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The longest continuous majority in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives came to a dramatic close with the 1994 midterm elections. The Democratic Party had controlled the House for forty years—two and a half times as long as any previous majority. In Cheap Seats, James E. Campbell considers the reasons why the Democrats dominated House elections for four decades and why they ultimately lost that control.

Examining the structural advantages that helped congressional Democrats, Campbell finds that their unprecedented success in the House was due in no small measure to a favorable election system, an advantage in the way in which votes are translated into House seats. His straightforward analysis indicates that Democrats consistently win most of the very-low-turnout districts, or “cheap seats.” In fact, because of the party's continued hold on such districts, the new Democratic minority is considerably larger than it would otherwise have been.

Cheap Seats is a thorough and innovative investigation into the electoral system's impact on partisan politics and representation in Congress. Campbell presents an impressive array of evidence, including both quantitative analysis of election returns from 1936 to 1994 and in-depth studies of several cheap-seat districts. He also explores the important theoretical issues of representation that cheap seats raise and offers several proposals to reform the system. This well-written and provocative volume is accessible to anyone interested in American politics, in addition to scholars especially interested in the areas of Congress, elections, electoral systems, and political parties.

The United States presents the greatest source of global geo-political violence and instability. Guided by the radical political economy tradition, this book offers an analysis of the USA’s historical impulse to weaponize communication technologies.

Scott Timcke explores the foundations of this impulse and how the militarization of digital society creates structural injustices and social inequalities. He analyses how new digital communication technologies support American paramountcy and conditions for worldwide capital accumulation. Identifying selected features of contemporary American society, Capital, State, Empire undertakes a materialist critique of this digital society and of the New American Way of War. At the same time it demonstrates how the American security state represses activists—such as Black Lives Matter—who resist this emerging security leviathan. The book also critiques the digital positivism behind the algorithmic regulation used to control labour and further diminish prospects for human flourishing for the ‘99%’.

Capital, State, Empire contributes to a broader understanding of the dynamics of global capitalism and political power in the early 21st century.

Mexican American and Puerto Rican women have long taken up the challenge to improve the lives of Chicagoans in the city’s Latino/a/x communities. Rita D. Hernández, Leticia Villarreal Sosa, and Elena R. Gutiérrez present testimonies by Latina leaders who blazed new trails and shaped Latina Chicago history from the 1960s through today.

Taking a do-it-all attitude, these women advanced agendas, built institutions, forged alliances, and created essential resources that Latino/a/x communities lacked. Time and again, they found themselves the first Latina to hold their post or part of the first Latino/a/x institution of its kind. Just as often, early grassroots efforts to address issues affecting themselves, their families, and their neighborhoods grew into larger endeavors. Their experiences ranged from public schools to healthcare to politics to broadcast media, and each woman’s story shows how her work changed countless lives and still reverberates across the entire city.

An eyewitness view of an unknown history, Chicago Latina Trailblazers reveals the vision and passion that fueled a group of women in the vanguard of reform.

Contributors: Ana Castillo, Maria B. Cerda, Carmen Chico, Aracelis Flecha Figueroa, Aida Luz Maisonet Giachello, Mary Gonzales, Ada Nivia López, Emma Lozano, Virginia Martinez, Carmen Mendoza, Elena Mulcahy, Guadalupe Reyes, Luz Maria B. Solis, and Carmen Velasquez

Chicago’s transformation into a global city began at City Hall. Dick Simpson and Betty O’Shaughnessy edit in-depth analyses of the five mayors that guided the city through this transition beginning with Harold Washington’s 1983 election: Washington, Eugene Sawyer, Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emmanuel, and Lori Lightfoot. Though the respected political science, sociologist, and journalist contributors approach their subjects from distinct perspectives, each essay addresses three essential issues: how and why each mayor won the office; whether the City Council of their time acted as a rubber stamp or independent body; and the ways the unique qualities of each mayor’s administration and accomplishments influenced their legacy.

Filled with expert analysis and valuable insights, Chicago’s Modern Mayors illuminates a time of transition and change and considers the politicians who--for better and worse--shaped the Chicago of today.

