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A clear-eyed study that reveals how politics shapes and often distorts important federal programs, driving inequalities across states.

From Medicaid to Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, a large percentage of the annual US federal budget (approximately $1 trillion) is distributed through grants-in-aid, a policy tool that allocates aid to state and local governments rather than to individual Americans. When members of Congress use grants-in-aid to fund healthcare, housing, and other forms of support, they are not solely determining how much assistance one person receives. Instead, they can allot certain localities larger grants, which carry big implications for the quality of public services available to citizens living in different states.

Many reasonably assume that these assistance programs distribute funding to states impartially because they use statistical formulas based on population levels, poverty, and other characteristics that, ostensibly, measure need. However, in Politics by Formula, Leah Rosenstiel shows how this seemingly technocratic aspect of federal policymaking is deeply affected by both the structure of political institutions and the motivations of elected officials. Key congressional committees—and especially their leaders—design formulas to benefit their constituencies. Superficially neutral formulas can shield these political decisions from scrutiny, but formulas also constrain congressmembers. Drawing on formal modeling and quantitative and qualitative evidence, Rosenstiel elucidates how these dynamics shape whose and what needs are met and where.

A vital examination of how social and economic justice organizations overcome resource disadvantages and build political power.

Why do some coalitions triumph while others fall short? In Power to the Partners, Maraam A. Dwidar documents the vital role of social and economic justice organizations in American politics and explores the process by which they strategically build partnerships to advance more effective and equitable advocacy. Using original data tracking the collaboration patterns of more than twenty thousand nationally active advocacy organizations, Dwidar evaluates the micro- and macro-level conditions surrounding these groups’ successful efforts to collectively shape public policy.

Power to the Partners reveals that while organizational advocates for social and economic justice are at a disadvantage in the American lobbying landscape—financially, tactically, and politically—coalition work can help ameliorate these disparities. By building and sustaining coalitions with structures and memberships that facilitate clarity, learning, and diverse perspectives, these advocates can successfully—and uniquely—make their mark on American public policy. Dwidar’s work offers critical insights for scholars and practitioners alike, from groundbreaking academic findings to evidence-based lessons for political organizers.

Journalists offer a daily dose of commentary sizing up the president's successes and failures, profoundly influencing the public's perceptions of presidential performance. This study shows how leading journalists developed their perceptions of Gerald Ford, the criteria they employed in evaluating his presidency, and the nature and impact of their assessments of his leadership. In The Press and the Ford Presidency, political scientist Mark J. Rozell uses a qualitative content analysis to investigate the national press coverage of the Ford administration. He explores the complicated relationship between what presidents say and do and how their words and deeds are portrayed in the elite press, demonstrating not only how press valuations vary over time, but also how certain impressions of a president take hold and resist change, even in light of conflicting evidence. Rozell shows that a president and presidential image-crafters cannot script their own press coverage and expect journalists dutifully to follow the White House plan. Journalists have identifiable expectations of presidential leadership and performance. Indeed, Gerald Ford consistently fell short of these expectations, leading the media and, consequently, the public to resort to humiliating caricature when describing the president and his programs.The Press and the Ford Presidency will be of special value to schools of the presidency mass media and politics, political communications, and political leadership. In addition, since the author's research included interviews with numerous numbers of Ford's White House staff, the book will appeal to scholars interested in oral history and to historians of the Watergate era and the Ford years.

“A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both.”--James Madison, 1822

Mark Lloyd has crafted a complex and powerful assessment of the relationship between communication and democracy in the United States. In Prologue to a Farce, he argues that citizens’ political capabilities depend on broad public access to media technologies, but that the U.S. communications environment has become unfairly dominated by corporate interests.

Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, Lloyd demonstrates that despite the persistent hope that a new technology (from the telegraph to the Internet) will rise to serve the needs of the republic, none has solved the fundamental problems created by corporate domination. After examining failed alternatives to the strong publicly owned communications model, such as antitrust regulation, the public trustee rules of the Federal Communications Commission, and the underfunded public broadcasting service, Lloyd argues that we must re-create a modern version of the Founder’s communications environment, and offers concrete strategies aimed at empowering citizens.