American Politics

Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Rush Limbaugh Show, National Public Radio—a list of available political media sources could continue without any apparent end. This book investigates how people navigate these choices. It asks whether people are using media sources that express political views matching their own, a behavior known as partisan selective exposure. By looking at newspaper, cable news, news magazine, talk radio, and political website use, this book offers a look to-date at the extent to which partisanship influences our media selections. Using data from numerous surveys and experiments, the results provide broad evidence about the connection between partisanship and news choices. This book also examines who seeks out likeminded media and why they do it. Perceptions of partisan biases in the media vary—sources that seem quite biased to some don't seem so biased to others. These perceptual differences provide insight into why some people select politically likeminded media—a phenomenon that is democratically consequential. On one hand, citizens may become increasingly divided from using media that coheres with their political beliefs. In this way, partisan selective exposure may result in a more fragmented and polarized public. On the other hand, partisan selective exposure may encourage participation and understanding. Likeminded partisan information may inspire citizens to participate in politics and help them to organize their political thinking. But, ultimately, the partisan use of niche news has some troubling effects. It is vital that we think carefully about the implications both for the conduct of media research and, more broadly, for the progress of democracy.

This new account of the framing of the Constitution emphasizes the fierce arguments, intricate political dynamics, and multiple compromises that produced it. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, representing two of the larger states, pursued an ambitious vision of a robust government with broad power. Leaders from smaller states envisioned only a few added powers, sufficient to correct the disastrous weakness of the Articles of Confederation, but not so strong as to threaten the governing systems within their own states. The two sides battled for three arduous months; the Constitution emerged piece by piece, the product of an evolving web of agreements. This book examines each contentious debate, including arguments over the balance between the federal government and the states, slavery, war and peace, and much more. In nearly every case, a fractious, piecemeal, and very political process prevailed. In this way, the Constitutional Convention produced a government of separate institutions, each with the will and ability to defend its independence. Majorities would rule, but the Constitution made it very difficult to assemble majorities large enough to let the government act. The book challenges the way we think about “original intent” and the Federalist Papers.

This book asserts that the Civil War marks the end of one era of American legal history, and the beginning of another. Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysberg Address is viewed as the beginning of a new kind of “covert” constitutional law – one with a stronger emphasis on equality in the wake of the abolition of slavery – which was legally established in the Amendments made to the U.S. Constitution between 1865 and 1870. The author asserts that the influence of this “secret constitution”, which has varied in degree from Reconstruction to the present day, is visible in the rulings of the Supreme Court on issues hinging on personal freedom, equality, and discrimination.

The constitutional background of both legislatures and their procedures are described and where possible compared. Currently unsolved problems often have much in common, in vexed areas such as ethics requirements or how procedural rules permit minorities fair access to legislative time before majorities prevail. British successes include the enhanced authority and effectiveness of select committees and the acquisition of more debating time by the creation of a parallel Chamber. Unsolved problems at Westminster begin with the powers and status of the Lords, and go on through the search for more effective review of EU activities, adapting parliamentary scrutiny to more sophisticated government financial information, and making better use of legislative time without diminishing back‐bench rights. The accelerated pace and extent of procedural changes in Congress is problematic. Constant pursuit of campaign funds, increased party exploitation of Members' ethical shortcomings, and partisan reapportionments have diminished collegiality and compromise. Business is conducted with greater predictability, with fewer quorum calls, postponement and clustering of votes, and by utilization of ad hoc special orders, often in derogation of openness and minority rights in the House. Minority complaints have been frequent and occasionally extreme. Conversely, constant filibuster threats in the Senate have enhanced minority party power there. An ‘inverse ratio’ between the greater complexity, importance, and urgency of pending legislation on the one hand, and diminution of deliberative capacity, fairness, and transparency on the other, has been repeatedly demonstrated, especially at the stage of final compromises between the Houses.

This treatment of “party” life traces the many different forms of communal expression that underlie black parties. It reveals new dimensions to the way we think about the cultural and political sphere, both nationally and transnationally. This book draws broadly on examples from popular culture, literature, social movements, and daily life to explore an array of themes ranging from black ideologies, the demise of Black power and Third Worldism as emancipatory projects for liberation, to more contemporary issues and debates on multiculturalism and transnational forms of identity. Capturing what is often overlooked due to an emphasis on nations, on surveys, and on formal institutions, it offers an expansive, integrated framework for the study of not only black politics but of political and social theory the world over.

