Author: / Content Type: Journal Article / Publishing Institution: Academy of Political Science / Journal: Political Science Quarterly

1. The Polarized American Electorate: The Rise of Partisan-Ideological Consistency and Its Consequences

Author:: Alan I. Abramowitz
Publication Date:: 01-2023
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Alan I. Abramowitz presents evidence from American National Election Studies surveys showing that party identification, ideological identification and issue positions have become much more closely connected over the past half century. He argues that as a result, the ideological divide between Democratic and Republican identifiers has widened considerably. The rise of partisan-ideological consistency has contributed to growing affective polarization as well as increasing party loyalty and straight ticket voting.
Topic:: Elections, Ideology, Political Science, Survey, Polarization, Republican Party, and Democratic Party
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

2. The Geopolitical Consequences of COVID-19: Assessing Hawkish Mass Opinion in China

Author:: Joshua Byun, D. G. Kim, and Sichen Li
Publication Date:: 01-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: JOSHUA BYUN, D.G. KIM, and SICHEN LI examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Chinese public’s foreign policy attitudes. Drawing on original surveys fielded in China during the first six months of the global pandemic, they find that ordinary Chinese citizens are optimistic about China’s future global position, and that this optimism corresponds with the widespread perception that the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating China’s rise relative to the United States.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Public Opinion, Geopolitics, Survey, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: China, Asia, and United States of America

3. After Trump: Enemies, Partisans, and Recovery

Author:: Christopher J. Fettweis
Publication Date:: 01-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: CHRISTOPHER J. FETTWEIS discusses what political polarization in the United States has in common with the relationship between the Cold War superpowers. He argues that in both cases the “enemy image” warps perception of the other side and prevents meaningful reconciliation. Applying insight from international relations to U.S. domestic politics, he discusses the pernicious effects of the enemy image and how to overcome it.
Topic:: International Relations, Domestic Politics, Donald Trump, and Polarization
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

4. How Populism Dies: Political Weaknesses of Personalistic Plebiscitarian Leadership

Author:: Kurt Weyland
Publication Date:: 03-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Kurt Weyland examines the weaknesses of populist leadership. He argues that populist leaders are prone to errors and misdeeds, have difficulty dealing with other political forces, and face institutional and external constraints. Consequently, he concludes, they damage and suffocate democracy not as easily and frequently as recent observers have feared.
Topic:: Democracy, Leadership, Populism, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Global Focus

5. State Building in Crisis Governance: Donald Trump and COVID-19

Author:: Nicholas F. Jacobs, Desmond King, and Sidney M. Milkis
Publication Date:: 07-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Nicholas F. Jacobs, Desmond King, and Sidney M. Milkis look at the final year of the Donald Trump presidency, and the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They argue that Trump’s actions fit a rationale, partisan strategy endemic to executive-centered partisanship. Consequently, Trump and the Republican Party failed to suffer the repudiation that punished previous presidents when adjudged failed crisis leaders.
Topic:: Governance, Political Science, Crisis Management, Donald Trump, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Republican Party
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

6. Assessing Futures Intelligence: Looking Back on Global Trends 2025

Author:: James J. Wirtz and Roger Z. George
Publication Date:: 09-2022
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: James J. Wirtz and Roger Z. George offer an assessment of the forecasts contained in Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, an unclassified report produced by the National Intelligence Council. They identify several analytical biases that shaped this effort at futures intelligence and one critical factor that is not adequately considered in U.S. futures estimates in general and Global Trends 2025 in particular.
Topic:: Intelligence, Political Science, and Assessment
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

7. The Emergence of a Latino Political Ethnicity: 1990 to the Era of Trump

Author:: Alan Yang
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Alan Yang examines how ordinary U.S. Latinos of different national origin ancestries have become an increasingly cohesive panethnic political group since the time of the 1990 Latino National Political Survey. He argues that this trend towards increasing convergence across national origin has been both reinforced and disrupted on questions related to politically relevant sentiments and perceptions two years into the Trump presidency.
Topic:: Politics, History, Ethnicity, Political Science, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

