Bøger i Power, Conflict, and Democracy: American Politics Into the 21st Century serien

Surveying American politics from Eisenhower to Clinton, this text analyzes the role of the election campaign - its promises and processes - on the development of consistent, clear and comprehensive policies. It explores basic issues of governability and the future of democratic theory and practice.

Drawing from surveys of political attitudes and voting patterns among gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, Bailey's study is a revealing window into how sexual identity has fostered political alliances. The book investigates mayoral voting patterns in America's three largest cities-New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

This is the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of Clinton as a native-son presidential candidate employing local, country, state, and national data to show how elections can be derived from values and beliefs.

Focusing on national environmental organizations, including Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, and Environmental Defense Fund, Voices and Echoes for the Environment demonstrates how the demands of organizational maintenance encroach on the goal of effective policy influence.

Can single-issue interest groups win the wars they wage in the political arena against big business in America? The author examines how these social interest groups confront powerful industries and asserts that viable strategies are available to those who seek to challenge business interests.

Focusing on the genesis of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, this hard-hitting analysis of the war on poverty charges that since FDR's New Deal, the U.S. government has introduced many public policies attempting to address poverty, yet it has failed to produce coherent programs to combat it.

Does the public alter American foreign policy, or does the government change public opinion to support its policies? This study demonstrates that the differing influence of public opinion is mediated largely through each president's beliefs about the value and significance of public opinion.

Re-examines a nineteenth-century strategy called fusion, in which a dominant-party candidate ran on the ballots of both the established party and a third party. This book concludes by analyzing the 2000 presidential election as an object lesson in the tyranny of the two-party system. It also includes suggestions for voting experiments.

This text looks at opinion polls, the news media, special interest groups, and interviews with congressional members, using the Iran-Contra hearing as a case study. It explores the construction, interpretation and uses of public opinion and questions the media's role in forming public policy.

Focusing on the most explosive and enduring of equality movements--the struggle for social and economic parity by African Americans--Riley argues that the president's unwritten mandate as the designated protector of domestic social order is to suppress or moderate major social change. Only in extreme circumstances have presidents become advocates of serious reform.

Tells the story of a group of upper-level career civil servants in the Reagan administration at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Food and Nutrition Service, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The first comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Reagan revolution on African-American political life. The book also critically assesses the Clinton administration's record on race and the Democratic party response to affirmative action, welfare, and other aspects of the African-American political agenda.

This book chronicles the complex connections between race and class that have marked American social reform since the New Deal, revealing an aspect of the civil rights struggle that that has been too long overlooked or obscured: the struggle for policies to expand social and economic welfare for blacks and whites alike.

Employing a sizeable collection of data on party members, activists, and elites, Geoffrey Layman examines the role of religion in the Democratic and Republican parties, and the ways in which religion has influenced the political process from the early 1960s through the late 1990s.

Individual donors play a critical role in financing congressional elections, accounting for more than half of all money raised in House campaigns. But significant donors (defined here as those contributing more than $200) are the least understood participants in the system. Defenders assert that contributing money to campaigns is part of a broader pattern of civic involvement and is free speech that gives a voice to various interests. Detractors argue that these contributions are undemocratic, enabling wealthy citizens to overwhelm the voices of the many and to promote narrow business and policy interests. These divergent assessments were raised in connection with the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 and continue to characterize the debate over campaign finance reform.So who really contributes and why? How much and to how many candidates? What are the strategies used by political campaigns to elicit contributions and how do the views of significant donors impact the campaign-finance system? What do donors think about campaign-finance reform? This book investigates these vital questions, describing the influence of congressional financiers in American politics.

Few would argue that presidential policies and performance would have been the same whether John F. Kennedy or Richard Nixon became president in 1960, or if Jimmy Carter instead of Ronald Reagan had won the White House in 1980. Indeed, in recent elections, the character, prior policy experience, or personalities of candidates have played an increasing role in our assessments of their "e;fit"e; for the Oval Office. Further, these same characteristics are often used to explain an administration's success or failure in policy making. Obviously, who the president is-and what he is like-matters.This book, a new approach to the study of the personal presidency, links the characteristics of six modern American presidents-their personalities and their prior policy-making experience-to their leadership styles, advisory arrangements, and decision making in the White House. Thomas Preston uses M. G. Hermann's Personality Assessment-at-a-Distance (PAD) profiling technique, as well as exhaustive archival research and interviews with former advisors, to develop a leadership style typology. He then compares his model's expectations against the actual policy record of six past presidents, using foreign policy episodes: Korea (1950) for Truman, Dien Bien Phu (1954) for Eisenhower, Cuba (1962) for Kennedy, Vietnam (1967-68) for Johnson, the Gulf War (1990-91) for Bush, and North Korea/Haiti/Bosnia (1994-95) for Clinton.

