Piety, Politics, and Pluralism skillfully confronts the question: Is liberal democracy hostile to religion or is it compatible with the rights of believers? Prominent scholars analyze the controversy about religious freedom by examining two areas at the intersection of religion and politics in contemporary American society: the Supreme Court's 1990 decision in Oregon v. Smith and the events of the 2000 presidential campaign. Their essays remind us that in an increasingly pluralist...

The definitive resource on the topic of executive privilege, now in a revised and updated fifth edition that includes the Biden presidency.Executive Privilege—called “the definitive contemporary work on the subject” by the Journal of Politics—is widely considered the best in-depth history and analysis of executive privilege and its relation to the proper scope and limits of presidential power.The expanded fifth edition picks up where the f...

The phenomenal growth of minority populations in the U.S. South is quickly transforming the region's politics. Most political observers see the Democratic Party rising in the region, with increasingly Democratic-leaning women voters joining emergent populations of Asian and Latino voters and African American voters. Some argue that demography is destiny, and yet the analyses presented in The Changing Political South demonstrate little such certainty about the future competitivenes...

Early Americans were suspicious of centralized authority and executive power. Casting away the yoke of England and its king, the founding fathers shared in this distrust as they set out to pen the Constitution. Weighing a need for consolidated leadership with a demand for states' rights, they established a large federal republic with limited dominion over the states, leaving most of the governing responsibility with the former colonies. With this dual system of federalism, the national gov...

Journalists offer a daily dose of commentary sizing up the president's successes and failures, profoundly influencing the public's perceptions of presidential performance. This study shows how leading journalists developed their perceptions of Gerald Ford, the criteria they employed in evaluating his presidency, and the nature and impact of their assessments of his leadership. In The Press and the Ford Presidency, political scientist Mark J. Rozell uses a qualitative content analysis to in...

A strong case can be made that the South has had the greatest impact of any region on the transformation of U.S. politics and government. Since 1968, we have seen the demise of the "solid (Democratic) South" and the rise of the Republican-dominated South; the rise of the largely southern white evangelical religious right movement; and demographic changes that have vastly altered the political landscape of the region and national politics. Overriding all of these changes is the major consta...

African American candidates for state and federal office in the United States face unique challenges, given the nation's complicated racial dynamics. To date, there have been only two elected African American governors in the country, the first elected in Virginia in 1989 and the second in Massachusetts in 2006. While Black candidates running statewide have been elected in increasing numbers in many areas of the country, there have been fewer successes in the US South. The relative lack of...

Early Americans were suspicious of centralized authority and executive power. Casting away the yoke of England and its king, the founding fathers shared in this distrust as they set out to pen the Constitution. Weighing a need for consolidated leadership with a demand for states' rights, they established a large federal republic with limited dominion over the states, leaving most of the governing responsibility with the former colonies. With this dual system of federalism, the national gov...

This study is a revision of my doctoral dissertation written at the University of Virginia. As a student of the American presidency I became interested in how presidential leadership is defined, analyzed and assessed. Students of the presidency spend a great deal of time studying leadership theory and debating the merits of different measures of leadership "success." These students draw inspiration for their ideas from noted presidency scholars such as Edward S. Corwin, Clinton Rossiter, a...

“I have an Article II,” Donald Trump has announced, citing the US Constitution, “where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” Though this statement would have come as a shock to the framers of the Constitution, it fairly sums up the essence of “the unitary executive theory.” This theory, which emerged during the Reagan administration and gathered strength with every subsequent presidency, counters the system of checks and balances that constrains a president’s executive impu...

In recent years, political discourse about gun control and the Second Amendment has become increasingly volatile and this collection of original essays by top scholars illuminates the various reasons why. Gun lobbies such as the National Rifle Association are more organized and aggressive and their issue agenda has evolved as new and more powerful weapons and militia appear. On the other side of the debate, the critical wounding of James Brady gave gun control advocates a visible martyr wi...

This all-encompassing encyclopedia provides a broad perspective on U.S. politics, culture, and society, but also goes beyond the facts to consider the myths, ideals, and values that help shape and define the nation.Demonstrating that political culture is equally rooted in public events, internal debates, and historical experiences, this unique, three-volume encyclopedia examines an exceptionally broad range of factors shaping modern American politics, including pop...