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The article examines the two-dimensional conflict in the U.S. Congress that could affect the institution's policymaking duties. Also cited are examples of disputes like the attack by Senator Preston Brookes against fellow Senator Charles Sumner in 1856 and the conflicts between Northern and Southern Democrats in the mid-Twentieth Century, as well as the interpersonal uncivil conflicts and the measures of party system polarization.

We argue the ability of Congress to address pressing matters depends on the maintenance of moderate conflict, which, in part is defined by the extent to which members are constrained by civility norms. To test this thesis, we use a measure of topical legislative productivity, which accounts for the ability of Congress to enact legislation that experiences significant attention, demand, and debate. Next, we collect an original data on member incivility in the Congress, overtime, and combine this with an indicator of party polarization to develop a hybrid measure of moderate conflict. Using the conflict measure as our key predictor, initial tests provide support for our argument: moderate interactive conflict enhances the enactment of contemporary topical legislation, whereas both low and high conflict undermines it. Additionally, our work indicates adherence to civility norms plays an important role in the legislative process, with the specific purpose defined differently under unlike polarization scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to better understand the conditions associated with a productive Congress a new measure of "significant" legislation is developed. The measure taps topical legislative output by tracking action on issues brought to the attention of Congressional Digest readers; a journal that has focused on approximately ten salient issues facing the nation each year since the 1920s. A law passed after the Digest raises awareness on the issue, and before the Congress in question adjourns sine die, is the primary measure of productivity used. Furthermore, the Digest topics are disaggregated into foreign, domestic and intermestic policy types to test whether Congress is more proficient in one policy arena than another, but also to test whether there are different predictors of productivity in domestic versus foreign policy. The research uncovers that Congress is not more efficient in passing either domestic or foreign policy, but is decidedly more productive when faced with intermestic policy initiatives. In the secondary analysis it is determined that traditional predictors of legislative productivity perform well when trying to model domestic legislative productivity, but not well at all when foreign policy productivity is the dependent variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Too much institutional conflict can inhibit landmark productivity in Congress, but so can too little conflict. Moderate conflict fosters productivity. The paper tests this thesis for all Congresses from 1857 to 1994. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research tests a curvilinear relationship between party polazization and policy productivity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congress by its very nature is a deliberative institution created to mediate societal conflicts and address the policy concerns posed by such conflicts (Madison, Federalist # 10; Dahl, 1967; Cooper, 1970). The challenge for Congress is to embrace these responsibilities without becoming so overwhelmed with internal institutional conflict that its policy processes break down or so regularized and insulated in its policy processes that it fails to see and confront pressing social concerns. Thus a central congressional dilemma: Because conflict is inherent to Congress and threatening to its operation, it is tempted to avoid institutional meltdown by embracing highly constrained and regularized policy procedures. Yet an embrace of excessive constraints can isolate the Congress, inhibit conflict mediation, and allow policy problems to fester. How then does Congress generate the landmark laws that address its central mediational and policy-making tasks (Mayhew, 1991; Binder 2003)? The thesis of this paper is that the capacity of Congress to enact landmark legislation depends significantly on the character and regulation of conflict within the institution. Substantial and sustained landmark productivity requires a Congress that fosters real policy contestation (Dahl, 1967, 1971) characterized by serious conflict and even occasional incivilities, so that difficult policy problems can be brought to its attention (Jones and Baugartner, 2005; Schattsneider, 1960). Such contestation limits the isolation of Congress and connects it with social reality. But Congress then must maintain internal conflict within moderated parameters that avoid institutional meltdown and enable deliberative policy-making to proceed (Cooper, 1970, Part IV; Maass, 1983; Bessette, 1994). In this formulation, too much institutional conflict can inhibit landmark productivity -- but so can too little conflict (Simmel, 1955/1908). Too much conflict, we argue, will occur in polarized Congresses when high party polarization interacts with high inter-party incivility. Too little conflict is witnessed in depolarized Congresses (those below the historic mean level of party polarization) when low party polarization interacts with excessive intra-party civility. Both settings inhibit landmark productivity. In contrast, moderate levels of interactive conflict between party polarization and member incivility foster landmark productivity in both depolarized and polarized Congresses. Institutional conflict thus has countervailing effects, increasing gridlock in polarized Congresses and decreasing it in depolarized ones. To explore the explanatory value of our 'conflict theory' of landmark productivity we examine the statistical relationship between institutional conflict and landmark legislation by Congress from 1891 to 1994. This period begins with the first Congress to occur after the initial passage of the Reed Rules in the House of Representatives and ends with the 103rd Congress, which is the last Congress for which we have complete data. In our analysis: a.We use DW-Nominate scores developed by Poole and Rosenthal (1997) to measure party polarization. b.We determine the rise and fall of incivility within Congress according to the percentage of articles published by the New Your Times and the Washington Post on the Congress between 1891 and 1994 that discuss incidents of congressional incivility... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesis of this paper is that the capacity of Congress to enact landmark legislation depends significantly on the structuring and regulation of conflict within the institution. Substantial and sustained landmark productivity requires a Congress that fosters real policy contestation (Dahl, 1967, 1971) characterized by serious conflict and even occasional incivilities, so that difficult policy problems can be brought to its attention (Jones and Baugartner, 2005; Schattsneider, 1960). Such contestation limits the isolation of Congress and connects it with social reality. But Congress then must maintain internal conflict within moderated parameters that avoid institutional meltdown and enable deliberative policy-making to proceed (Cooper, 1970, Part IV; Maass, 1983; Bessette, 1994). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]