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Warring Factions focuses on the United States Senate’s confirmation process, the constitutional process the Senate uses to approve or reject the president’s choices to fill federal government positions. It is a book about history, the evolution, and, arguably, the decline of the process. Most significantly, it is a book that demonstrates the extent to which interest groups and money have transformed the Senate’s confirmation process into a virtual circus.

Based on in-depth research, including two dozen original interviews with United States senators, former senators and Senate staff members and interest group leaders, this volume demonstrates that today’s confirmation process is nothing more than an extension of the Senate’s legislative work. Changes to internal Senate norms in the 1960s and 1970s, coupled with changes to the external political environment, have allowed interest groups to dominate the Senate confirmation process.

The Space Age began just as the struggle for civil rights forced Americans to confront the long and bitter legacy of slavery, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson utilized the space program as an agent for social change, using federal equal employment opportunity laws to open workplaces at NASA and NASA contractors to African Americans while creating thousands of research and technology jobs in the Deep South to ameliorate poverty. We Could Not Fail tells the inspiring, largely unknown story of how shooting for the stars helped to overcome segregation on earth.

Richard Paul and Steven Moss profile ten pioneer African American space workers whose stories illustrate the role NASA and the space program played in promoting civil rights. They recount how these technicians, mathematicians, engineers, and an astronaut candidate surmounted barriers to move, in some cases literally, from the cotton fields to the launching pad. The authors vividly describe what it was like to be the sole African American in a NASA work group and how these brave and determined men also helped to transform Southern society by integrating colleges, patenting new inventions, holding elective office, and reviving and governing defunct towns. Adding new names to the roster of civil rights heroes and a new chapter to the story of space exploration, We Could Not Fail demonstrates how African Americans broke the color barrier by competing successfully at the highest level of American intellectual and technological achievement.

Are female food safety inspectors treated differently than men? What do women contribute to the creation and implementation of public policy in the United States? The editors of and contributors to Women in Regulation, all experts in public policy and public administration, analyze the role women (and stakeholders) play in bureaucracies in environmental, budgetary, and other sectors of the U.S. federal, state, and local governments, plus relevant examples from around the world.

Women in Regulation examines the impact of regulatory policy delegation, as well as the actors and processes involved in administrative rulemaking, compliance, and implementation. The book considers representative bureaucracy, organizational stereotypes, emotional labor, and advancement barriers to argue why studying women and regulation is of value. Regulatory case studies focus on topics ranging from water and energy to executive leadership. Chapters also include reflective exercises and prompts for classroom engagement that challenge readers to consider implications for regulatory policy in the future.

Amplifying the underheard voices in policy and implementation, Women in Regulation provides a more holistic picture of regulatory practices.

Contributors: Saman Afshan, Ashley English, Katherine Hoener, Nicole Humphrey, Ekaterina Levintova, Li-Yin Liu, Sean McCandless, Bruce D. McDonald III, Denise Scheberle, Natalie L. Smith, Manuel P. Teodoro, and the editors