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ELECTION TUESDAY

September 18, 2012 by

FACT: “In 1964, Ronald Reagan was co-chair of Barry Goldwater’s campaign in California. He spoke out frequently in support of Goldwater’s brand of conservative Republicanism. But Reagan’s big moment in the campaign, the event that would put him on a trajectory for the White House, came by accident. Shortly before the November election, Goldwater canceled a major Los Angeles fund-raising speech. The organizers asked Reagan to fill in. Reagan, though tailoring his remarks to promote Goldwater, gave the same basic speech he had been honing for years. However, few Americans outside of GE plants or what Reagan self-mockingly called the ‘mashed potato’ lecture circuit had ever heard it. The crowd of bigwig Republican donors was starstruck by Reagan’s performance. Especially as compared to Goldwater (but really as compared to any contemporary political figure), Reagan was, as soon would be said everywhere, a great communicator. A group of wealthy men asked Reagan to repeat the speech on national television. They would buy the airtime.”

The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism:
A Short History
by David Farber

The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism tells the gripping story of perhaps the most significant political force of our time through the lives and careers of six leading figures at the heart of the movement. David Farber traces the history of modern conservatism from its revolt against New Deal liberalism, to its breathtaking resurgence under Ronald Reagan, to its spectacular defeat with the election of Barack Obama.

Farber paints vivid portraits of Robert Taft, William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. He shows how these outspoken, charismatic, and frequently controversial conservative leaders were united by a shared insistence on the primacy of social order, national security, and economic liberty. Farber demonstrates how they built a versatile movement capable of gaining and holding power, from Taft’s opposition to the New Deal to Buckley’s founding of the National Review as the intellectual standard-bearer of modern conservatism; from Goldwater’s crusade against leftist politics and his failed 1964 bid for the presidency to Schlafly’s rejection of feminism in favor of traditional gender roles and family values; and from Reagan’s city upon a hill to conservatism’s downfall with Bush’s ambitious presidency.

The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism provides rare insight into how conservatives captured the American political imagination by claiming moral superiority, downplaying economic inequality, relishing bellicosity, and embracing nationalism. This concise and accessible history reveals how these conservative leaders discovered a winning formula that enabled them to forge a powerful and formidable political majority.

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9119.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science

BOOK FACT FRIDAY

September 14, 2012 by

FACT: 100 years ago, on September 12, 1912, Woodrow Wilson delivered a talk to New York State Democratic Leaders in Syracuse, NY. Here’s a snippet of his talk that day:

“…there is no use being the representative of the party for the time being unless you understand it, unless you know the man you are dealing with. I must in candor, I must in faithfulness to you, try to show you the inside of my mind, and if I have found the words to do so, I am very happy.”

The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume 25: Aug.-Nov., 1912
by Woodrow Wilson
Edited by Arthur S. Link

This volume opens with Wilson’s speech of August 7, 1912, accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, and ends with his election as President of the United States on November 5, 1912.

All of Wilson’s significant extant personal and political correspondence and all significant incoming correspondence for this period is published, most of it for the first time. The most important contents of this volume are the texts of Wilson’s campaign speeches. A few have been omitted, and some are excerpted to avoid undue repetition. Most of his speeches are included, however, not only because they are essential to understanding his political philosophy and oratorical style, but also because all previous editions were found to be both incomplete and defective. The major accomplishment of this volume is the textual restoration of the great New Freedom speeches to their original majestic language and form. Altogether, they constitute one of the great oratorical accomplishments in modern history. Complete texts or substantial portions are provided of forty major addresses and many short speeches and remarks.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, International Relations, Political Science, Twitter

ELECTION TUESDAY

September 4, 2012 by

FACT: “A feature of the ‘great compromise’ between the North and the slave-holding South was the provision for electing two senators from each state. That arrangement has given those chosen to represent small, sparsely populated states—then Rhode Island and Delaware, now Vermont and Wyoming—equal power with the most populous. In 1790 Virginia had ten times the population of Rhode Island; California now has more than seventy times the population
of Wyoming.”

