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213 books match the query 'Political parties' and 10 start with r

cover of Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy

Radical American Partisanship

Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy

Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason

University of Chicago Press, 2022

Radical partisanship among ordinary Americans is rising, and it poses grave risks for the prospects of American democracy.
 
Political violence is rising in the United States, with Republicans and Democrats divided along racial and ethnic lines that spurred massive bloodshed and democratic collapse earlier in the nation’s history. The January 6, 2021 insurrection and the partisan responses that ensued are a vivid illustration of how deep these currents run. How did American politics become so divided that we cannot agree on how to categorize an attack on our own Capitol?

For over four years, through a series of surveys and experiments, Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason have been studying radicalism among ordinary American partisans. In this groundbreaking book, they draw on new evidence—as well as insights from history, psychology, and political science—to put our present partisan fractiousness in context and to explain broad patterns of political and social change. Early chapters reveal the scope of the problem, who radical partisans are, and trends over time, while later chapters identify the conditions that partisans say justify violence and test how elections, political violence, and messages from leaders enflame or pacify radical views. Kalmoe and Mason find that ordinary partisanship is far more dangerous than pundits and scholars have recognized. However, these findings are not a forecast of inevitable doom; the current climate also brings opportunities to confront democratic threats head-on and to create a more inclusive politics. Timely and thought-provoking, Radical American Partisanship is vital reading for understanding our current political landscape.
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cover of Radicalism in the States: The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the American Political Economy

Radicalism in the States

The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the American Political Economy

Richard M. Valelly

University of Chicago Press, 1989

Concentrated in states outside the Northeast and the South, state-level third-party radical politics has been more widespread than many realize. In the 1920s and 1930s, American political organizations strong enough to mount state-wide campaigns, and often capable of electing governors and members of Congress, emerged not only in Minnesota but in Wisconsin and Washington, in Oklahoma and Idaho, and in several other states.

Richard M. Valelly treats in detail the political economy of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party (1918-1944), the most successful radical, state-level party in American history. With the aid of numerous interviews of surviving organizers and participants in the party's existence, Valelly recreates the party's rise to power and subsequent decline, seeking answers to some broad, developmental questions. Why did this type of politics arise, and why did it collapse when it did? What does the party's history tell us about national political change? The answers lie, Valelly argues, in America's transition from the political economy of the 1920s to the New Deal. Combining case study and comparative state politics, he reexamines America's political economy prior to the New Deal and the scope and ironies of the New Deal's reorganization of American politics. The results compellingly support his argument that the federal government's increasing intervention in the economy profoundly transformed state politics. The interplay between national economy policy-making and federalism eventually reshaped the dynamics of interest-group politics and closed off the future of "state-level radicalism." The strength of this argument is highlighted by Valelly's cross-national comparison with Canadian politics. In vivid contrast to the fate of American movements, "province level radicalism" thrived in the Canadian political environment.

In the course of analyzing one of the "supressed alternatives" of American politics, Valelly illuminates the influence of the national political economy on American political development. Radicalism in the States will interest students of economic protest, of national policy-making, of interest-group politics and party politics.
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cover of Rationality of Irrationality: Political Determinants and Effects of Party Position Blurring

Rationality of Irrationality

Political Determinants and Effects of Party Position Blurring

Kyung Joon Han

University of Michigan Press, 2022

Citizens in democracies complain that political parties’ positions on major issues are too ambiguous for them to confidently understand. Why is party position ambiguity so common? Are party positions ambiguous because political parties fail in forming clear policies or because they deliberately blur their positions? Rationality of Irrationality argues that political parties are motivated to strategically blur their position on an issue when they struggle with a certain disadvantage in the issue. Specifically, political parties present an ambiguous position when their own supporters are divided in their stances on the issue. A political party also blurs position stances when voters do not acknowledge that the party has the ability and integrity to solve problems related to the issue. Political parties blur their position in these cases because ambiguous party positions divert voters’ attention from the issue. Voters support a political party whose policy positions on major issues are close to their own stances. However, voters cannot confidently and exactly estimate party positions on an issue when they are only ambiguous.

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cover of Reaching for a New Deal: Ambitious Governance, Economic Meltdown, and Polarized Politics in Obama's First Two Years

Reaching for a New Deal

Ambitious Governance, Economic Meltdown, and Polarized Politics in Obama's First Two Years

