Both the 'politics of success' and the 'politics of crisis' could work in Trump's favor at the upcoming North Korea summit

In June, US President Donald Trump and North Korea's Leader, Kim Jong-Un will meet in Singapore for the first such high level talks since the end of the Korean War. Jungkun Seo writes that the negotiations could have one of two outcomes which Trump could spin to his advantage: 'the politics of success' or the 'politics of crisis'. While one outcome would lead to greater tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the other might ease them, both could be used by Trump to improve his own standing at home and to increase the Republican Party’s chances of success in the upcoming midterm elections

Both the 'politics of success' and the 'politics of crisis' could work in Trump's favor at the upcoming North Korea summit

In June, US President Donald Trump and North Korea's Leader, Kim Jong-Un will meet in Singapore for the first such high level talks since the end of the Korean War. Jungkun Seo writes that the negotiations could have one of two outcomes which Trump could spin to his advantage: 'the politics of success' or the 'politics of crisis'. While one outcome would lead to greater tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the other might ease them, both could be used by Trump to improve his own standing at home and to increase the Republican Party’s chances of success in the upcoming midterm elections

Preferences, procedures, and party position shifts in Congress

textWhile I do not dispute the pivotal role played by party leaders in setting and shifting a party position, I argue that the impetus for party shifts sometimes comes from the "bottom-up"--that is, from party members themselves. At times, the party position held by the leadership conflicts with some members' constituency interests. Faced with this conflict, backbench members use the legislative process to signal their intention to defect from the party on policy unless the leadership modifies the party's existing position. Party members' party-splitting votes under constituency pressures, however, do not always lead the party into a new brand. If one party, particularly a majority party, is divided but the other party is united over a policy issue, this issue drives a wedge within the majority party. If this wedge issue continues to split the majority party and unite the minority party, the majority party is likely to shift its policy position to solve its dilemma of party division. To test my theory of party position shifts, I explore three historical cases in which there was position change by one or both parties over immigration, national security, and trade. More specifically, these include: the switch of congressional Republicans from anti- to pro-exclusion on Chinese immigration in the post-Reconstruction period; the shift of congressional Democrats from a party of "guns" and "butter" to a party of only "butter" in the post-Vietnam War era; and Republican and Democratic flip-flopping on China and MFN in the post-Cold War period. My findings suggest that policy change in these cases is driven by the shifting preferences of members as they try to resolve tension between the party and the constituency. Sometimes party rank-and-file members are in the driver's seat in defining the parties' positions. This is as true for foreign policy as it is for domestic policy. My dissertation shows that in a representative democracy, the transition from voters' preferences to lawmakers' votes occurs through the politics of procedural voting strategies in Congress.Governmen

Wedge-issue dynamics and party position shifts Chinese exclusion debates

Abstract Even when the stakes of party-building are high, political parties often find their members divided over a key policy position. In post-Reconstruction America, the hot-button issue of excluding Chinese immigrant workers strengthened Democratic cohesion while splitting the 'party of Lincoln'. Previous research has not completely investigated the role of party competition and cohesiveness in paving the way for passage of the Chinese exclusion laws. In this investigation of the legislative politics of banning the Chinese from 1879 to 1882, it is found that cross-pressured members sometimes facilitate party transformation. The evidence demonstrates that partisan responses to potential wedge issues are a previously unnoticed source of explanation of eventual party position changes