Reading Obama:
Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition
by James T. Kloppenberg
With a new preface by the author

Derided by the Right as dangerous and by the Left as spineless, Barack Obama puzzles observers. In Reading Obama, James T. Kloppenberg reveals the sources of Obama’s ideas and explains why his principled aversion to absolutes does not fit contemporary partisan categories. Obama’s commitments to deliberation and experimentation derive from sustained engagement with American democratic thought. In a new preface, Kloppenberg explains why Obama has stuck with his commitment to compromise in the first three years of his presidency, despite the criticism it has provoked.

Reading Obama traces the origins of his ideas and establishes him as the most penetrating political thinker elected to the presidency in the past century. Kloppenberg demonstrates the influences that have shaped Obama’s distinctive worldview, including Nietzsche and Niebuhr, Ellison and Rawls, and recent theorists engaged in debates about feminism, critical race theory, and cultural norms. Examining Obama’s views on the Constitution, slavery and the Civil War, the New Deal, and the civil rights movement, Kloppenberg shows Obama’s sophisticated understanding of American history. Obama’s interest in compromise, reasoned public debate, and the patient nurturing of civility is a sign of strength, not weakness, Kloppenberg argues. He locates its roots in Madison, Lincoln, and especially in the philosophical pragmatism of William James and John Dewey, which nourished generations of American progressives, black and white, female and male, through much of the twentieth century, albeit with mixed results.

Reading Obama reveals the sources of Obama’s commitment to democratic deliberation: the books he has read, the visionaries who have inspired him, the social movements and personal struggles that have shaped his thinking. Kloppenberg shows that Obama’s positions on social justice, religion, race, family, and America’s role in the world do not stem from a desire to please everyone but from deeply rooted—although currently unfashionable—convictions about how a democracy must deal with difference and conflict.

“James Kloppenberg, one of America’s foremost intellectual historians, persuasively argues that [there is] a broader shift in American philosophy away from appeal to general principles, valid at all times and in all places, toward a reliance on local, historically particular values and ideals. Kloppenberg’s own endeavor, in surveying the work in political and legal theory that seems to have shaped President Obama’s thinking, is to argue for the coherence, the Americanness, and the plausibility of Obama’s approach to politics and to the Constitution.”—Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Review of Books

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9277.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Philosophy, Political Science, Twitter

The Conventions and the Media–Who’s Watching and Does it Matter?

September 3, 2012 by

A precipitous drop since the 1950s in how much we trust our media outlets has major implications for the political sphere. The more we distrust the mainstream press’s information about policy outcomes, the more voters turn toward alternative partisan media outlets. And in the absence of a neutral, trustworthy news source, public beliefs and voting behavior are now increasingly shaped by partisan predispositions. Jonathan Ladd, author of Why Americans Hate the Media and How it Matters takes a look at the effects of conventions on public opinion. Are they opportunities to disseminate information, or simply preach to the choir? Who is really tuning in? Will there be bumps in polls? Read his post here.

Do the Conventions Matter?

Jonathan Ladd

 

Last week (in spite of a  disruption from Hurricane Isaac), Republicans  held their presidential nominating convention in Tampa Bay, FL. It will be followed one week later by the Democratic nominating convention in Denver, CO. Historically, conventions have produced “bumps” in the trial heat polls. On his blog, Tom Holbrook of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, produces a chart showing the bounces generated by major party conventions since 1964.

 

Some of these are quite large, including a 14.1 percentage point bounce for Nixon in 1968, a 13.6 point bounce for Clinton in 1992, and a 12.9 point bounce for Goldwater in 1964. Holbrook uses a regression model to predict that this year Romney will receive a 3.6 point bounce and Obama a 1.1 point bounce.

 

What are the important considerations that we should keep in mind when thinking about the importance (or lack thereof) of the conventions for the presidential race?

 

In general, political scientists find that the biggest effect of major campaign events is to activate partisan predispositions. The campaign as a whole has this result, but the effect may be even more dominant for conventions and debates that require one to self-select to be a viewer. This activation effect is driven by that fact that those most interested in politics are also the most likely to have strong existing views (see here and here). A very large portion of those who tune in are political junkies/activists who made up their minds long ago or those who are at least partisan enough that watching these events reminds them what they like about their party and dislike about the other one.

 

Of course, this does not preclude large post-convention bounces. But the biggest bounces tend occur when a candidate has a divisive nomination fight or for some other reason has failed to previously consolidate his own coalition behind him. This partisan reinforcement (or activation) can produce a surge in the polls without converting many swing voters. Voters who are truly up for grabs have the least interest in, and knowledge about, politics. They are simply unlikely to pay attention to conventions.