Theda Skocpol

Russell Sage Foundation, 2011

During his winning presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to counter rising economic inequality and revitalize America's middle-class through a series of wide-ranging reforms. His transformational agenda sought to ensure affordable healthcare; reform the nation's schools and make college more affordable; promote clean and renewable energy; reform labor laws and immigration; and redistribute the tax burden from the middle class to wealthier citizens. The Wall Street crisis and economic downturn that erupted as Obama took office also put U.S. financial regulation on the agenda. By the middle of President Obama's first term in office, he had succeeded in advancing major reforms by legislative and administrative means. But a sluggish economic recovery from the deep recession of 2009, accompanied by polarized politics and governmental deadlock in Washington, DC, have raised questions about how far Obama's promised transformations can go. Reaching for a New Deal analyzes both the ambitious domestic policy of Obama's first two years and the consequent political backlash—up to and including the 2010 midterm elections. Reaching for a New Deal opens by assessing how the Obama administration overcame intense partisan struggles to achieve legislative victories in three areas—health care reform, federal higher education loans and grants, and financial regulation. Lawrence Jacobs and Theda Skocpol examine the landmark health care bill, signed into law in spring 2010, which extended affordable health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans after nearly 100 years of failed legislative attempts to do so. Suzanne Mettler explains how Obama succeeded in reorienting higher education policy by shifting loan administration from lenders to the federal government and extending generous tax tuition credits. Reaching for a New Deal also examines the domains in which Obama has used administrative action to further reforms in schools and labor law. The book concludes with examinations of three areas—energy, immigration, and taxes—where Obama's efforts at legislative compromises made little headway. Reaching for a New Deal combines probing analyses of Obama's domestic policy achievements with a big picture look at his change-oriented presidency. The book uses struggles over policy changes as a window into the larger dynamics of American politics and situates the current political era in relation to earlier pivotal junctures in U.S. government and public policy. It offers invaluable lessons about unfolding political transformations in the United States.
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cover of Realignment in American Politics: Toward a Theory

Realignment in American Politics

Toward a Theory

Edited by Bruce A. Campbell and Richard J. Trilling

University of Texas Press, 1980

To have a voice in shaping government policy has been a goal of the American people since the nation's founding. Yet, government seems even less accessible now than in the past. An increasing rate of incumbency in Congress, the unwieldy committee system that controls legislation, and the decline of political parties have all weakened representation and alienated Americans from the seat of power. The one remaining way to produce major and coherent change in national policy is through partisan realignment—a sharp, enduring shift in voter support of the two major parties. This book is about the phenomenon of realignment in American politics. It not only brings together and assesses previous work in the area but also breaks new ground in the analysis of the effects of realignment on political elites and public policy. In addition, it is the first study to present an integrated theory of realignment that can be applied to the understanding of mass, elite, and policy change in times of social crisis. Contributors include Lawrence McMichael, David Nexon, Louis Seagull, Robert Lehnen, Philip Converse, Gregory Markus, Lester Seligman, Michael King, David Brady, Kenneth Meier, Kenneth Kramer, David Adamany, Charles Stewart, Susan Hansen, and the editors.Bruce A. Campbell taught political science at the University of Georgia. He is the author of The American Electorate.
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cover of Reconsidering Parties and Partisanship

Reconsidering Parties and Partisanship

Edited by Christopher F. Karpowitz and Jeremy C. Pope

University of Michigan Press, 2026

Since partisanship has become a powerful force in the U.S., academic literature is replete with different approaches to this complex, multifaceted topic. Reconsidering Parties and Partisanship brings together prominent scholars working on issues related to parties and partisanship for a collection of essays on how American partisanship is shifting and changing in the 21st century. This volume pushes readers to re-evaluate their understanding of the role of parties and partisanship in contemporary politics and offers a helpful set of analyses and tools for understanding the key features of the partisan environment in which the nation finds itself. 

The scholars here approach parties from the standpoint of partisan and social identities, polarization, the prevalence of independents (and pseudo-independents), political campaigns, and more. In linking the different faces or levels—party-in-the-electorate, party-in-government, and party-as-an-organization—the chapters provide a wide-ranging set of theories and ideas to consider. Through this exploration, Reconsidering Parties and Partisanship provides a valuable road map for partisanship in our current era.  

Readers will learn
  • How conditional party government seems to work in this highly partisan era
  • How donors and pressure groups have taken ownership over campaigns
  • How independents are often undercover partisans, but who also feel repelled by the existing parties—even the one they typically support
  • How various identities converge to produce partisan affection (when that exists)
  • How partisanship relates to ideology.
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cover of Red State: An Insider's Story of How the GOP Came to Dominate Texas Politics

Red State

An Insider's Story of How the GOP Came to Dominate Texas Politics

By Wayne Thorburn

University of Texas Press, 2014

In November 1960, the Democratic party dominated Texas. The newly elected vice president, Lyndon Johnson, was a Texan. Democrats held all thirty statewide elective positions. The state legislature had 181 Democrats and no Republicans or anyone else. Then fast forward fifty years to November 2010. Texas has not voted for a Democratic president since 1976. Every statewide elective office is held by Republicans. Representing Texas in Washington is a congressional delegation of twenty-five Republicans and nine Democrats. Republicans control the Texas Senate by a margin of nineteen to twelve and the Texas House of Representatives by 101 to 49.

