Gridlock, stock and two smoking barrels : presidential veto dynamics under divided legislative institutions

by (Jason Matthew), 1976- Seitz

The presence of divided government has become increasingly prominent in the American political context. Though much has been said regarding the impact of divided government on the legislative process, no real consensus has been reached. This stems primarily from an overly simplistic conceptualization of divided partisan control of government. I seek to demonstrate that a more robust notion of divided government, taking into account the degree to which the legislative and executive branches are ideologically divergent, allows us to gain a clearer view of the influence of divided government, specifically on the frequency of executive vetoes. I hypothesize that as the degree of ideological division between the majority party in Congress and the executive increases, the number of presidential vetoes will also increase. Statistical analysis reveals that the degree of divided government does, indeed, have a significant positive impact on the number of executive vetoes.