Download or read book The Democratic Party Heads North 1877 1962 written by Alan Ware and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Democratic Party Heads North 1877 1962 written by Alan Ware and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-02-13 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the dynamics of the American party system and explores how contemporary American politics was formed. Specifically, it asks how the Democrats could become sufficiently competitive in the American North as to be able to construct a national political majority. It rejects the conventional account, based on 'realignment theory', that between the end of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Revolution, the base level of support for the Democratic party varied greatly from one era to another. Instead, by distinguishing between the 'building blocks' available to the Democrats in coalition formation and the aggregation of those 'blocks' into an actual coalition, the author shows that there was much less variation over time in the available 'blocks' than is usually argued. Neither the economic depression of 1893 nor the New Deal had the impact on the party system that most political scientists claim.
Download or read book Burdens of War written by Jessica L. Adler and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have Americans grappled with the moral and financial issues of veterans’ health care? In the World War I era, veterans fought for a unique right: access to government-sponsored health care. In the process, they built a pillar of American social policy. Burdens of War explores how the establishment of the veterans’ health system marked a reimagining of modern veterans’ benefits and signaled a pathbreaking validation of the power of professionalized institutional medical care. Adler reveals that a veterans’ health system came about incrementally, amid skepticism from legislators, doctors, and army officials concerned about the burden of long-term obligations, monetary or otherwise, to ex-service members. She shows how veterans’ welfare shifted from centering on pension and domicile care programs rooted in the nineteenth century to direct access to health services. She also traces the way that fluctuating ideals about hospitals and medical care influenced policy at the dusk of the Progressive Era; how race, class, and gender affected the health-related experiences of soldiers, veterans, and caregivers; and how interest groups capitalized on a tense political and social climate to bring about change. The book moves from the 1910s—when service members requested better treatment, Congress approved new facilities and increased funding, and elected officials expressed misgivings about who should have access to care—to the 1930s, when the economic crash prompted veterans to increasingly turn to hospitals for support while bureaucrats, politicians, and doctors attempted to rein in the system. By the eve of World War II, the roots of what would become the country’s largest integrated health care system were firmly planted and primed for growth. Drawing readers into a critical debate about the level of responsibility America bears for wounded service members, Burdens of War is a unique and moving case study.
Download or read book The Nationalization of American Political Parties 1880 1896 written by Daniel Klinghard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-19 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the creation of the first truly nationalized party organizations in the United States in the late nineteenth century, an innovation that reversed the parties' traditional privileging of state and local interests in nominating campaigns and the conduct of national campaigns. Between 1880 and 1896, party elites crafted a defense of these national organizations that charted the theoretical parameters of American party development into the twentieth century. With empowered national committees and a new understanding of the parties' role in the political system, national party leaders dominated American politics in new ways, renewed the parties' legitimacy in an increasingly pluralistic and nationalized political environment, and thus maintained their relevance throughout the twentieth century. The new organizations particularly served the interests of presidents and presidential candidates, and the little-studied presidencies of the late nineteenth century demonstrate the first stirrings of modern presidential party leadership.
Download or read book Congressional Primary Elections written by Robert G. Boatright and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-08-21 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congressional primaries are increasingly being blamed for polarization and gridlock in Congress. Most American states adopted congressional primaries during the first decades of the 20th century as a means of breaking the hold of political "bosses" on the nomination of candidates. Yet now, many contend that primaries have become a means by which the most dedicated party activists choose candidates unrepresentative of the electorate, and so general election voters are forced to choose between two ideologically extreme candidates. Consequently, there have been recent instances in both parties where nominees were chosen who were clearly not preferred by party leaders, and who arguably lost elections that their parties should have won. This book is the first to focus solely upon congressional primary elections, and to do so for a student readership. Boatright organizes his text around the contention that there are important differences between types of primaries, and these differences prevent us from making blanket statements about primary competition. He focuses on explanations of two sources of difference: differences in electoral structure and differences brought about by the presence or absence of an incumbent seeking reelection. The first three chapters introduce these differences, explore how they came to exist, and outline some of the strategic considerations for candidates, parties, interest groups, and voters in primary elections. The subsequent four chapters explore different types of primary elections, and the final chapter evaluates actual and proposed primary reforms. Congressional Primary Elections is the first book to provide a history and analysis of congressional primary elections and will serve as a crucial part of courses on political parties and campaigns and elections. The book gives students the tools for understanding arguments for and against the reform of primary elections and for understanding the differences between types of primaries.