 

This was all true when the parties were less polarized and there were far fewer media choices. Yet it is possible that polarization and the proliferation of media options have made conventions even more primarily about rallying the base. Ben Lauderdale pointed out on twitter yesterday that convention bumps appear to be getting smaller over time. This makes sense if the bumps seen in past decades largely resulted from the partisan activation of candidates’ own coalitions. In today’s polarized environment, almost everyone exposed to convention messages comes in with their partisanship already activated.

 

How will people watch the conventions? To get a sense, I assembled available data from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, as compiled in their annual “State of the Media” reports. All figures below are from that source.

 

Total Households (in millions) Watching Conventions on Cable or Network TV

Source: “State of the Media, 2009”

 

The first thing to mention is that it is hard to predict how many total people will tune in to the conventions this year. While the networks have shrunk the amount of prime-time coverage over the years, many people still do watch the network coverage and it is relatively easy to switch over to complete coverage on cable. The total number of households watching the conventions actually shows little clear trend over time. There was a decline after 1992, but that was reversed with a big increase in viewership four years ago. It will be interesting to see if we return to the post-1992 norm or see viewership more like 2008.

 

Percentage of Households with TVs Turned to the 3 Network Evening New Programs Based on Nielson Data

Source: “State of the Media, 2012”

 

The three major broadcast networks audience has been steadily shrinking for decades. The most popular source for television news in the U.S. remains local news broadcasts, but these contain very little national political information. For this, you need to use network or cable news or some other source. On a normal evening, even the diminished network news audience is much larger than the cable prime time audience, but that is not necessarily the case for special events like party conventions, where people are more likely to seek out cable news channels.

 

Political Convention Viewership in 2008

Source: “State of the Media, 2009”

 

In 2008, the number of people watching the conventions on cable was not that much less than the number watching on the networks. This was especially true for the Republican Convention, likely driven Republicans’ affection for Fox News and distrust of the networks. People were just about equally likely to watch the Republican Convention on cable as on a network.

 

We can see a bit more about what this means by looking at the breakdown across cable channels. The Project for Excellence in Journalism doesn’t appear to have this data available for 2008, but I could find it for the 2004 conventions.

 

Democratic Convention Viewership on Cable News (in thousands)

 

Source: “State of the Media, 2005”

 

Republican Convention Viewership on Cable News (thousands)

Source: “State of the Media, 2005”

 

While cable viewers of the Democratic Convention were roughly evenly divided between the three major cable new networks, a majority of cable viewing of the Republican Convention was done through Fox News. The biggest difference between 2004 and 2012 will likely be MSNBC being used by a higher percentage of Democratic Convention viewers and a smaller percentage of Republican Convention viewers.

 

Does this tell us anything more about the effects of the conventions on public opinion? To the extent that Republicans are likely to watch their party’s convention on Fox, the network’s style will likely enhance the partisan activation effect. And to the extent that Democrats watch their convention on MSNBC, it will likely have a similar effect. To reiterate, this is the main effect that conventions have always had, only now more so.

Jonathan M. Ladd is assistant professor of government and public policy at Georgetown University. He received his PhD in politics from Princeton University.

Filed Under: American History, Election 101, Election 101 - Campaigns, Election 101 - Media, Twitter

ELECTION TUESDAY

August 28, 2012 by

FACT: “Both sides in the presidential contest of 1800 used religion for political advantage. While many of Jefferson’s opponents deemed him unfit for high national office because he was an infidel or atheist, at the same time Jeffersonian Republicans made the cynical and inaccurate charge that John Adams was intent on the establishment of a national church in order to bring religious dissenters over to his side. Alexander Hamilton charged Jefferson and his supporters with hyperbolic opposition to the ‘honest enthusiasm of Religious Opinion,’ while engaging in their own ‘Phrenzy of Political fanaticism.’”

Religion in American Politics: A Short History
by Frank Lambert

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention blocked the establishment of Christianity as a national religion. But they could not keep religion out of American politics. From the election of 1800, when Federalist clergymen charged that deist Thomas Jefferson was unfit to lead a “Christian nation,” to today, when some Democrats want to embrace the so-called Religious Left in order to compete with the Republicans and the Religious Right, religion has always been part of American politics. In Religion in American Politics, Frank Lambert tells the fascinating story of the uneasy relations between religion and politics from the founding to the twenty-first century.

