In this superb book, Sarah Binder addresses several questions that are central to contemporary scholarship about American national government. What are the policy consequences of divided government? Does partisan polarization within Congress promote or help reduce the incidence of gridlock in the legislative process? Precisely what are the institutional and electoral sources of legislative stalemate? And what are the consequences of gridlock for the electoral fortunes of individual legislators and public approval of Congress and the president? Stalemate is a major step toward answering these questions.

Much of the scholarly controversy about the impact of partisan polarization and control on legislative productivity is rooted in issues of measurement. In his landmark book Divided We Govern (1991), David Mayhew employed a combination of media accounts and the retrospective judgments of policy specialists to compile a list of landmark measures enacted by Congress between 1946 and 1990. Mayhew found that periods of unified government—when both chambers of Congress and the executive branch are controlled by a single party—do not produce significantly higher levels of legislative productivity. In the ensuing years, Mayhew's surprising result has generated a cottage industry of scholarly work aimed at illuminating how divided and unified government shape the legislative process and policy outcomes in American state and national government.

An important limitation in much of this research, however, has been a reliance on indicators of legislative productivity that do not adequately account for the scope of the underlying policy agenda, which will vary from year to year. During the Nixon-Ford years, for instance, an extended period of divided government, the incidence of major enactments was relatively high. Did this apparent productivity derive from effective compromise and collaboration between the branches, or was the real cause an expansion in the underlying policy agenda during the late 1960s and early 1970s? We cannot adequately gauge legislative productivity without considering the demand for legislation (the size of the agenda), as well as the supply (the number of significant enactments).

Binder confronts this measurement challenge in an innovative and compelling fashion. First, she gauges the underlying agenda on Capitol Hill by coding the policy issues referenced in the daily editorials appearing in the New York Times between 1947 and 2000. These issues are conceptualized as “potential enactments” (p. 37). She then identifies whether or not legislation was passed in each area, and uses the information to calculate an overall gridlock score for each Congress—“the percentage of agenda items that fall short of enactment” (p. 40). Although the Mayhew and Binder indictors are relatively similar for the 1990s, there are major differences in earlier decades. In comparison with Binder's measure, for instance, Mayhew tends to underestimate legislative productivity during the 1950s and the early 1980s, and overestimate it during several Congresses in the 1960s. Throughout this book, Binder makes a strong case that her measure is superior for capturing the rise and fall of legislative productivity over time.

What factors influence the ability of the federal government to address serious policy problems? In contrast to Mayhew, Binder finds that divided government is strongly associated with higher levels of gridlock. The result holds across all levels of issue salience (gauged by the number of New York Times editorials devoted to a subject), and it resonates well with E. E. Schattschneider's doctrine of responsible parties. But Binder also finds that stalemate is significantly more likely when the preferences of Republicans and Democrats within Congress are highly polarized—an observation that is contrary to the predictions of the responsible parties doctrine, which holds that clear differences between the parties will promote responsive government. Gridlock, moreover, is particularly likely when major policy differences exist between the House and Senate. In the 103rd Congress (1993–94), for instance, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the executive branch, but the House and Senate featured divergent views on important policy matters and stalemate was relatively frequent. Scholars and reformers, Binder argues, should pay more attention to the bicameral context of lawmaking, along with the presence or absence of divided government.

What are the consequences of legislative stalemate for Congress and its members? In Congress as Public Enemy (1995), John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse argue that members of the public are disenchanted with legislative conflict and, as a result, popular support for the Congress tends to be negatively associated with the level of meaningful legislative activity (which in our system almost inevitably involves conflict). In a highly important chapter, Binder reports that legislative gridlock does not appear to have much of an impact on the electoral fates of incumbents. She does find, however, that the frequency of stalemate is associated with higher rates of retirement by incumbent House members and by reduced public approval for Congress as an institution. In other words, individual legislators apparently do not pay a personal electoral cost for gridlock, reducing incentives for them to embrace the compromise and accommodation necessary to enact major legislation. But the public reputation of Congress is damaged somewhat by legislative stalemate, undermining the legitimacy of the legislative branch.

Binder suggests two reforms aimed at reducing gridlock in government. The regular use of joint hearings between the House and Senate, she argues, might promote early compromise between the chambers. She also proposes the use of “facilitated consensus” methods in which an external neutral mediator is called upon to help find common ground between disagreeing parties. A greater reliance on bicameral hearings strikes me as a good idea. But facilitated consensus methods? Given the strong incentives toward intransigence and position taking that often exist on Capitol Hill, it seems unlikely that outside mediators would be able to dampen conflict between the parties and the branches.

The difficulty of devising incremental reforms that would significantly reduce gridlock in Washington should not detract from Binder's accomplishment. This brief volume is a major addition to the scholarly literature about lawmaking, and thus merits sustained attention from scholars and graduate students. And it is sufficiently important and accessible to become a staple of undergraduate courses about American politics. Stalemate is a remarkable book.