Integration and Fragmentation: Key Themes of Congressional Change

Congress is a fragmented, decentralized, and undisciplined institution. These essential qualities constitute both its strength and its weakness. On the one hand, Congress's fragmentation, as manifested by features such as bicameralism and collegial decision making, promote its representative and oversight roles. On the other hand, Congress has a difficult time getting its policymaking act together because it lacks sufficient integrative mechanisms, such as party and procedural devices, that would aggregate issues and interests. Throughout congressional history, the themes of integration and fragmentation have warred against each other with the forces of dispersal typically being victorious. This article's objective is to highlight certain complexities and anomalies in structural and procedural changes designed to constrain or impose order on Congress's diffused power. Two recent developments—committee modernization and renewed interest in oversight of administrative activities—provide the case material for the analysis.