Lambert examines how antebellum Protestant unity was challenged by sectionalism as both North and South invoked religious justification; how Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” competed with the anticapitalist “Social Gospel” during postwar industrialization; how the civil rights movement was perhaps the most effective religious intervention in politics in American history; and how the alliance between the Republican Party and the Religious Right has, in many ways, realized the founders’ fears of religious-political electoral coalitions. In these and other cases, Lambert shows that religion became sectarian and partisan whenever it entered the political fray, and that religious agendas have always mixed with nonreligious ones.

Religion in American Politics brings rare historical perspective and insight to a subject that was just as important—and controversial—in 1776 as it is today.

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8616.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science, Religion

ELECTION TUESDAY

August 7, 2012 by

FACT: “Typically the party of a sitting president in midterm elections can count on dropping about twenty-five seats in the House of Representatives. On Election Day 1934, however, the Democrats made dramatic gains, winning twenty-three additional seats in the House and nineteen in the Senate. Included among the victorious were another ten leftward-leaning representatives, seven from the Wisconsin Progressive Party and three from the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. On the front page of the New York Times, Arthur Krock called the congressional results ‘the most overwhelming victory in the history of modern politics’ for a sitting president.”

When Movements Matter:
The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security
by Edwin Amenta

When Movements Matter accounts for the origins of Social Security as we know it. The book tells the overlooked story of the Townsend Plan—a political organization that sought to alleviate poverty and end the Great Depression through a government-provided retirement stipend of $200 a month for every American over the age of sixty.

Both the Townsend Plan, which organized two million older Americans into Townsend clubs, and the wider pension movement failed to win the generous and universal senior citizens’ pensions their advocates demanded. But the movement provided the political impetus behind old-age policy in its formative years and pushed America down the track of creating an old-age welfare state.

Drawing on a wealth of primary evidence, historical detail, and arresting images, Edwin Amenta traces the ups and downs of the Townsend Plan and its elderly leader Dr. Francis E. Townsend in the struggle to remake old age. In the process, Amenta advances a new theory of when social movements are influential.

The book challenges the conventional wisdom that U.S. old-age policy was a result mainly of the Depression or farsighted bureaucrats. It also debunks the current view that America immediately embraced Social Security when it was adopted in 1935. And it sheds new light on how social movements that fail to achieve their primary goals can still influence social policy and the way people relate to politics.

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8325.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science, Sociology

ELECTION TUESDAY

July 31, 2012 by

FACT: “In his farewell address of 1797, George Washington warned against the dangerous ‘spirit of Party,’ which he said ‘serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It ignites the Community with ill founded Jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot & insurrection.’ Yet in opposing the formation of political parties, Washington was voicing a vain hope. During Washington’s first term as president, his treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, had already formed the Federalist Party and his secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, had founded the opposition Democratic-Republic Party.”

The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American
Political History
Edited by Michael Kazin
Rebecca Edwards & Adam Rothman, associate editors

With 150 accessible articles written by more than 130 leading experts, this essential reference provides authoritative introductions to some of the most important and talked-about topics in American history and politics, from the founding to today. Abridged from the acclaimed Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History, this is the only single-volume encyclopedia that provides comprehensive coverage of both the traditional topics of U.S. political history and the broader forces that shape American politics–including economics, religion, social movements, race, class, and gender. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, each entry provides crucial context, expert analysis, informed perspectives, and suggestions for further reading.

Contributors include Dean Baker, Lewis Gould, Alex Keyssar, James Kloppenberg, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Lisa McGirr, Jack Rakove, Nick Salvatore, Stephen Skowronek, Jeremi Suri, Julian Zelizer, and many more.

