's empirical chapters explore the factional configurations these leaders encountered and their consequences for how forcefully they wielded power"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Leading divided parties -- Analyzing divided parties -- How Nancy Pelosi built back better -- How John Boehner lost his party and then his job -- How Tip O'Neill lost the budget battle but won the public relations war -- How Sam Rayburn tamed the House Rules Committee -- How William Knowland saved McCarthyism from McCarthy -- Learning from divided parties.

Authorized Access Point

Bloch Rubin, Ruth. Divided parties, strong leaders

Geographic Coverage

• United States

Admin Metadata

• Date: 2026-09-11T20:13:46.318762+00:00
• Agent: cbc
• Status: c
• Derived from: 23941180

Admin Metadata

• Date: 2026-09-11
• Cataloger id: Unknown
• Description level: http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe-2-6-0/
• Description language: eng
• Description authentication: pcc