US politics: midterm elections have handed Joe Biden a divided Congress – history tells us that's bad for good government

By Christoph Pfeufer, Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Economy, Bocconi University
Massimo Morelli, Professor of Economics and Political Science, Bocconi University

Contrary to the expectations of many observers, the “red wave” stopped at the House of Representatives and only delivered the Republican Party a small majority. The Senate, though, will remain under Democrat control. So the US Congress will be divided until the 2024 election and the Biden administration no longer has the numbers to get its legislative programme through without a fight – or at least, negotiation “across the aisle”.

And that can be a problem for US governance – sustainable solutions to…

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