Does gender shape campaign communication? Drawing on an original dataset of candidate tweets across six election cycles, Chicks Who Tweet demonstrates that gender systematically shapes congressional campaign messaging. Not only does gender predict the issues candidates emphasize, but also the tone of their communication and their strategic decisions to engage in negative campaigning. Even after controlling for partisanship, incumbency status, district competitiveness, and overall tweeting volume, gender remains a robust and statistically significant predictor of issue emphasis.

Working to reclaim the label “chicks,” the authors show that women candidates are acutely aware of the gendered stereotypes that shape voter expectations and media coverage. Women candidates tweet more frequently than men and are more likely to criticize their opponents. However, they often face backlash to negative campaigning that men do not. Interviews with campaign communication directors and staff further illuminate how strategic messaging decisions are filtered through gendered expectations about credibility, likability, and leadership. The authors also look at how race and ethnicity interact with gender to shape issue framing and agenda-setting strategies. Although social media platforms offer women candidates new avenues to articulate representational claims and mobilize supporters, Chicks Who Tweet shows that gendered double standards still constrain strategic choices and contribute to ongoing disparities in congressional representation.

The Constitution has governed the United States since 1789, but many Americans are not aware of the structural rules that govern the oldest democracy in the world. Important public policy challenges require a knowledgeable, interested citizenry able to address the issues that represent the rich pageantry of American society. Issues such as climate change, national debt, poverty, pandemics, income inequality, and more can be addressed sufficiently if citizens play an active role in their own republic. Collectively, citizens are vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation if we place limits on our individual political knowledge. A more informed, engaged citizenry can best rise to the great policy challenges of contemporary society and beyond.

Brian L. Fife provides readers with essential information on all aspects of American politics, showing them how to use political knowledge to shape the future of the republic. Activist citizens are the key to making the United States a more vibrant democracy. Fife equips citizens and would-be citizens with the tools and understanding they need to engage fully in the political process. At the end of each chapter, he analyzes why citizenship matters and how citizens can use that chapter’s material in their own lives. Fife also provides readers with a citizen homework section that presents web links to further explore issues raised in each chapter.

Reconstruction politics and race relations between freed blacks and the white establishment in Perry County, Alabama

In his fascinating, in-depth study, Bertis D. English analyzes why Perry County, situated in the heart of a violence-prone subregion of Alabama, enjoyed more peaceful race relations and less bloodshed than several neighboring counties. Choosing an atypical locality as central to his study, English raises questions about factors affecting ethnic disturbances in the Black Belt and elsewhere in Alabama. He also uses Perry County, which he deems an anomalous county, to caution against the tendency of some scholars to make sweeping generalizations about entire regions and subregions.

English contends Perry County was a relatively tranquil place with a set of extremely influential African American businessmen, clergy, politicians, and other leaders during Reconstruction. Together with egalitarian or opportunistic white citizens, they headed a successful campaign for black agency and biracial cooperation that few counties in Alabama matched. English also illustrates how a significant number of educational institutions, a high density of African American residents, and an unusually organized and informed African American population were essential factors in forming Perry County’s character. He likewise traces the development of religion in Perry, the nineteenth-century Baptist capital of Alabama, and the emergence of civil rights in Perry, an underemphasized center of activism during the twentieth century.

This well-researched and comprehensive volume illuminates Perry County’s history from the various perspectives of its black, interracial, and white inhabitants, amplifying their own voices in a novel way. The narrative includes rich personal details about ordinary and affluent people, both free and unfree, creating a distinctive resource that will be useful to scholars as well as a reference that will serve the needs of students and general readers.
 

It was like a remake of The Cowboy and the Lady, except that this time they weren't friends. The 1990 Texas governor's race pitted Republican Clayton Williams, a politically conservative rancher and oil millionaire, against Democrat Ann Richards, an experienced progressive politician noted for her toughness and quick wit. Their differences offered voters a choice not only of policies and programs but also of stereotypes and myths of men's and women's proper roles.

Claytie and the Lady is the first in-depth look at how gender affected the 1990 governor's race. The authors' analysis reveals that Ann Richards' victory was a result of a unique combination of characteristics. She was simultaneously tough enough to convince voters that she could lead and feminine enough to put them at ease. At the same time, she remained committed to the progressive and women's issues that had won her the early support of feminists and progressives. The authors also show how Clayton Williams' appeal to the Texas cowboy myth backfired when he broke the cowboy code of chivalry to women.

