Taking a hard look at the changing demographics in the American South, The Dynamics of Southern Politics discusses how this region remains exceptional while also addressing how that exceptionalism is eroding. Author Seth McKee tells a historically rich story going back to the end of the Civil War, tracks electoral changes to the present, and explores some of the most significant components contributing to partisan change. Supported by a host of detailed tables and figures, this book pairs a strong historical foundation with an in-depth analysis of the contemporary region.

This book is a systematic interpretation of the most important national and state tendencies in southern politics since 1920. The authors contend that, notable improvements in race relations aside, the central tendencies in southern politics are primarily established by the values, beliefs, and objectives of the expanding white urban middle class.

As migration alters the southern political landscape, partisan battle lines will be drawn between the Democrat-leaning areas of growth and the increasingly Republican areas of decline and stagnation. The Democratic Party is gaining support in the South, but the prevailing explanations of partisan shift fail to capture how and why this transformation has come about. In Movers and Stayers, Irwin Morris develops a new theory that explains the Democrats' renewed influence in the region and empirically demonstrates the influence of population growth. As Morris shows, migratory patterns play a significant role in politics, and urbanization is driving polarization in the South. Those who move to cities--the "movers" of Morris's framework--do so for jobs, and they tend to be progressive, young, well-educated Democrats. Their liberal views tend to be reinforced by the diversity of the communities in which they choose to live, and their progressivism fosters similar values among long-term residents. At the same time, "stayers" (long-term residents) absorb the consequences--or "community threat"--of this large-scale migration. While white stayers tend to become more conservative, the effects on voter behavior play out differently across racial lines. Both movers and stayers are altering the southern political landscape and polarization nationwide. Powerfully counterintuitive, Movers and Stayers provides a game-changing way of understanding one of the most confounding trends in American politics.

The unique political history of the Southern United States is rooted in the fact that it is the only region to have ever taken up arms against the national government. While the resources of the North prevailed after the four bloody years of the Civil War, the consequences of the practice of slavery and the bitter loss experienced by the South continue to shape southern politics a century and a half later. The twenty-three essays included in The Oxford Handbook of Southern Politics present a definitive view of the factors that contribute to this region's distinctive politics, examining these factors in the context of the South's political development since World War II. Following an introductory essay by editors Charles Bullock III and Mark Rozell, five chapters survey the past seventy-five years of the region's political history, looking in particular at the Civil Rights Movement, urbanization of the South, and the area's economy and changing demographics. Four chapters will then take a closer look at the influence of particular demographics, including religious conservatives, women, and Latinos. This will be followed by chapters on the rise of the Republican Party, southern political attitudes, and political and economic development in the Southern Black Belt. Subsequent chapters will examine political parties, voting and elections, including party organizations and activists, the mainstreaming of the Republican Party, realignment, party building, and Deep South politics. The five chapters of the final section will look at the South's impact on national politics, at the executive and congressional levels, legislatively and on the nation more generally.

div A central story of contemporary southern politics is the emergence of Republican majorities in the region’s congressional delegation. Acknowledging the significance and scope of the political change, James M. Glaser argues that, nevertheless, strands of continuity affect the practice of campaign politics in important ways. Strong southern tradition underlies the strategies pursued by the candidates, their presentational styles, and the psychology of their campaigns. The author offers eyewitness accounts of recent congressional campaigns in Texas, Mississippi, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In the tradition of his award-winning book Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South, Glaser captures the “stuff” of politics—the characters, the images, the rhetoric, and the scenery. Painting a full and fascinating picture of what it is like on the campaign trail, Glaser provides wide-ranging insights into the ways that the “hand of the past” reaches into the southern present. /DIV