Download or read book Partisanship and Polarization written by Adam M. Silver and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-06-06 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the development of political parties in nineteenth-century United States of America through an extensive analysis of the official statements by a party in an election, the party platforms, and their connection with political elites and voters. Platforms indicate how party leaders reconciled local, state, and national conflicts and articulated their electoral appeals to various constituencies by showing discussions of their respective policies. Thus, party platforms are a valuable vehicle to assess electoral strategy and party development. By focusing on the platforms of the major political parties—Democrats, Whigs, and Republicans—at the state and national levels in presidential elections from 1840 to 1896, the author identifies three salient patterns. First, platforms reference economic policy more frequently and to a greater degree than other policy areas. Second, national policies are discussed more than state policies. And third, over time, the content of the platforms becomes more similar, reflecting the nationalization of the party system. This examination of nineteenth-century American party platforms traces political party development as a dynamic process involving partisanship, the presentation of internally coherent and consistent messages to voters, and polarization, the existence of conflicting policy positions across parties.
Download or read book The American Political Pattern written by Byron E. Shafer and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politicians are polarized. Public opinion is volatile. Government is gridlocked. Or so journalists and pundits constantly report. But where are we, really, in modern American politics, and how did we get there? Those are the questions that Byron E. Shafer aims to answer in The American Political Pattern. Looking at the state of American politics at diverse points over the past eighty years, the book draws a picture, broad in scope yet precise in detail, of our political system in the modern era. It is a picture of stretches of political stability, but also, even more, of political change, one that goes a long way toward explaining how shifting factors alter the content of public policy and the character of American politicking. Shafer divides the modern world into four distinct periods: the High New Deal (1932–1938), the Late New Deal (1939–1968), the Era of Divided Government (1969–1992), and the Era of Partisan Volatility (1993–2016). Each period is characterized by a different arrangement of the same key factors: party balance, ideological polarization, issue conflict, and the policy-making process that goes with them. The American Political Pattern shows how these factors are in turn shaped by permanent aspects of the US Constitution, most especially the separation of powers and federalism, while their alignment is simultaneously influenced by the external demands for governmental action that arise in each period, including those derived from economic currents, major wars, and social movements. Analyzing these periods, Shafer sets the terms for understanding the structure and dynamics of politics in our own turbulent time. Placing the current political world in its historical and evolutionary framework, while illuminating major influences on American politics over time, his book explains where this modern world came from, why it endures, and how it might change yet again.
Download or read book Dynamics of American Political Parties written by Mark D. Brewer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-31 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dynamics of American Political Parties, Mark D. Brewer and Jeffrey M. Stonecash examine the process of gradual change that inexorably shapes and reshapes American politics. Parties and the politicians that comprise them seek control of government in order to implement their visions of proper public policy. To gain control parties need to win elections, and winning elections requires assembling an electoral coalition that is larger than that crafted by the opposition. Parties are always looking for opportunities to build such winning coalitions, and opportunities are always there, but they are rarely, if ever, without risk. Uncertainty rules and intra-party conflict rages as different factions and groups within the parties debate the proper course(s) of action and battle it out for control of the party. Parties can never be sure how their strategic maneuvers will play out, and, even when it appears that a certain strategy has been successful, party leaders are unclear about how long apparent success will last. Change unfolds slowly, in fits and starts.
Download or read book Parties and Elections in America written by Mark D. Brewer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This classic text provides an in-depth examination and history of American political parties and their critical role in representative democracy at the local, state, and national levels.
Download or read book Counter Realignment written by Howard L. Reiter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Counter Realignment, Howard L. Reiter and Jeffrey M. Stonecash analyze data from the early 1900s to the early 2000s to explain how the Republican Party lost the northeastern United States as a region of electoral support. Although the story of how the 'Solid South' shifted from the Democratic to the Republican parties has received extensive consideration from political scientists, far less attention has been given to the erosion of support for Republicans in the Northeast. Reiter and Stonecash examine who the Republican Party lost as it repositioned itself, resulting in the shift of power in the Northeast from heavily Republican in 1900 to heavily Democratic in the 2000s.
Download or read book Buying the Vote written by Robert E. Mutch and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are corporations citizens? Is political inequality a necessary aspect of a democracy or something that must be stamped out? These are the questions that have been at the heart of the debate surrounding campaign finance reform for nearly half a century. But as Robert E. Mutch demonstrates in this fascinating book, these were not always controversial matters. The tenets that corporations do not count as citizens, and that self-government functions best by reducing political inequality, were commonly heldup until the early years of the twentieth century, when Congress recognized the strength of these principles by prohibiting corporations from making campaign contributions, passing a disclosure law, and setting limits on campaign expenditures. But conservative opposition began to appear in the 1970s. Well represented on the Supreme Court, opponents of campaign finance reform won decisions granting First Amendment rights to corporations, and declaring the goal of reducing political inequality to be unconstitutional. Buying the Vote analyzes the rise and decline of campaign finance reform by tracking the evolution of both the ways in which presidential campaigns have been funded since the late nineteenth century. Through close examinations of major Supreme Court decisions, Mutch shows how the Court has fashioned a new and profoundly inegalitarian definition of American democracy. Drawing on rarely studied archival materials on presidential campaign finance funds, Buying the Vote is an illuminating look at politics, money, and power in America.
