A provocative exploration of how America's democratic crisis is rooted in a dangerous mismatch between our Constitution and today's nationalized, partisan politics.The ground beneath American political institutions has moved, with national politics subsuming and transforming the local. As a result, American democracy is in trouble.In this paradigm-shifting book, political scientists Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler bring a sharp new perspective to today's ch...

Congress and Its Members has been the gold standard for Congress courses for thirty years. Now in its 20th edition, the book offers comprehensive and current coverage of the U.S. Congress and the legislative process by examining the tension between Congress as a lawmaking institution and as a collection of politicians constantly seeking re-election.The 20th Edition covers the outcomes of the 2024 election and subsequent changes in congress...

Many political observers have expressed doubts as to whether America's leaders are up to the task of addressing major policy challenges. Yet much of the critical commentary lacks grounding in the systematic analysis of the core institutions of the American political system including elections, representation, and the law-making process. Governing in a Polarized Age brings together more than a dozen leading scholars to provide an in-depth examination of representation and legislative perfor...

No legislature in the world has a greater influence over its nation's public affairs than the US Congress. The Congress's centrality in the US system of government has placed research on Congress at the heart of scholarship on American politics. Generations of American government scholars working in a wide range of methodological traditions have focused their analysis on understanding Congress, both as a lawmaking and a representative institution. The purpose of this volume is to take stoc...

Although congressional investigations have provided some of the most dramatic moments in American political history, they have often been dismissed as mere political theater. But these investigations are far more than grandstanding. Investigating the President shows that congressional investigations are a powerful tool for members of Congress to counter presidential aggrandizement. By shining a light on alleged executive wrongdoing, investigations can exert significant pressure on...

Few transformations in American politics have been as important as the integration of African Americans into the Democratic Party and the Republican embrace of racial policy conservatism. The story of this partisan realignment on race is often told as one in which political elites—such as Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater—set in motion a dramatic and sudden reshuffling of party positioning on racial issues during the 1960s. Racial Realignment instead argues that top party leaders...

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...

From the 1910 overthrow of "Czar" Joseph Cannon to the reforms enacted when Republicans took over the House in 1995, institutional change within the U.S. Congress has been both a product and a shaper of congressional politics. For several decades, scholars have explained this process in terms of a particular collective interest shared by members, be it partisanship, reelection worries, or policy motivations. Eric Schickler makes the case that it is actually interplay among multiple interes...

A New York Times Editors’ ChoiceAn “essential” (Jane Mayer) account of the dangerous marriage of plutocratic economic priorities and right-wing populist appeals — and how it threatens the pillars of American democracy.In Let Them Eat Tweets, best-selling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that despite the rhetoric of Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, and other right-wing “populists,” the Republican Party ...

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America, and worthy of study. In formation though, the path to adoption was not without dissent: the Anti-Federalist movement was against the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government, and vocally opposed the ratification of the Constitution, because the Articles of Confederation originally gave state governments more authority. Led by Patrick Henry of Virginia, Anti-Federalists worried, among other thing...

Polling shows that since the 1950s Americans’ trust in government has fallen dramatically to historically low levels. In At War with Government, the political scientists Amy Fried and Douglas B. Harris reveal that this trend is no accident. Although distrust of authority is deeply rooted in American culture, it is fueled by conservative elites who benefit from it. Since the postwar era conservative leaders have deliberately and strategically undermined faith in the political syste...

Making Congress Work, Again, Within the Constitutional SystemCongress for many years has ranked low in public esteem-joining journalists, bankers, and union leaders at the bottom of polls. And in recent years there's been good reason for the public disregard, with the rise of hyper-partisanship and the increasing inability of Congress to carry out its required duties, such as passing spending bills on time and conducting responsible oversight of the executive branch...