Majority Leadership in the U.S. Senate: Balancing Constraints By ...

subjects of the remaining chapters; it is a highly descriptive and theoretical treatment of constraints on Senate majority leadership and, thus, its effect on senatorial behaviors. This study creates assumptions from which propositions and hypotheses can be derived and tested; as such it is hypothesis generating rather than hypothesis testing, although both quantitative (from large-n data sets) and qualitative (case studies from archival data) methods will be employed to support the assumptions presented.

Caveats and Qualifications

Leadership is an ambiguous term, with roots in psychology, management, and other academic fields as much as politics.²⁵ The present work defines leadership in terms of its function; that is, to function as a leader is to manifest leadership.²⁶ In other words, leadership is what a leader does. “Leadership style” can describe, like Fenno (1978) on representation, that pattern of behavior (Stratton & Hayes, 1998) in which Senate majority leaders are home bound, policy driven, or institution oriented.²⁷ That is, some leaders are more attuned to state concerns than are others. Likewise, some are intent on producing policy in keeping with party preference, while still other leaders are to a greater degree oriented to maintaining the Senate as an institution. These types are not mutually exclusive. While a Senate majority leader may more often favor one constituency above the others, he demonstrates different leadership styles in different contexts.²⁸ As such, this research emphasizes the duties, functions, activities, and behaviors of Senate majority leaders to an empirical rather than normative end. No attempt is made to evaluate who is an “effective” or “ineffective” leader or even to explicate criteria for such an appraisal, much less a ranking. In the sense that all Senate majority leaders function as leaders, they all exhibit leadership.

Organization of the Study

As a comprehensive examination of Senate majority leadership, the chapters of this book present a view of Senate majority leaders from becoming