Where did the Era of Divided Government come from? What sustains split partisan control of the institutions of American national government year after year? Why can it shift so easily from Democratic or Republican presidencies, coupled with Republican or Democratic Congresses? How can the vast array of issues and personalities that have surfaced in American politics over the last forty years fit so neatly within-indeed, reinforce-the sustaining political pattern of our time? These big questions constitute the puzzle of modern American politics. The old answer—a majority and a minority party, plus dominant and recessive public issues—will not work in the Era of Divided Government. Byron Shafer, a political scientist who is regarded as one of the most comprehensive and original thinkers on American politics, provides a convincing new answer that has three major elements. These elements in combination, not "divided government" as a catch phrase, are the real story of politics in our time. The first element is comprised of two great sets of public preferences that manifest themselves at the ballot box as two majorities. The old cluster of economic and welfare issues has not so much been displaced as simply joined by a second cluster of cultural and national concerns. The second element can be seen in the behavior of political parties and party activists, whose own preferences don't match those of the general public. That public remains reliably left of the active Republican Party on economic and welfare issues and reliably right of the active Democratic Party on cultural and national concerns. The third crucial element is found in an institutional arrangement—the distinctively American matrix of governmental institutions, which converts those first two elements into a framework for policymaking, year in and year out. In the first half of the book, Shafer examines how dominant features of the Reagan, first Bush, Clinton, and second Bush administrations reflect the interplay of these three elements. Recent policy conflicts and institutional combatants, in Shafer's analysis, illuminate this new pattern of American politics. In the second half, he ranges across time and nations to put these modern elements and their composite pattern into a much larger historical and institutional framework. In this light, modern American politics appears not so much as new and different, but as a distinctive recombination of familiar elements of a political style, a political process, and a political conflict that has been running for a much, much longer time.

Politicians are polarized. Public opinion is volatile. Government is gridlocked. Or so journalists and pundits constantly report. But where are we, really, in modern American politics, and how did we get there? Those are the questions that Byron E. Shafer aims to answer in The American Political Pattern. Looking at the state of American politics at diverse points over the past eighty years, the book draws a picture, broad in scope yet precise in detail, of our political system in the modern era. It is a picture of stretches of political stability, but also, even more, of political change, one that goes a long way toward explaining how shifting factors alter the content of public policy and the character of American politicking. Shafer divides the modern world into four distinct periods: the High New Deal (1932–1938), the Late New Deal (1939–1968), the Era of Divided Government (1969–1992), and the Era of Partisan Volatility (1993–2016). Each period is characterized by a different arrangement of the same key factors: party balance, ideological polarization, issue conflict, and the policy-making process that goes with them. The American Political Pattern shows how these factors are in turn shaped by permanent aspects of the US Constitution, most especially the separation of powers and federalism, while their alignment is simultaneously influenced by the external demands for governmental action that arise in each period, including those derived from economic currents, major wars, and social movements. Analyzing these periods, Shafer sets the terms for understanding the structure and dynamics of politics in our own turbulent time. Placing the current political world in its historical and evolutionary framework, while illuminating major influences on American politics over time, his book explains where this modern world came from, why it endures, and how it might change yet again.

What historical factors transformed American politics into the institution we know today? This in-depth look at America's party system traces its efficacy, sustainability, and popularity through six influential presidencies spanning 1790 to the present day. Did President Obama's election serve as the impetus to the development of a seventh political party system? This compelling text sheds light on the American political process as seen through the lens of six pivotal presidencies that shaped America's culture, politics, and society and considers how our current president may be the latest transformative leader in this lineage. Covering two centuries of politics, the work offers insight into the American political machine and reveals how and why the two-party system became so dominant in American politics. Topics include the media's focus on the horse-race aspect of elections, the declining importance of party identification, and the impact of the geographical split that results in swing-states and gerrymandered districts. The work begins by dividing 200 years of politics into 6 periods influenced by a transformative president and discussing the profile of the party system in each era. The next section presents essays contributed by activists across a myriad of political parties and profiles leading political actors and organizations. The final section includes tables, primary source documents, reference lists, a detailed glossary, and a timeline of the development of American political parties that help elucidate the text and show the role political parties have played throughout history.