Red State explores why this transformation of Texas politics took place and what these changes imply for the future. As both a political scientist and a Republican party insider, Wayne Thorburn is especially qualified to explain how a solidly one-party Democratic state has become a Republican stronghold. He analyzes a wealth of data to show how changes in the state’s demographics—including an influx of new residents, the shift from rural to urban, and the growth of the Mexican American population—have moved Texas through three stages of party competition, from two-tiered politics, to two-party competition between Democrats and Republicans, and then to the return to one-party dominance, this time by Republicans. His findings reveal that the shift from Democratic to Republican governance has been driven not by any change in Texans’ ideological perspective or public policy orientation—even when Texans were voting Democrat, conservatives outnumbered liberals or moderates—but by the Republican party’s increasing identification with conservatism since 1960.

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cover of Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism: The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and State

Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism

The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and State

J. Judd Owen

University of Chicago Press, 2001

If liberalism is premised on inclusion, pluralism, and religious neutrality, can the separation of church and state be said to have a unitary and rational foundation? If we accept that there are no self-evident principles of morality or politics, then doesn't any belief in a rational society become a sort of faith? And how can liberalism mediate impartially between various faiths—as it aims to do—if liberalism itself is one of the competing faiths?

J. Judd Owen answers these questions with a remarkable critical analysis of four twentieth-century liberal and postliberal thinkers: John Dewey, John Rawls and, most extensively, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish. His unique readings of these theorists and their approaches to religion lead him to conclusions that are meticulously constructed and surprising, arguing against the perception of liberalism as simple moral or religious neutrality, calling into question the prevailing justifications for separation of church and state, and challenging the way we think about the very basis of constitutional government.
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cover of Ronald Reagan and the House Democrats: Gridlock, Partisanship, and the Fiscal Crisis

Ronald Reagan and the House Democrats

Gridlock, Partisanship, and the Fiscal Crisis

Karl Gerard Brandt

University of Missouri Press, 2009

When Democrats in the House of Representatives locked horns with President Ronald Reagan over the latter’s fiscal policies, the ensuing conflict reinforced the seismic shift in the political landscape that the 1980 election had brought. Karl Brandt now tells the story of how the New Deal Democratic coalition was able to sustain itself in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault—in a conflict whose reverberations are still being felt today.
            After a bipartisan conservative House coalition passed Reagan’s budget and tax cuts in 1981, conservative Democrats became worried about the increasingly large deficits produced by Reaganomics and questioned the administration’s spending priorities. In one of the few studies of congressional politics in the 1980s, Brandt describes the House Democratic leadership’s efforts to rebuild party unity while facing challenges from conservative Democrats, the Reagan administration, and the emerging fiscal crisis. He tells how Democrats worked hard to rein in party conservatives, to craft consensus-oriented policies palatable to all Democrats, and over the coming years to force the president and the Senate to compromise over fiscal policy.
            Drawing on primary source materials unavailable in the 1980s—including transcripts from closed-door meetings and internal House documents—Brandt chronicles the events that resulted in the deepening of the fiscal crisis, examines the growth of an intensely partisan political environment, and provides insight into the dynamics of creating a national budget. He cuts through conservative rhetoric to show how Reagan’s fiscal policies deepened federal deficits and reveals how the partisan struggles of the Reagan years redefined the Democrats along more centrist lines.
            When the dust had settled, the Democratic Party had become more unified in the face of budget conflict and had proved that it could practice fiscal conservatism and make tough budget choices when necessary. Carefully argued and thoroughly researched, Brandt’s work brings historical perspective to this important chapter in recent history as it explores conflicting visions of the economy, American society, and the very future of the nation.
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cover of Russian-American Dialogue on the History of U.S. Political Parties

Russian-American Dialogue on the History of U.S. Political Parties

Edited by Joel H. Silbey

University of Missouri Press, 2000

Russian-American Dialogue on the History of U.S. Political Parties is the fourth volume in the Russian-American Dialogues series—a series that brings together scholars in the former Soviet Union and the United States who share an interest in the study of America's heritage and its importance to contemporary Russia.

In this valuable work, Russian scholars such as N. V. Sivachev, Alexander S. Manykin, and Vladimir V. Sogrin examine the history of American political parties and the role they played across two centuries. The Russians draw their own conclusions about the durability of the two-party system, giving careful consideration to historical crises—the secessionist movement and the Civil War, the reform era of the Populists and Progressives at the turn of the twentieth century, the Great Depression and the New Deal—in which the two-party structure was tested. Russian perspectives are also applied in analyzing the evolution of particular parties, from the rise and fall of the nineteenth-century Whigs to the shifting balance between twentieth-century Democrats and Republicans. The dialogue is then developed through commentaries by American historians such as Allan G. Bogue and Theodore J. Lowi and through counter-responses, often strongly expressed, by the Russian authors.

This lively exchange of ideas helps advance an understanding of key aspects of American party history and offers thought-provoking discussions of comparative international studies and historiography. Because the book provides unique perspectives on the American partisan experience by non-American specialists, it will be welcomed by all historians, as well as by anyone with an interest in the American-Russian connection.

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