The authors set their discussion within the historical context of twentieth-century Texas politics and the theoretical context of gender politics in order to pose a number of thought-provoking questions about the effects of women's participation in political life. Interviews with key players in the 1990 election, including Governor Ann Richards, add a lively and insightful counterpoint to the text.

Every day, coalition cabinets make policy decisions critical to international politics. Juliet Kaarbo examines the dynamics of these multiparty cabinets in parliamentary democracies in order to assess both the quality of coalition decision making and the degree to which coalitions tend to favor peaceful or military solutions. Are coalition cabinets so riddled by conflict that they cannot make foreign policy effectively, or do the multiple voices represented in the cabinet create more legitimate and imaginative responses to the international system? Do political and institutional constraints inherent to coalition cabinets lead to nonaggressive policies? Or do institutional and political forces precipitate more belligerent behavior?

Employing theory from security studies and political psychology as well as a combination of quantitative cross-national analyses and twelve qualitative comparative case studies of foreign policy made by coalition cabinets in Japan, the Netherlands, and Turkey, Kaarbo identifies the factors that generate highly aggressive policies, inconsistency, and other policy outcomes. Her findings have implications not merely for foreign policy but for all types of decision making and policy-making by coalition governments.

A foundational guide to understanding how bureaucracies differ—and why those differences matter.

The comparative study of public policy once promised to make major contributions to our understanding of government. Much of that promise now appears unfulfilled. What accounts for this decline in intellectual fortunes and change in intellectual fashion? Comparing Public Bureaucracies seeks to understand why. One of the principal answers is that there is no readily accepted and dependent variable that would allow comparative public administration to conform to the usual canons of social research. In contrast, comparative public policy has a ready-made dependent variable in public expenditure.

Peters discusses four possible dependent variables for comparative public administration. The first is personnel—the number and type of people who work for government. Second, the number and type of organizations that form government can suggest a great deal about the structure of government. Third, the behavior of members is obviously important for understanding what actually happens in government—such as the extents to which bureaucracies approximate the budget-maximizing behavior posited by economists. Ginally, the relative power of civil servants in the policymaking process is a major factor in institutional politics in contemporary industrial societies.

During the height of the civil rights movement, Blacks were among the most liberal Americans. Since the 1970s, however, increasing representation in national, state, and local government has brought about a more centrist outlook among Black political leaders.

Focusing on the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Katherine Tate studies the ways in which the nation’s most prominent group of Black legislators has developed politically. Organized in 1971, the CBC set out to increase the influence of Black legislators. Indeed, over the past four decades, they have made progress toward the goal of becoming recognized players within Congress. And yet, Tate argues, their incorporation is transforming their policy preferences. Since the Clinton Administration, CBC members—the majority of whom are Democrats—have been less willing to oppose openly congressional party leaders and both Republican and Democratic presidents. Tate documents this transformation with a statistical analysis of Black roll-call votes, using the important Poole-Rosenthal scores from 1977 to 2010. While growing partisanship has affected Congress as a whole, not just minority caucuses, Tate warns that incorporation may mute the independent voice of Black political leaders.

Focusing on the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), Katherine Tate studies the ways in which the nation’s most prominent group of Black legislators has developed politically. Organized in 1971, the CBC set out to increase the influence of Black legislators. Indeed, over the past four decades, they have made progress toward the goal of becoming recognized players within Congress. And yet, Tate argues, their incorporation is transforming their policy preferences. Since the Clinton Administration, CBC members—the majority of whom are Democrats—have been less willing to oppose openly congressional party leaders and both Republican and Democratic presidents. Tate documents this transformation with a statistical analysis of Black roll-call votes, using the important Poole-Rosenthal scores from 1977 to 2010. While growing partisanship has affected Congress as a whole, not just minority caucuses, Tate warns that incorporation may mute the independent voice of Black political leaders.

A landmark publication of public reports that reveal the founding of the Confederate government

Past publications of the proceedings of the Confederate Congress have focused on the public sessions of the Regular Confederate States Congress that met in Richmond, Virginia from February 1862 to March 1865. Omitted were the formative early sessions of the Montgomery, Alabama and Richmond, Virginia Provisional Congresses of 1861 and 1862. In Congress of States, David Carlson reveals these critical early meetings.

