Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Political Process - Political Parties

Each of the past few election cycles has featured at least one instance of "primarying," a challenge to an incumbent on the grounds that he or she is not sufficiently partisan. For many observers, such races signify an increasingly polarized electorate and an increasing threat to moderates of both parties.

In Getting Primaried, Robert G. Boatright shows that primary challenges are not becoming more frequent; they wax and wane in accordance with partisan turnover in Congress. The recent rise of primarying corresponds to the rise of national fundraising bases and new types of...

The Obama era has been a boom-time for Wingnuts, kicked off by a financial collapse and the election America's first black president. For some, losing an election feels like living under tyranny. John Avlon tracks down preachers who pray for the...

This is the first comprehensive examination of Leon Trotsky's view on revolutionary organizational principles, and the dynamic interplay of democratic initiative and principled centralism. Mostly in his own words, these writings are grounded in Trotsky's experience in Russia's revolutionary movement, as a leader of the International Left Opposition and Fourth International.

At the root of America's broken politics is hyperbolic partisanship. It distorts perceptions, inflames disagreements, and poisons the democratic process. Citizens pine for a time when liberals and conservatives compromised with one another--or they yearn for a post-partisan future when the common good trumps ideology and self-interest. Russell Muirhead argues that better partisanship, not less partisanship, is the solution to America's political predicament. Instead of striving to overcome our differences, we should learn how to engage them.

The political conflicts that provide...

One of the most important and controversial books in modern American politics, The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) explained how Richard Nixon won the White House in 1968--and why the Republicans would go on to dominate presidential politics for the next quarter century. Rightly or wrongly, the book has widely been seen as a blueprint for how Republicans, using the so-called Southern Strategy, could build a durable winning coalition in presidential elections. Certainly, Nixon's election marked the end of a "New Deal Democratic hegemony" and the beginning of a conservative...

Saddam Hussein and Islam, 1968-2003, offers an intellectual history of the Bathi Party from the 1940s through 2003. Amatzia Baram focuses on the transition from its early insistence on -unity, freedom, and socialism- to its Islamization by the time it was toppled by U.S. forces in 2003, a change largely impelled by the need to rally Iraqis against Iran during their war of 1980-88. Baram reveals signs that Saddam Hussein himself became some sort of born-again Muslim, though these signs are inconclusive.

Sources include open source material but also internal secret files and...

In the decade before the Civil War, Northern Democrats, although they ostensibly represented antislavery and free-state constituencies, made possible the passage of such proslavery legislation as the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Law of the same year, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the Lecompton Constitution of 1858. In Northern Men with Southern Loyalties, Michael Todd Landis forcefully contends that a full understanding of the Civil War and its causes is impossible without a careful examination of Northern Democrats and their proslavery sentiments and activities....

This powerful book reminds us of the enormous power the nation accords its political leaders and how in the significant period, 1897--1913, these leaders failed to meet their responsibilities. Their inadequacies, the authors feel, delayed the administration of justice for all citizens, neglected the Negro, and seriously impaired the future effectiveness of their own once viable, successful, and justly proud Republican Party.

The authors follow the maneuvers of McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Senators Aldrich, Platt, Allison, and Spooner, and House Speaker "Uncle" Joe Cannon as they...

When we think of minorities--linguistic, ethnic, religious, regional, or racial--in world politics, conflict is often the first thing that comes to mind. Indeed, discord and tension are the depressing norms in many states across the globe: Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Israel, Sri Lanka, Burma, Rwanda, and many more. But as David Lublin points out in this magisterial survey of minority-based political groups across the globe, such parties typically function fairly...

When we think of minorities--linguistic, ethnic, religious, regional, or racial--in world politics, conflict is often the first thing that comes to mind. Indeed, discord and tension are the depressing norms in many states across the globe: Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Israel, Sri Lanka, Burma, Rwanda, and many more. But as David Lublin points out in this magisterial survey of minority-based political groups across the globe, such parties typically function fairly...

Bipartisanship has become so associated with the conduct of foreign policy that partisanship has virtually been forgotten. In this persuasive study of senatorial politics, Malcolm E. Jewell reasserts the importance of partisanship, arguing that increased party responsibility is the best guarantee for the establishment of sound policy and for the continued support of policy once established. The author bases his conclusions on a study of the Senate during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.

In a time of increasing campaign costs and decreasing state political party activity, legislative party campaign committees have grown to play a major role in the politics of elections in a large number of American states. Anthony Gierzynski's book focuses on these committees.

In this first multi-state analysis, Gierzynski explores the nature and practices of the committees through interviews with legislative leaders and staff and through statistical analyses of campaign finance data from ten representative states.

In addition to direct cash contributions, legislative caucus...

At no other time in American history had labor unrest been more evident than the period immediately after World War I. Robert H. Zeiger here recounts the labor problems that faced the Republican administrations of Presidents Harding and Coolidge -- massive strikes, antiracial hysteria, and the hardening of class attitudes throughout the nation -- and describes the programs and policies of Republican leaders -- particularly those of Herbert Hoover -- to solve them. Zeiger finds that while suspicion and animosity between the Republicans and the union leaders persisted, the rising prosperity...