The Australian Federal Parliament stands magnificently atop Constitution Hill in Canberra as a symbol of the importance Australia attaches to its long and strong democratic tradition. The semiotic message of the Parliament’s architecture is that this is a people’s place, ‘a publicly accessible monument’, a place where its visitors will be as much a part of the fabric of its business as the business of the legislature. The Parliament has used technology to match this physical accessibility such that never has there been a period when greater access to the business and deliberations of the Parliament has been more possible. This accessibility has, however, been matched in the period under review by increasing physical constraints and barriers to access never envisaged at its creation: for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, the Parliament was closed to the people – on the occasion of the visit of President George W. Bush in October 2003. In this way, the Parliament stands also as a symbol of the way the world has changed since the bombings of the twin towers in September 2001.

By any criterion, Australia’s international human rights policy between 1996 and 2000 was fraught with contradiction. On the one hand, the Coalition government reversed decades of myopia by actively supporting self-determination for the people of East Timor, and was commended by the UN Secretary-General as a leading facilitator of the UN’s new regional strategy for enforcing the principle of humanitarian intervention. On the other hand, it adopted a regressive stance towards the traditional emphases of post-1972 Australian human rights policy by rejecting multilateralism, bipartisanship, self-criticism, and the right of UN human rights bodies to monitor Australia’s human rights conditions. Critical to this regressive mood was the government’s inability to become reconciled with the indigenous population and to respond to its demands for a national apology to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal children.

The chapter begins by reviewing the long history of how Congress has procedural rules for itself and, in the process, created protections against majority tyranny while limiting the power of transient majorities to rewrite Americas laws. It also describes how members individual political need to depart from party platforms limits party leaders power and often promotes bipartisanship. The trouble is that these same rules facilitate gridlock, stoking anger and polarization across the wider society. The chapter concludes by analyzing how filibusters, supermajorities, and government shutdowns limit majority tyranny by supplying a practical test of when proposed legislation unduly burdens the minority.

This chapter discusses the role of political parties and interest groups in affecting the direction of foreign policy, with a focus on the erosion of bipartisanship and the influence of ethnic groups.

This chapter argues that two Congresses coexist in Washington, DC. The partisan Congress, which receives the bulk of public and media attention, is characterized by polarization, gridlock, and partisan conflict. But there is also the collaborative Congress, in which members work together to find common ground. Chapter 1 draws on examples from media accounts, interviews with congressional staff, and a new dataset of congressional communications to illustrate what the collaborative Congress looks like in practice and introduce the central question of the book: Why do members of Congress collaborate? The discussion of collaboration is situated in the broader literature on Congress to explain why we know so little about it and why it matters. Conflict draws attention, and Congress is rife with highly visible disagreements, leaving little room for awareness of the members who are crafting policy through negotiation, compromise, and bipartisanship. But if the partisan Congress explains why Congress is broken, the collaborative Congress can help us understand why it works, improving Congress's capacity to legislate and address pressing societal problems.

Do our solutions to create credibility make a difference? Yes. This chapter and the rest of the book show how support for a clean energy transition increases when lawmakers make policies more credible and provide local economic benefits. We draw on various surveys and interviews to test our solutions for how credibility can be enhanced. For example, we demonstrate how laws rather than reversible promises can enhance credibility and garner more support. We also show how revealing the national consensus behind assistance to transitioning regions can reduce expectations of policy reversal. We also feature interviews with a range of energy firm executives and lobbyists, which complement our surveys of members of the public and local elected officials.

What are the underlying challenges that create the climate impasse? This chapter explains why compensation and investments that are supposed to facilitate a clean energy transition face credibility challenges. These challenges arise from various sources, such as today’s government cannot perfectly control what tomorrow’s government does, and uncertainty about whether the government represents the interests of people and communities impacted by policy reforms. Finally, we argue that new industries might be seen as providing few local economic benefits. In light of these challenges, we propose solutions to create credibility and build support for the energy transition.

Democracy is not only about voting. Deliberation plays an important role as well. Just like voting, deliberation can occur behind closed doors in the shadows or be subject to the glare of sunlight. In this chapter I argue that deliberation among representatives in a legislature ought to occur behind closed doors and away from the glare of sunlight, but only if it is structured properly. More specifically, I propose a new way of institutionalizing secret deliberation that secures its benefits while avoiding its costs. The key is to add external accountability mechanisms of a very specific kind to the deliberative process and to select participants in the secret deliberative body in a very particular way. If we do both things, then democratic deliberation is optimized when it occurs behind closed doors.

Calls for a return to a traditional method of lawmaking known as “regular order” have proliferated as unorthodox lawmaking has grown more dominant in Congress. Proponents claim regular order enhances deliberation on legislation. This chapter examines deliberation under one form of regular order: open rules permitting unlimited amending in the House of Representatives. We find evidence of substantial minority influence on the inputs and outputs of the appropriations process. Regular order gives the minority party members the opportunity to present and win adoption of their policy proposals. Our evidence also shows that ideological extremists play an outsized role in debate. They offer more amendments than other members, and their amendments tend to win less support and face defeat more often than moderates. The paradox of regular order is that it simultaneously offers the opportunity for bipartisan deliberation over legislation while exposing the majority party to problems that may make its management of the floor more difficult.

Scholars and observers worry that Congress has lost its capacity to perform its functions in the American political system. Drawing on an array of data on Congress’s activities and processes along with in-depth interviews with long-serving lawmakers and high-level staffers, we take stock of how changes to internal processes have affected Congress’s institutional capacities. In doing so, we make two interrelated arguments. First, we argue that Congress can take transformative action whether the legislative process is centralized and leadership-led or whether it is decentralized and committee-led. Second, we argue that Congress is better able than in previous eras to engage in conflict-clarifying representation in order to express and educate the public on the positions of the parties. We conclude that changes to congressional processes in recent years should be viewed as adaptations to the challenges of contemporary lawmaking. These adaptations help preserve Congress’s institutional capacity, but they have undoubtedly had negative consequences for open deliberation and individual member input into legislation.