Having spent an illustrious career studying the U.S. Congress, it perhaps comes as little surprise that The Imprint of Congress reflects David Mayhew’s deep affection for the institution. There is a reverence for the work that has taken place in the Capitol building in this monograph this is at once refreshing and endearing. There is also a creative and important argument put forth, one that engages big questions, perhaps the biggest questions, of how institutions support democratic stability and effectiveness in the face of the challenges that history presents.
“What has been Congress’s imprint on American society and life?” is the central question motivating this investigation (p. 1). The term “imprint” is a carefully selected one; for Mayhew, the term is meant to convey something longer lasting and more deeply embedded than simply the impact or effect of regular legislative activity. Instead, the opportunity for Congress to make an imprint, for Mayhew, arises in the face of historical, transnational “impulses” that can challenge America’s regime stability and legitimacy. By “impulse,” he means that “a patch of activity flashes up, occurs, and arrives at a common end-state in a variety of countries, including the United States, during a common time span” (p. 13). Mayhew identifies 13 such major challenges in the nation’s history: launching the new nation; continental expansion; modernizing liberalism; building an industrial economy; taming corporate excess; international expansion; responding to the Great Depression; building a welfare state; post—World War II prosperity; the Civil Rights revolution; economic liberalization; addressing climate change; and alleviating public debt. He asks: How well did America perform compared to other countries facing these same impulses or challenges, and what role did Congress play in crafting and executing (i.e., imprinting) America’s strategy to manage them?
After a systematic examination of each episode, Mayhew concludes that the performance of the United States, compared to its international peers, was better, or “out front,” on four of 13 impulses (launch of the new nation, building an industrial economy, rising to world power, and post–World War II prosperity), typical of other countries in eight cases, and a laggard in one case (response to climate change). In terms of whether Congress or the president was crucial, or the “chief lever” of policy change, Mayhew identifies just one case where this role belonged to Congress (taming corporations and the wealthy), six cases where the responsibility was shared between Congress and the Executive Branch, and six cases where the president led the charge (pp. 96–97). And yet, despite presidential prominence in several domains, the imprint of Congress on the country’s fortunes originates from its unique ability to legitimize policy outcomes.
There are several notable contributions in this book. The role Congress has played in addressing the major challenges and opportunities facing this country is a topic seldom addressed. Scott Adler and John Wilkerson’s Congress and the Politics of Problem Solving (2012) and Laurel Harbridge’s work on bipartisanship come to mind as notable exceptions. Work in this vein is admirable for its ambition and willingness to engage a big question, even if it sometimes, as in Imprint, entails some loss of rigor for want of sufficient observations, or, as Mayhew acknowledges, it makes for a “loose speculative analysis” (p. 4).
Another contribution of this work is that what we think of as a relatively insular American politics is often symptomatic of broader international trends. Recognizing these patterns is important because in crafting policy solutions, we may need to account for external, reinforcing factors. As well, we can learn from other countries’ experiences confronting these challenges. From a research perspective, acknowledging the international context allows for the type of cross-country comparisons at the heart of Imprint, which would otherwise be limited to over-time, domestic comparisons.
Finally, the book also contributes to our understanding of political leadership. The congressional strategies Mayhew examines are not merely an outgrowth of the attitudes of American citizens. Elected officials have often taken the initiative in facing national and international challenges, even if this entailed some electoral risk. As he puts it, “representative assemblies do indeed violate the views of the median voter. . . . [T]hey do it all the time. We expect assemblies to do that. That is one reason for having assemblies” (p. 102).
Anticipating a likely challenge to his enterprise, Mayhew is careful to distance himself from the view that all the historical impulses he examines are morally admirable (pp. 13–14). Indeed, he characterizes one of the 13 impulses, continental expansion, as “quite appalling” (p. 14). He divorces the question of whether the United States performed better than other countries and whether Congress led U.S. performance from the question of whether “in casting our eyes back today we are delighted or appalled at what went on” (p. 14). And yet, what we make of evidence that America’s performance was “typical” and that Congress’s role was “dominant” has a lot to do with the normative standing of the objective. If we adjudge continental expansion to be appalling in its effects, then Congress’s role in America’s successful expansion, and more broadly Congress’s imprint on American society, takes on a new cast.
Mayhew’s story is also one in which Congress is a relatively unitary actor. This may oversimplify, in some of his cases, where the institution has been fractured along partisan or ideological lines. Indeed, Mayhew points out that a key role for Congress is to confront a polarized and heterogeneous public and to craft singular, coherent policies. Of course, just as Americans have often been divided, Congress has been divided as well. Future research could probe for analogous evidence of party or ideological imprinting on American politics.
What readers primarily will take away from Mayhew’s account, however, is that Congress has demonstrated leadership to help the country manage history’s challenges. That, and his affection for the institution that has been the subject of his scholarly life, stand out clearly in this book.