This book compares interest group participation in the development of crime and justice policy across the local, state and national levels of government and has three main contributions to law, policy and criminology scholarship. First, it provides a detailed analysis of the narrow and often parochial nature of national and state crime politics, in contrast to the active and intense local political mobilization on crime by racial minorities and the urban poor. The book illustrates the ways the structure of U.S. federalism has contributed to the current situation in which national policy responses to crime overlook black and poor victims of violence and how highly organized, narrowly focused interest groups, such as the National Rifle Association, have a disproportionate influence in crime politics. This study also demonstrates that urban minorities and the poor mobilize locally to address crime as one of many social ills, though their tactics are often unconventional and their resources limited. Second, it illustrates how the absence of these groups from the policy process at the state and national levels has encouraged the development of policy frames that are highly skewed in favor of police, prosecutors, and narrow citizen interests, whose policy preferences often converge on increasing punishments for offenders. That this is true even at the national level, where policy scholars often assume the policy process is more open and porous than at subregional levels, is a major contribution of the book. Finally, the comparison of group participation across legislative venues on a single policy issue contributes to our understanding of group theory.

This book examines the foreign and domestic policies of President George W. Bush's administration. The analysis begins with an account of how highly polarized — in terms of public opinion and electoral patterns — this presidency has proved to be (in a chapter by the editors). This is followed by chapters on the use of unilateral executive powers (by Louis Fisher and William Howell) and prerogative powers (by Richard Pious). Because the policy choices of the Bush presidency have had such fundamental effects both in domestic policy and in US foreign policy, three contributors (Thomas Langston, John Burke, James Pfiffner) then address the processes of decision making especially in respect to the war against Iraq. How the administration governs by a recurring process of campaigning is examined in chapters on public opinion and war (by Gary Jacobson), the promotional presidency (by Larry Jacobs), mobilizing congressional support for war (by Scott Blinder), and the White House communications system (by Martha Kumar). Finally, the way in which the Bush White House relates to congress and the process of building congressional coalitions to enact laws is the subject of chapters on ‘executive style’ of this administration (by Charles O. Jones) and the failure to reform social security (by Fiona Ross).

This book studies activism against child sexual abuse, tracing it from its emergence in feminist anti‐rape efforts, through the development of mainstream self‐help, conflicts with an opposing movement, and entry into mass media and public policy. Activists sought to change their feelings about child sexual abuse, to challenge its cultural invisibility, and to gain institutional resources. Elaborating a “therapeutic politics,” activists saw tactics for changing the self and emotion as crucial for widespread social change and combined them with efforts to change institutions and the state. The book argues that these tactics were a challenge to efforts by the state and powerful institutions to shape the self; activists against child sexual abuse played an important part in developing and disseminating the therapeutic politics that have become important to many social movements. The book conceptualizes the selection processes by which some movement goals entered mainstream media and public policy, while others did not. As activists engaged with the state and opposing movements, shifting political winds pulled them toward formulations of child sexual abuse as a medical or criminal problem and away from emphases on gender and power. Like many social movements, it achieved social change that was a mixture of compromise, cooptation, and gains. The book thus sheds light on the processes of incomplete social change that characterize contemporary politics in the United States.

This book examines how the democratic process and social trust shape penal sanctioning in the United States. The research shows that higher levels of civic engagement tend to support milder punishments whereas lower levels tend to support more coercive criminal justice policies. The book challenges a taken‐for‐granted assumption about the democratic process and punishment. It shows that the apparent link between public participation, punitiveness, and harsh justice is not only historically contingent but dependent on specific institutional contexts and patterns of civic engagement, patterns that tend to vary within the United States and across liberal democracies. But perhaps more importantly, the research suggests the opposite relationship: increased democratization can support and sustain less coercive penal regimes. By comparing state‐level imprisonment variation and state‐level democratic traditions, this book highlights the importance of place, locality, and context in a globalizing social world.

As American Indian tribes seek to overcome centuries of political and social marginalization, they face daunting obstacles. The successes of some tribal casinos have lured many outside observers into thinking that gambling revenue alone can somehow mend the devastation of culture, community, natural resources, and sacred spaces. The reality is quite different. Tribal officials often plan and execute their strategies amidst dilapidated offices, meager budgets, and populations that struggle against the ravages of shockingly low incomes. Yet we find examples of Indian tribes persuading states, localities, and the federal government to pursue policy change that addresses important tribal concerns. How is it that Indian tribes sometimes succeed against very dim odds? To answer this question, this book brings together ideas about the politics of the powerless and about political institutions. The book illustrates how political underdogs can build particular types of external relationships—that is termed in this book institutional niches—to provide small but needed subsidies for cultivating expertise, which then provide unobtrusive foundations for future political victories. Disadvantaged groups do not suddenly begin winning high-profile battles. Instead, the effects are indirect, of low visibility, and far flung throughout the federalist system. In isolation, each new quiet success seems unremarkable; cumulatively, the effects are impressive.