To illuminate this pivot point in American and Southern history, Carlson has drawn on detailed and often verbatim minutes reported in Richmond, Montgomery, Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, and Augusta newspapers, assembling here a unique set of transcriptions that reveal the birth of the Confederate government.

Congress of States provides an introduction to the Provisional Confederate Congress and the purpose of this work relative to the Southern Historical Society’s landmark 1923 publication “Proceedings of the Confederate Congress,” which detailed the 1862–1865 Regular Confederate Congress. He also includes a chronology outlining the major events of the secession crisis, annotated minutes for the Provisional Confederate Congress’s five sessions, appendices featuring the leadership and committees of the Provisional Congress, and fascinating examples of the proposed Confederate emblem and flags debated by the delegates.

A key set of primary sources that scholars, historians, librarians, and political scientists will value for years to come, Congress of States will also be essential reading for the general reader interested in American and Southern history, the Antebellum South, and the Civil War.

 

With the need for ever increasing sums of money to fuel the ongoing campaign for majority control, both Republicans and Democrats have made large donations to the party and its candidates mandatory for members seeking advancement within party and congressional committee hierarchies. Eric S. Heberlig and Bruce A. Larson analyze this development and discuss its implications for American government and democracy. They address the consequences of selecting congressional leaders on the basis of their fundraising skills rather than their legislative capacity and the extent to which the battle for majority control leads Congress to prioritize short-term electoral gains over long-term governing and problem-solving.

Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 brought with it a major shift in the composition of the U.S. Congress for the first time in several decades. The subsequent introduction of an enormous amount of new legislation sparked debate among many political observers that a new coalition was being built in American politics and that a significant change in the issues on the agenda before Congress heralded a Republican realignment.

Barbara Sinclair's study is a major contribution to our understanding of realignment politics in the House of Representatives. It also provides important insight into the changes in American political life in the late twentieth century.

Congressional Realignment poses three basic, related questions: What are the sources of agenda change? What determines congressional voting alignments and alignment change? Under what conditions are the barriers to major policy change overcome? Sinclair's answers are impressive both in their scholarship and in the depth and intelligence of her insights.

Ever since the Warren Commission concluded that a lone gunman assassinated President John F. Kennedy, people who doubt that finding have been widely dismissed as conspiracy theorists, despite credible evidence that right-wing elements in the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service—and possibly even senior government officials—were also involved. Why has suspicion of criminal wrongdoing at the highest levels of government been rejected out-of-hand as paranoid thinking akin to superstition?

Conspiracy Theory in America investigates how the Founders’ hard-nosed realism about the likelihood of elite political misconduct—articulated in the Declaration of Independence—has been replaced by today’s blanket condemnation of conspiracy beliefs as ludicrous by definition. Lance deHaven-Smith reveals that the term “conspiracy theory” entered the American lexicon of political speech to deflect criticism of the Warren Commission and traces it back to a CIA propaganda campaign to discredit doubters of the commission’s report. He asks tough questions and connects the dots among five decades’ worth of suspicious events, including the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, the attempted assassinations of George Wallace and Ronald Reagan, the crimes of Watergate, the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages deal, the disputed presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, the major defense failure of 9/11, and the subsequent anthrax letter attacks.

Sure to spark intense debate about the truthfulness and trustworthiness of our government, Conspiracy Theory in America offers a powerful reminder that a suspicious, even radically suspicious, attitude toward government is crucial to maintaining our democracy.

An updated edition of a close and comprehensive look at modern Hong Kong politics up to the present.

In its third edition, Contemporary Hong Kong Government and Politics analyzes Hong Kong’s basic political institutions, mediating institutions, political actors, specific policy areas, and its relationships with the mainland and the international community. All chapters have either been significantly updated or rewritten by new contributors. This edition presents a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the main continuities and changes after the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill. It examines various aspects of the Hong Kong government and politics such as the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the civil service, district councils, and advisory and statutory bodies. It also investigates the structures of the wider society with particular attention to political parties and elections, civil society, political identity and political culture, the mass media, and public opinions.