Has black inclusion in the political process changed political institutions and led to more black influence in the governmental process? How do African American legislators balance racial interests with broader issues of government? And how is their effectiveness subjectively perceived and objectively evaluated?In one of the first book-length studies to analyze the behavior of African American state legislators in multiple legislative sessions across five states, Kerry Haynie has compiled a wealth of valuable data that reveals the dynamics and effectiveness of black participation in the legislative process. Owing to the increasing role of state government in administering what he defines as key "e;black issues"e;- education, healthcare, poverty/social welfare, civil rights, and children's issues-Haynie focuses on bills introduced in these categories in Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina.The book reveals how responsive political institutions have been to the nation's largest minority group. It explores the question of how legislators deal with the "e;duality dilemma"e;-which requires them to be both responsible legislators and race representatives-and whether agendas should be "e;deracialized"e; in order to appeal to a broader constituency. Along with numerous statistical charts illustrating everything from representation on house standing committees to a ranking of the fifteen legislative sessions by quartiles of African American political incorporation, a useful and revealing portrait emerges-one that will fuel debate and inform future discussions of the role of African Americans in the political process.

Why has child care legislation developed along its present course? How did the political players influence lawmakers? What do the politics of child care legislation over the past thirty years indicate for the future? Based on more than one hundred interviews with legislators and executive branch officials, archival research, and secondary sources, this book looks at the politics behind child care legislation, rather than analyzing child care as a work and family issue. Identifying key junctures at which major child care bills were introduced and debated (1971, 1990, and 1996), Sally Cohen examines the politics surrounding each of these events and identifies the political structures and negotiations that evolved in the intervening years. In addition, Cohen looks at the impact the election of President Clinton has had on child care policymaking, and how child care legislation became part of other issues, including welfare reform, crime prevention, school readiness, and tax policy revisions.

Convenient, entertaining, and provocative, talk radio today is unapologetically ideological. Focusing on Rush Limbaugh-the medium's most influential talk show-Rushed to Judgment systematically examines the politics of persuasion at play on our nation's radio airwaves and asks a series of important questions. Does listening to talk radio change the way people think about politics, or are listeners' attitudes a function of the self-selecting nature of the audience? Does talk radio enhance understanding of public issues or serve as a breeding ground for misunderstanding? Can talk radio serve as an agent of deliberative democracy, spurring Americans to open, public debate? Or will talk radio only aggravate the divisive partisanship many Americans decry in poll after poll? The time is ripe to evaluate the effects of a medium whose influence has yet to be fully reckoned with.

Kahn examines the impact of sex role stereotyping on the electability of women candidates, and as a central factor in the conduct and consequences of statewide campaigns.

The first in-depth analysis of the link between politicians' behavior and opinion polls. Exploring political action within a broad historical context, the book develops a theory to show how the behavior of politicians, and the unfolding of political change, have been irrevocably altered since the advent of opinion polling in the 1930s.

How the Supreme Court is influenced by national electoral politics, which in turn affects the Court, is the focus of this sweeping study by a leading constitutional scholar. Stephenson demythologizes the Court as an impartial adjudicating institution "above politics."

Illustrating the proposition - intervention is as American as apple pie - this work draws a general portrait of American military intervention since the end of the cold war by examining specific interventions: Bosnia, Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Panama, Haiti, the Gulf War, and South Korea.

In this collection of articles, the various authors examine the interaction of gays and lesbians with the democratic process in regards to public policy, public opinion, and political representation.

In this collection of articles, the various authors examine the interaction of gays and lesbians with the democratic process in regards to public policy, public opinion, and political representation.

Here is an important contribution to the debate about the responsibilities of the news media raging among pundits and policymakers. The book provides an in-depth analysis of how voters use and evaluate the news media, and why the news has little incentive to adjust to the needs of its viewers.

A collection of essays that reevaluates Richard Neustadt's place in presidential studies and shows that, while Neustadt's classic work remains a beacon for the study of the presidency, it no longer offers a reliable roadmap embodying the consensus among contemporary scholars.

A collection of essays that reevaluates Richard Neustadt's place in presidential studies and shows that, while Neustadt's classic work remains a beacon for the study of the presidency, it no longer offers a reliable roadmap embodying the consensus among contemporary scholars.