Strategic Party Government: Why Winning Trumps Ideology (Chicago Studies in American Politics) - Hardcover

Gregory Koger is associate professor of political science at the University of Miami. He is the author of Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Matthew J. Lebo is professor of political science at Stony Brook University, where he also directs the Center for Behavioral Political Science.

“Strategic Party Government represents a significant advance in the study of Congress. Koger and Lebo present a well-argued and persuasive theoretical perspective and provide a variety of new empirical angles on the classic question of how and why parties matter in Congress.” (John W. Patty, University of Chicago)

“Koger and Lebo’s emphasis on strategic parties synthesizes, indeed subsumes, existing approaches to legislative parties—conditional party government theory, cartel theory, and theories of vote buying. Their focus on existential motivations for legislative parties—the need  to win elections, district by district, and the aspiration to command legislative majorities—provides an essential connection between legislative politics and the electoral arena.” (Kenneth A. Shepsle, Harvard University)

“[Koger and Lebo] seek to explain why Congress has become so polarized along partisan lines, arguing that this has been caused by individual legislators seeking to win elections by aligning themselves with strong party leaders, even if they personally disagree with elements of their parties’ platforms.”
  (Survival)

"Strategic Party Government is an important and comprehensive effort to overhaul major theories of Congress that are showing the stress and cracks of time and challenge. The book is an impressive intellectual accomplishment. Scholars of Congress will find it to be a useful reference point moving forward." (Congress & the Presidency)