Scholars, journalists, writers, and pundits have long regarded the South as the nation's most politically distinctive region. Its culture, history, and social and economic institutions have fostered unique political ideas that intrigue observers and have had profound political consequences for the nation's citizens, politicians, and policymakers. Writing Southern Politics is the most comprehensive review of the large body of post–World War II literature on southern politics. Since the publication of V.O. Key Jr.'s landmark work, Southern Politics in State and Nation (1949), scholars have produced an astounding number of books, monographs, professional journal articles, and research papers addressing elements of continuity and change in southern politics. The contributors to this book sort through the literature, identifying major themes, examining areas of scholarly disagreement, and making the key dimensions and contours of the region's politics understandable. Individually, the essays in this volume identify and clarify the key writing and research in selected subfields of southern politics, including religion, race, women, and political parties. Collectively, the essays identify and discuss the major components of and trends in southern politics over the past half century. The contributors, some of the foremost scholars in the field, have been heavily involved in researching and writing about southern politics during the past three decades and have observed the development of many of the research projects that form the foundation of southern political literature. In many instances, their own writings are included in the body of literature they discuss, bringing unique skills, research, and perspectives to their original essays. In addition to reviewing existing literature, Writing Southern Politics also includes suggestions for a future research agenda. Not all aspects of the region's dramatic fifty-year transformation have been fully explored, and the continuation of this development ensures new avenues to examine. The discussion of past research and writing is an invaluable tool for understanding the trends in southern politics over the past half century. By examining these trends and developing an agenda for future research, the authors provide a roadmap for identifying the changes that will likely shape the region over the next half century.

" The South continues to be the most distinctive region in American politics. Over the last half century, Democratic dominance in the South has given way to the emergence of a truly competitive two-party system that leans Republican in presidential elections. In some ways, the region is increasingly like the rest of the country, yet even the degree of change and the speed with which it occurred give the South a distinctive air. The contributors to Southern Political Party Activists examine both the development of American political party organizations and the changing political character of the South, focusing on grassroots party activists-those who are involved in party organizations at the county level. John A. Clark is associate professor of political science at Western Michigan University. Charles L. Prysby is professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be details how the 2016 presidential election developed in the eleven states that make up the South. Preeminent scholars of Southern politics analyze this momentous election, including the issues that drove southern voters, the nomination process in early 2016, and where the region may be headed politically in the Trump era. In addition, each state chapter includes analysis on notable congressional races and important patterns within the states. This new edited volume will be an important tool for scholars, and also journalists and political enthusiasts seeking a deeper understanding of contemporary southern electoral politics.

The Dynamic Dominion tells the dramatic story of Virginia's political transformation from the Second World War to the Reagan Revolution. The cradle of American democracy — and thus of the democratic movement that is sweeping the globe today — the venerable Old Dominion has emerged again in the second half of the 20th century as a dynamic political pace setter for the nation. In 1945, Virginia was a one-party, one-faction state under the aristocratic rule of conservative Democratic Senator Harry F. Byrd and his famed 'Byrd organization.' From his perch as the uncontested leader of the state that led the south, Virginia's Byrd became a regional symbol, a congressional kingpin, and a national power. With its political system and culture static, Virginia's voice was heard nationally mostly in dissent, as it had been for a century. Within a few decades, emerging two-party competition and an unprecedented party realignment combined to place the rapidly changing commonwealth in the national vanguard. Well before Republican parties throughout the South became competitive, Virginia's Republicans in the 1970s compiled the most impressive winning streak of any state party in the country. They did it by constructing a coalition of rural conservative Democrats and suburban Republicans — the same coalition that Ronald Reagan assembled nationwide in 1980, ushering in the Reagan Revolution. As told in The Dynamic Dominion, the Virginia story contains all the excitement, drama, conflict, and intrigue of a fast-paced thriller. It is a story of triumph and tragedy, celebrities and statesmen, heroes and scoundrels — of shifting party loyalties and makeshift coalitions, hard-fought campaigns and razor-close elections — of ambition and cynicism alongside sacrifice and idealism. Best of all, the tale is true. It is the fascinating story of contemporary democracy flourishing in Virginia . . . the place where it was born.

The implications of these and other significant realignments - especially as reflected among grassroots activists in the two major parties - are the focus of this valuable new book.