This exciting adventure romance is full of the exotically colorful life of rural India in the nineteenth century with a boy-hero who is handsome, intelligent, self-reliant, and streetwise.

Election 2000: Aberration or paradigm? The essays in this innovative volume combining scholarly and journalistic views, seek to place the extraordinary events of the 2000 presidential election into context with the trends of electoral politics before and after. Originally presented as a series of public lectures at Oxford University, this volume benefits from an international perspective, a stellar lineup of contributors, and a remarkably cohesive analysis that lays the election results (and thus, the current state of American politics) at the feet of a persistent American cultural divide. Visit our website for sample chapters!

American politics is criticized and belittled by media critics and the public, yet the system is held out as a model for the world. The paradox of this simultaneous cynicism and adulation is rooted in the conflict between the human motives that drive politics. Crisply and clearly written with numerous historical examples, How American Politics Works explains the complex and sometimes confusing American political system in a vibrant and accessible light. Documented with recent and historical scholarship presented clearly in laymen’s terms, How American Politics Works explores the multiple dimensions of politics and the source of Americans’ disillusionment with their government through the “four Ps”: Philosophy, Pragmatism, Personality and Profit. Philosophical and moral principles underpin the key political institutions in America, but values are challenged in the quest to achieve workable political solutions. Policy is rarely made to conform to lofty principles alone. It often results from short-term incremental compromise, driven by people in pursuit of the public good and their own personal self-interest and profit. How American Politics Works explains the inner workings of the American political system, including the power of ideas, political compromise, powerful personalities and the preeminent position of money. While Americans’ high ideals are often illusive in the rough and tumble of political battles, and the public’s trust is bruised with every political scandal, balancing idealism and individual virtue with ambition and self-interest is the dynamic and safeguard of American politics. How American Politics Works offers a comprehensive presentation of the realities, challenges and possibilities of the American political system to bring an understanding, fascination and dedication to the wider public.

This collection of essays by twenty-nine distinguished scholars provides readers with a complete overview of American politics and policy that can be found in any single volume. These essays reveal that American politics historically is volatile, not given easily to civility, and polarizing; at the same time, they explore important political developments in addressing real issues confronting the nation and the world.

Engines of Change, which is in the Oxford Studies in Postwar American Political Development series, provides the first full account of the role of national intra-party "factions" in American politics. Drawing from the last 150 years of American political history, DiSalvo explains how factions have shaped the parties' ideologies, impacted presidential nominations, structured patterns of presidential governance, and impacted the development of the American state.

For generations, debating the expansion or contraction of the American welfare state has produced some of the nation's most heated legislative battles. Attempting social policy reform is both risky and complicated, especially when it involves dealing with powerful vested interests, sharp ideological disagreements, and a nervous public. The Politics of Policy Change compares and contrasts recent developments in three major federal policy areas in the United States: welfare, Medicare, and Social Security. Daniel Béland and Alex Waddan argue that we should pay close attention to the role of ideas when explaining the motivations for, and obstacles to, policy change. This insightful book concentrates on three cases of social policy reform (or attempted reform) that took place during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Béland and Waddan further employ their framework to help explain the meaning of the 2010 health insurance reform and other developments that have taken place during the Obama presidency. The result is a book that will improve our understanding of the politics of policy change in contemporary federal politics.

The study of the presidency—the power of the office, the evolution of the executive as an institution, the men who have served—has generated a great body of research and scholarship.What better way to get students to grapple with the ideas of the literature than through conflicting perspectives on some of the most pivotal issues facing the modern presidency? Richard Ellis and Michael Nelson have once again assembled a cadre of top scholars to offer a series of pro/con essays that will inspire spirited debate beyond the pages of the book. Each essay—written in the form of a debate resolution— offers a compelling yet concise view on the American executive. In essays that are new to this edition, contributors debate the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, the abolition of the vice presidency, the extent to which presidential signing statements threaten the separation of powers, and whether the fighting of the war on terror should require relaxing checks on presidential power. Ellis and Nelson introduce each pair of essays, giving students context and preparing them to read each argument critically, so they can decide for themselves which side of the debate they find most persuasive.