Constitutional Change and American Pivotal Politics

Recent studies of legislative gridlock espouse the importance of institutional design in separation-of-powers games. However, few scholars have focused on the effects of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution on legislative gridlock. This article attempts to fill that gap by determining whether the Constitution improved the marginal effect of the gridlock interval on the ability to change policy. Results suggest that policy is more responsive to the range of pivotal players (in both the negative and the positive direction) under the Constitution than under the Articles of Confederation, providing empirical evidence that it may be the superior design.