front cover of Generational Politics in the United States
Generational Politics in the United States
From the Silents to Gen Z and Beyond
Sally Friedman and David Schultz, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2024
The role of generations is an important, yet often overlooked, variable in the study of American politics. A topic of research in sociology, business, and marketing, the focus on generations frequently occurs in American pop culture and journalism. The general public often assumes that different generations have different political leanings and beliefs—that the Silent Generation is all Republican, white, and conservative, or that Millennials are liberal and diverse—but are these assumptions true?

Generational Politics in the United States is the first comprehensive book that examines the concept of generations from a political science perspective. It defines what a generation is and how to sort out the differences between life cycle, cohort, and aging effect. The book then brings together chapters from an array of political science scholars that examine the role of generations in American politics and how it relates to other variables such as age, race, gender, and socioeconomic status. It discusses how politics in the United States are impacted by changes in generations, including how the passing of the Baby Boom generation and rise of the Millennials and Gen Z will change American politics. By examining the differences in political attitudes, engagement, and impact of recent generations, Generational Politics in the United States suggests how generational change will impact American politics in the future.
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Gestures of Concern
Chris Ingraham
Duke University Press, 2020
In Gestures of Concern Chris Ingraham shows that while gestures such as sending a “Get Well” card may not be instrumentally effective, they do exert an intrinsically affective force on a field of social relations. From liking, sharing, posting, or swiping to watching a TED Talk or wearing an “I Voted” sticker, such gestures operate as much through affective registers as they do through overt symbolic action. Ingraham demonstrates that gestures of concern are central to establishing the necessary conditions for larger social or political change because they give the everyday aesthetic and rhetorical practices of public life the capacity to attain some socially legible momentum. Rather than supporting the notion that vociferous public communication is the best means for political and social change, Ingraham advances the idea that concerned gestures can help to build the affective communities that orient us to one another with an imaginable future in mind. Ultimately, he shows how acts that many may consider trivial or banal are integral to establishing those background conditions capable of fostering more inclusive social or political change.
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Governing the New Europe
Jack Hayward and Edward C. Page, eds.
Duke University Press, 1995
Governing the New Europe provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the changing political map of Europe as it emerges from the Cold War. Exploring the variations of liberal democracy and market economy among the European states, as well as current trends in these directions, the contributors to this volume, all leading authorities in European politics, consider whether a common political model has begun to emerge out of historic European diversity.
Beginning with a discussion of the political, economic, and cultural development of Europe from a historical perspective, the focus of the book shifts to an examination of the changing forms of European democracy and the move from public ownership and planning to privatization and deregulated competition. Further essays analyze the challenge to national party systems and electoral performance from emerging social movements and organized interest groups. Political and bureaucratic structures are also examined as is the new European constitutionalism reflected in the increasingly significant role of the judiciary. Lastly, attention is turned to several major themes in European politics: the changing foundations of foreign and security policy, the function of industrial champion firms, and the retreat from the welfare state. Primarily comparative in its scope, Governing the New Europe does devote particular attention to specific major states as well as to the importance of the European Union to the political life of member and non-member countries.
Neither exaggerating the common features of the patterns that have emerged in contemporary Europe nor capitulating to the complexity of enduring differences and instabilities between states, Governing the New Europe will become one of the standard texts in its field.

Contributors. Jack Hayward, Jolyon Howorth, Herbert Kitschelt, Marie Lavigne, Tom Mackie, Michael Mezey, Edward C. Page, Richard Parry, Richard Rose, Anthony Smith, Alec Stone

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