Download or read book American Labor Congress and the Welfare State 1935 2010 written by Tracy Roof and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011-05-23 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of labor unions and the American legislative process that explains how this came to be and what it means for American workers. Discusses the interplay between unions and Congress, showing the effects of each on the other, how the relationship has evolved, and the resulting political outcomes. Exploration of unions, Congress, and the political process challenges conventional explanations for organized labor's political failings. From publisher description.
Download or read book Understanding American Political Parties written by Jeffrey M. Stonecash and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a clear discrepancy between the ideal role of political parties expressed in many textbooks and the reality that we see playing out in politics. This book gives us a big picture analysis that helps explain what is happening in American electoral politics.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Primary Elections written by Robert G. Boatright and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primary elections have been used for the past century for most U.S. elective offices and their popularity is growing in other nations as well. In some circumstances, primaries ensure that citizens have a say in elections and test the skills of candidates before they get to the general election. Yet primaries are often criticized for increasing the cost of elections, for producing ideologically extreme candidates, and for denying voters the opportunity to choose candidates whose appeal transcends partisanship. Few such arguments have, however, been rigorously tested. This innovative Handbook evaluates many of the claims, positive and negative, that have been made about primaries. It is organized into six sections, covering the origins of primary elections; primary voters; US presidential primaries; US subpresidential primaries; primaries in other parts of the world; and reform proposals. The Routledge Handbook of Primary Elections is an important research tool for scholars, a resource guide for students, and a source of ideas for those who seek to modify the electoral process.
Download or read book Hip Figures written by Michael Szalay and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hip Figures dramatically alters our understanding of the postwar American novel by showing how it mobilized fantasies of black style on behalf of the Democratic Party. Fascinated by jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, novelists such as Norman Mailer, Ralph Ellison, John Updike, and Joan Didion turned to hip culture to negotiate the voter realignments then reshaping national politics. Figuratively transporting white professionals and managers into the skins of African Americans, these novelists and many others insisted on their own importance to the ambitions of a party dependent on coalition-building but not fully committed to integration. Arbiters of hip for readers who weren't, they effectively branded and marketed the liberalism of their moment—and ours.
Download or read book Dynamics of American Democracy written by Wendy J. Schiller and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-12-14 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is in crisis. Washington is failing. Government is broken. On these counts many politicians, policy experts, and citizens agree. What is less clear is why—and what to do about it. These questions are at the heart of Dynamics of American Democracy, which goes beneath the surface of current events to explore the forces reshaping democratic politics in the United States and around the world. Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners of politics and governance, this volume charts a twenty-first-century landscape beset by ideological polarization and political tribalism; rapid demographic, economic, and technological change; the influence of online news and social media; and the increasing importance of public attitudes about gender and race. Against this fraught background the authors consider the performance of the two-party system, the operations of Congress and the presidency, and the ways in which ordinary citizens form their beliefs and make their voting decisions. The contributors’ work represents a wide range of perspectives and methodological approaches and provides insight into what ails American governance, from the practice of politics as tribal warfare to the electoral rules that produce a two-party hegemony, and from the impact of social media—including how differently conservatives and liberals use Twitter—to the significance of President Trump in historical and institutional perspective. Finally, Dynamics of American Democracy goes beyond diagnosis to present and evaluate the value and viability of proposals for reforming politics.
Download or read book Polarized Families Polarized Parties written by Gwendoline M. Alphonso and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2018-05-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Struggles to define the soul of America roil the nation's politics. Debates over the roles of gays, lesbians, women, immigrants, racial and religious minorities, and disputes over reproductive and abortion rights serve as rallying points for significant electoral groups and their representatives in government. Although the American family lies at the core of these fierce battles, the alignment of family with social or cultural issues is only a partial picture—a manifestation of the new right's late twentieth-century success in elevating "family values" over family economics. Gwendoline Alphonso makes a significant contribution to the prevailing understanding of party evolution, contemporary political polarization, and the role of the family in American political development by placing family at the center of political and cultural clashes. She demonstrates how regional ideas about family in the twentieth century have continually shaped not only Republican and Democratic policy and ideological positions concerning race and gender but also their ideals concerning the economy and the state. Drawing on extensive data from congressional committee hearings, political party platforms, legislation sponsorship, and demographic data from the Progressive, post-World War II, and late twentieth-century periods in the United States, Polarized Families, Polarized Parties offers an intricate and sophisticated analysis of how deliberations around the ideal family became critical to characterizations of party politics. By revealing the deep historical interconnections between family and the two parties' ideologies and policy preferences, Alphonso reveals that American party development is more than a story of the state and its role in the economy but also, at its core, a debate over the political values of family and the social fabric it embodies.
