A new perspective on policy responsiveness in American government.Scholars of American politics have long been skeptical of ordinary citizens’ capacity to influence, let alone control, their governments. Drawing on over eight decades of state-level evidence on public opinion, elections, and policymaking, Devin Caughey and Christopher Warshaw pose a powerful challenge to this pessimistic view. Their research reveals that although American democracy cannot be taken f...

Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about itDemocracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens.Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics...

Why policymaking in the United States privileges the rich over the poorCan a country be a democracy if its government only responds to the preferences of the rich? In an ideal democracy, all citizens should have equal influence on government policy—but as this book demonstrates, America's policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically advantaged. Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political inequality in the U...

'A valuable corrective to the fraying narrative of [African] failure.'Foreign AffairsNot so long ago, Africa was being described as the hopeless continent. Recently, though, talk has turned to Africa rising, with enthusiastic voices exclaiming the potential for economic growth across many of its countries.What, then, is the truth behind Africa's growth, or lack of it? In this provocative book, Morten Jerven fundamentally reframes the debate, challenging main...

Political scientists have long classified systems of government as parliamentary or presidential, two-party or multiparty, and so on. But such distinctions often fail to provide useful insights. For example, how are we to compare the United States, a presidential bicameral regime with two weak parties, to Denmark, a parliamentary unicameral regime with many strong parties? Veto Players advances an important, new understanding of how governments are structured. The real distinction...

In many democracies, voter turnout is low and getting lower. If the people choose not to govern themselves, should they be forced to do so? For Jason Brennan, compulsory voting is unjust and a petty violation of citizens' liberty. The median non-voter is less informed and rational, as well as more biased, than the median voter. According to Lisa Hill, compulsory voting is a reasonable imposition on personal liberty. Hill points to the discernible benefits of compulsory voting and argues th...

When Barack Obama won the presidency, many posited that we were entering into a post-racial period in American politics. Regrettably, the reality hasn't lived up to that expectation. Instead, Americans' political beliefs have become significantly more polarized by racial considerations than they had been before Obama's presidency—in spite of his administration's considerable efforts to neutralize the political impact of race.Michael Tesler shows how, in the years that foll...

As national political fights are waged at the state level, democracy itself pays the priceOver the past generation, the Democratic and Republican parties have each become nationally coordinated political teams. American political institutions, on the other hand, remain highly decentralized. Laboratories against Democracy shows how national political conflicts are increasingly flowing through the subnational institutions of state politics—with profound cons...

Congress is crippled by ideological conflict. The political parties are more polarized today than at any time since the Civil War. Americans disagree, fiercely, about just about everything, from terrorism and national security, to taxes and government spending, to immigration and gay marriage.Well, American elites disagree fiercely. But average Americans do not. This, at least, was the position staked out by Philip Converse in his famous essay on belief systems, which drew ...

In this, the first major treatment of party identification in twenty years, three political scientists assert that identification with political parties still powerfully determines how citizens look at politics and cast their ballots. Challenging prevailing views, they build a case for the continuing theoretical and political significance of partisan identities.The authors maintain that individuals form partisan attachments early in adulthood and that these political identit...

Social policy is a continuously evolving field requiring constant review, documentation, and analysis. The Handbook of Social Policy is an attempt to document the now substantial body of knowledge about government social policies that has been accumulated since the study of social policy first emerged as an organized field of academic endeavor about 50 years ago. The Second Edition offers a more streamlined format to make the book more consistent with the ...

Local government is the hidden leviathan of American politics: it accounts for nearly a tenth of gross domestic product, it collects nearly as much in taxes as the federal government, and its decisions have an enormous impact on Americans' daily lives. Yet political scientists have few explanations for how people vote in local elections, particularly in the smaller cities, towns, and suburbs where most Americans live. Drawing on a wide variety of data sources and case studies, this book of...