Voting Behavior in Legislatures

This article considers recent research on legislative voting behavior in nonAmerican legislatures and the U.S. Congress and state legislatures. The literature is discussed in terms of whether the primary object of analysis is the collectivity or the individual decision maker. Accordingly, research is divided into analyses that focus on cleavages and alignments, and analyses that focus on individual voting decisions. A comparative perspective on this research reveals notable differences in the approaches associated with different legislative settings as well as a number of conceptual problems regarding more specific areas of study. The review indicates both problems and prospects in this subfield of legislative studies.