Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> American Government - National

The idea that a radical transformation of the Presidency took place during the FDR administration has become one of the most widely accepted tenets of contemporary scholarship. According to this view, the Constitutional Presidency was a product of the Founders' fear of arbitrary power. Only with the development of a popular extra-Constitutional Presidency did the powerful "modern Presidency" emerge.

David K. Nichols argues to the contrary that the "modern Presidency" was not created by FDR. What happened during FDR's administration was a transformation in the size and scope of the...

The first book to examine voter behavior from both psychological and marketing perspectives, "A Theory of Political Choice Behavior" provides the tools politicians need to understand today's voter. It puts forth a comprehensive theory of voting behavior and empirically tests it on four recent elections; its prediction rate is as high as 95 percent in some cases. Section A examines the need to understand voter behavior and analyzes the traditional methods researchers have used in the past; Section B puts forth the author's new theory; Section C tests that theory; and Section D describes its...

Sig Mickelson, former president of CBS News and pioneer in television coverage of political events, gives an eyewitness account of Television's complicated interaction with the U.S. political system. From Whistle Stop to Sound Bite explores the origins of the relationship between television and politics and offers an analysis of the factors that led to the decline of substance in the political campaign. With a fine eye for detail and many years of political coverage experience behind him, Mickelson probes four decades of TV history and defines the changes that this new media has wrought on...

This volume collects the papers presented at a conference sponsored by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to mark the bicentennial of the framing and adoption of the U.S. Constitution. The conference joined distinguished members of the American judiciary, bar, and academia and their Israeli counterparts in an intensive debate on the part the Constitution has assumed in American life during the 200 years of its existence. Each paper focuses specifically on one aspect of the Constitution; the subject matter ranges from executive-legislative relations to minority rights, religious freedom,...

Written by a group of distinguished security experts, these eight previously unpublished papers focus on the hostile actions of the Soviet Union against the West in the form of psychological operations, power politics, and blackmail. Addressing military professionals, strategists, and international security specialists, the contributors examine the most effective measures the United States and its allies can take to counteract such measures. This is particularly important in the Gorbachev era, when Western security is perhaps more than ever dependent upon knowledge of Soviet psychological...

This book describes what the authors identify as an emerging political crisis in U.S. politics: the possible winning of the presidency by a candidate with far fewer votes than his or her opponent. David W. Abbott and James P. Levine stress both the irrationality and peculiar nature of the current electoral system, emphasizing recent and current political developments. On the basis of their computer analysis of past elections and modern political realities, the authors predict that within twenty years it is very likely that the United States will produce a wrong winner. In explaining how...

Americans deserve honest government. This text addresses the need for a comprehensive statement of ethical behavior for public officials and employees at every level of government. Recognizing the need for legal reforms that focus mainly on campaign contributions, the authors examine the broader question of how we should measure the routine, day-to-day ethics of men and women in public service. By focussing more on attitudes and practices, the authors suggest that the highest standard of both ethics and competence should be demanded of all our public servants. The book identifies...

This is the only full-length study to examine how different electoral systems impact the election of women and minorities to public office in the United States. Rule and Zimmerman have brought together leading scholars to show how different systems affect local, state, and national elections. Important demographic changes, new opportunities, and formidable problems are underscored in analyses of the effects of, among many other things, cumulative voting, judicial election systems, multimember and single-member districts, and reapportionment.

This study is unusual in combining an overall...

This important volume examines the inner dynamics of political parties with the intention of finding out how parties really work. Specialists on Germany, France, New Zealand, Norway, Japan, India, Belgium, Israel, Poland, Britain, and the United States provide analyses of the ways in which power is developed and exercised in those countries--who is trying to do what, within the party and by means of the party, and how successful they are. Political parties are not monoliths, as they have tended to be treated in party system research; rather, they have differentiated internal structures,...

This is a revision and update of Gertzog's successful 1984 study of women in the United States Congress. Now, 10 years later, the congressional roster is far different: Women have made major in-roads in numbers and prominence in the House of Representatives. Based upon interviews with 45 members of the 103rd Congress, this study examines the rise in the number of women elected, the circumstances leading to their success, and their integration into the workings of the institution, in both legislative and political terms.

The processes of constitutional change in America are particularly difficult to understand because of the constant interaction between the constitutional document of 1787 and the wider set of understandings and practices surrounding that document. This work is the first to examine systematically the relationship between changes initiated by constitutional amendment and changes initiated by judicial interpretations or actions of the two elected branches of government. By examining and comparing all three mechanisms of constitutional revision, Vile offers a more complex and dynamic analysis...

State and local governments emerged as important interest groups in the 1960s, as that decade witnessed a rapid expansion of federal social programs administered at the state and local levels. The 1970s and 1980s were distinguished by attempts to give states and localities more responsibility over such programs. The present day is marked by an even more purposeful return of responsibility and policymaking to state and local governments, both because of severe deficits at the federal level and an ideological shift toward federalism. This work examines the impact state and local governments...

This book examines the federal judiciary in light of political science research on the role of interests and interest groups in the making of public policy. The author finds that efforts of federal judges to shape court administration are guided, in part, by self-interest which consequently affects the development and results of judicial policies. He argues that we must recognize judges as self-interested political actors whose motivation and behavior patterns are comparable to other political and administrative actors. By examining the actions of federal judges on a series of illustrative...

How can the culturally diverse communities of America live justly and fruitfully together? Not by assimilation into the dominant culture -- nor by fighting for the freedom to pursue our own self-interest at the cost of our repressing both the wounds and the promising potential of our own cultural roots. This book offers a theory and practice of transformation that shows, especially through literature, education, and politics, how we can create a multicultural society that liberates our being as a fulfillment of the story of democracy. Perhaps for the first time in American history we are...