Entries cover:

—Key political periods, from the founding to today

—Political institutions, major parties, and founding documents

—The broader forces that shape U.S. politics, from economics, religion, and social movements to race, class, and gender

—Ideas, philosophies, and movements

—The political history and influence of geographic regions

We invite you to read the Preface here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/p9518.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Philosophy, Political Science, Reference

ELECTION TUESDAY

July 17, 2012 by

FACT: “In the 1824 election John Quincy Adams received fewer popular votes than Andrew Jackson. But neither received the requisite majority in the Electoral College; Henry Clay and Georgia’s William Crawford were also on the ballot. It thus fell to the House of Representatives to decide the winner. Clay, the House speaker, announced his support of Adams. The House voted to elect Adams president.”

Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz
by Richard H. Immerman

How could the United States, a nation founded on the principles of liberty and equality, have produced Abu Ghraib, torture memos, Plamegate, and warrantless wiretaps? Did America set out to become an empire? And if so, how has it reconciled its imperialism—and in some cases, its crimes—with the idea of liberty so forcefully expressed in the Declaration of Independence? Empire for Liberty tells the story of men who used the rhetoric of liberty to further their imperial ambitions, and reveals that the quest for empire has guided the nation’s architects from the very beginning—and continues to do so today.

Historian Richard Immerman paints nuanced portraits of six exceptional public figures who manifestly influenced the course of American empire: Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Seward, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Foster Dulles, and Paul Wolfowitz. Each played a pivotal role as empire builder and, with the exception of Adams, did so without occupying the presidency. Taking readers from the founding of the republic to the Global War on Terror, Immerman shows how each individual’s influence arose from a keen sensitivity to the concerns of his times; how the trajectory of American empire was relentless if not straight; and how these shrewd and powerful individuals shaped their rhetoric about liberty to suit their needs.

But as Immerman demonstrates in this timely and provocative book, liberty and empire were on a collision course. And in the Global War on Terror and the occupation of Iraq, they violently collided.

“Immerman has written one of the best descriptions and analyses of ‘American empire’—its meaning, evolution, and key figures that have impacted the idea. Empire for Liberty is essential reading for students and enthusiasts of American history and the United States’ place in and approach to the world, historically and contemporarily.”—Stefan Fergus, Civilian Reader

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9118.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science

ELECTION TUESDAY

July 10, 2012 by

FACT: “Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first Republican president to be elected in twenty-four years. He won with an impressive 55 percent of the popular vote and 83 percent of the electoral votes in 1952, but like every minority-party president, he was much stronger than his party: he received a higher share of the vote than the Republican congressional candidate in 79 percent of all districts.”

Presidential Party Building:
Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush
by Daniel J. Galvin

Modern presidents are usually depicted as party “predators” who neglect their parties, exploit them for personal advantage, or undercut their organizational capacities. Challenging this view, Presidential Party Building demonstrates that every Republican president since Dwight D. Eisenhower worked to build his party into a more durable political organization while every Democratic president refused to do the same. Yet whether they supported their party or stood in its way, each president contributed to the distinctive organizational trajectories taken by the two parties in the modern era.

Unearthing new archival evidence, Daniel Galvin reveals that Republican presidents responded to their party’s minority status by building its capacities to mobilize voters, recruit candidates, train activists, provide campaign services, and raise funds. From Eisenhower’s “Modern Republicanism” to Richard Nixon’s “New Majority” to George W. Bush’s hopes for a partisan realignment, Republican presidents saw party building as a means of forging a new political majority in their image. Though they usually met with little success, their efforts made important contributions to the GOP’s cumulative organizational development. Democratic presidents, in contrast, were primarily interested in exploiting the majority they inherited, not in building a new one. Until their majority disappeared during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Democratic presidents eschewed party building and expressed indifference to the long-term effects of their actions.

Bringing these dynamics into sharp relief, Presidential Party Building offers profound new insights into presidential behavior, party organizational change, and modern American political development.

We invite you to read Chapter 1 here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9081.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science

ELECTION TUESDAY

July 3, 2012 by

FACT: “The first presidential candidate to campaign in Kansas was Lincoln, who visited in 1859, fourteen months before the territory became a state. Having spoken so often about Kansas and having heard so much about its struggle for free state sovereignty, Lincoln was eager to see it firsthand. Taking the train across Missouri from Hannibal to Saint Joseph, where he arrived on Wednesday, November 30, he crossed the river to Elwood, Kansas, and gave a brief speech in the Great Western Hotel dining room that evening.”

Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland
by Robert Wuthnow

No state has voted Republican more consistently or widely or for longer than Kansas. To understand red state politics, Kansas is the place. It is also the place to understand red state religion. The Kansas Board of Education has repeatedly challenged the teaching of evolution, Kansas voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage, the state is a hotbed of antiabortion protest—and churches have been involved in all of these efforts. Yet in 1867 suffragist Lucy Stone could plausibly proclaim that, in the cause of universal suffrage, “Kansas leads the world!” How did Kansas go from being a progressive state to one of the most conservative?

In Red State Religion, Robert Wuthnow tells the story of religiously motivated political activism in Kansas from territorial days to the present. He examines how faith mixed with politics as both ordinary Kansans and leaders such as John Brown, Carrie Nation, William Allen White, and Dwight Eisenhower struggled over the pivotal issues of their times, from slavery and Prohibition to populism and anti-communism. Beyond providing surprising new explanations of why Kansas became a conservative stronghold, the book sheds new light on the role of religion in red states across the Midwest and the United States. Contrary to recent influential accounts, Wuthnow argues that Kansas conservatism is largely pragmatic, not ideological, and that religion in the state has less to do with politics and contentious moral activism than with relationships between neighbors, friends, and fellow churchgoers.

This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand the role of religion in American political conservatism.

“With the publication of Red State Religion, we profit greatly from a majestically comprehensive account of Kansas’ history. In turn, we get a truer story, one that inspires a less ideological reading of the state, perhaps freeing Kansans themselves from any notion of how they must think—or vote.”—Alexander Heffner, Philadelphia Inquirer

We invite you to read Chapter 1 here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9547.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science, Religion, Sociology

Matthew Briones with Cornel West on C-Span

June 27, 2012 by

With recent immigration debates and events such as the Trayvon Martin case triggering racial anxieties,  Matthew Briones, author of Jim and Jap Crow: A Cultural History of 1940s Interracial America has been speaking out about the undiscussed and potential alliances between Asian Americans and Latina/os. Recently he spoke at the Hue Man bookstore in Harlem with his friend Cornel West about race relations and the coming election, as well as his book, which follows the life of Charles Kikuchi, a Japanese American who was sent to an internment camp alongside 100,000 other Japanese Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The event drew a very engaged crowd, and was featured on Book TV this past weekend. Check out their conversation on C-Span’s site here, and their passionate post on this election year in interracial America for our Election 101 blog here.

Filed Under: African American Studies, American History, Election 101, Election 101 - Who Votes, Latin American Studies, Political Science, Twitter

ELECTION TUESDAY

June 26, 2012 by

FACT: “The first New Federalism, with its widely accepted, yet at times bitterly contested, constraints on the national government, fell before the onslaught of the Great Depression and the upending of the settled order of American politics and society. The thirty-six-year reign of McKinley-Hoover Republicanism vanished in the 1932 elections. In its place came a new model of federalism, a more centralized national government led by a strong president, aided by an assertive and active national bureaucracy and a compliant legislature and judiciary.”

Governing the American State:
Congress and the New Federalism, 1877-1929
by Kimberley S. Johnson

The modern, centralized American state was supposedly born in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Kimberley S. Johnson argues that this conventional wisdom is wrong. Cooperative federalism was not born in a Big Bang, but instead emerged out of power struggles within the nation’s major political institutions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Examining the fifty-two years from the end of Reconstruction to the beginning of the Great Depression, Johnson shows that the “first New Federalism” was created during this era from dozens of policy initiatives enacted by a modernizing Congress. The expansion of national power took the shape of policy instruments that reflected the constraints imposed by the national courts and the Constitution, but that also satisfied emergent policy coalitions of interest groups, local actors, bureaucrats, and members of Congress.

Thus, argues Johnson, the New Deal was not a decisive break with the past, but rather a superstructure built on a foundation that emerged during the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Her evidence draws on an analysis of 131 national programs enacted between 1877 and 1930, a statistical analysis of these programs, and detailed case studies of three of them: the Federal Highway Act of 1916, the Food and Drug Act of 1906, and the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921. As this book shows, federalism has played a vital but often underappreciated role in shaping the modern American state.

We invite you to read the Introduction here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8327.pdf

Be sure to check in every Tuesday for a new tidbit from our great selection of politically-minded books.

Filed Under: American History, Book Fact Friday, Election 101, International Relations, Political Science
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