8. Vengeful Citizens, Violent States: A Theory of War and Revenge, Rachel Stein

Author:: Peter Liberman
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: By showing that mass vengefulness helps democratic leaders bring their nations to war, this wonderful book significantly advances our understanding of how cultural values affect international politics. Its most important contribution is demonstrating that democracies that retain death penalty laws were significant more likely to initiate the use of force than non-death-penalty democracies in the 1945–2001 period. The finding is robust to a variety of control variables and specifications, although skeptics may wonder whether it might be inflated by ethnocentrism, beliefs about the utility of violence, or other unmeasured potential covariates. Rachel Stein attributes the belligerence of death penalty states to cross-national differences in vengeful cultures, on the grounds that citizens’ vengefulness predicts both cross-sectional support for the death penalty and cross-national differences in the penalty’s retention. Her rigorous analysis greatly strengthens the case that the unusual bellicosity of retributivists, observed by Stein and other researchers, affects actual interstate conflict.
Topic:: War, Prisons/Penal Systems, Leadership, Book Review, Elites, and Capital Punishment
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, and United States of America

9. Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis, Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick and Maxwell Palmer

Author:: Mark Paul
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: America is in the midst of a housing crisis. For millions of Americans, stable housing is simply out of reach. A full-time worker earning minimum wage cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in any county in the United States. Twenty-one million households, nearly half of all renters, are rent-burdened, with rent claiming more than a quarter of their income. There are a number of contributing factors to the crisis, including pervasive economic inequality and the lack of rising wages over an entire generation for nonmanagerial workers, but many economists, political scientists, and housing experts point the finger at a lack of housing supply. Specifically, much ink has been spilled over the “not in my back yard” (NIMBY) phenomenon, whereby local residents support more housing in theory, just not in their own neighborhoods. But do local residents really have the power necessary to slow new and denser development in ways that curtail housing supply and contribute to rising house prices? In their timely and important book, Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick, and Maxwell Palmer provide an excellent analysis of the political institutions that empower certain local residents to resist change in their neighborhoods. While the NIMBY sentiment is worthy of consideration regarding the housing crisis, without the right institutions, the movement would not have legs. Neighborhood Defenders provides an in-depth study of how institutions initially designed to democratize local zoning and development decisions have resulted in unintended consequences. Specifically, they document how participatory institutions that could, in theory, keep developers accountable to the people have instead backfired, leading to a shortage of housing supply and a precipitous rise in prices.
Topic:: Book Review, Political Science, Crisis Management, and Housing
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

10. Dangerously Divided: How Race and Class Shape Winning and Losing in American Politics, Zoltan L. Hajnal

Author:: Natalie Masuoka
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Explanations for American voting behavior and attitudes have taken on a curious frame since the election of Barack Obama in 2008, such that there have been growing claims that race is no longer central to American politics. Obama’s election was labeled evidence of a new “post-racial” America. Then, when Donald Trump was elected in 2016, public narratives emphasized the role of social class by pointing to the voting bloc of white, working-class, and rural voters who had helped decide the outcome of the election. Zoltan L. Hajnal’s Dangerously Divided joins an important collection of recent academic work that directly challenges the argument about the reduced role of race in American politics. Hajnal does not sugarcoat his position: “A key aspect of this story is not just that race matters but also that it eclipses the other important dividing lines in American society” (p. 13). Race has always been a core feature of American politics, and it is present even in the constitutional Framers’ debates over the structure of government. The interpretation that recent events indicate a reduced role of race discounts the historical centrality that race has always played in American government. Hajnal offers empirical evidence and an unambiguous argument that race continues to direct most patterns in American politics.
Topic:: Politics, Race, Elections, Book Review, Political Science, and Class
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

11. Is the Republican Party Destroying Itself? (And Why It Needs to Reclaim Its Conservative Ideals), Thomas E. Patterson

Author:: Gary Wasserman
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Coming to terms with Donald Trump, his causes and consequences, is a lively cottage industry. When packaged as predictions of his political demise by two distinguished scholars, the stakes are raised for the authors and, since this review was written before the electoral reckoning, for the reviewer as well. Perhaps Trump’s reckless disregard for traditional boundaries extends to everyone who touches the subject. Both Thomas E. Patterson and Andrew Hacker should be commended for writing obituaries before the body has actually stopped quivering. Given that both books were completed before the unique year of 2020 had struck with all its terrible unpredictable forces, these writers are brave indeed, especially because they are so self-assured in prophesizing a Republican Party decline (Patterson) and Trump’s immediate electoral demise, taking most of his party with him (Hacker). After all, they wrote when the incumbent president could boast of a roaring stock market and economy as well as unquestioned control of a party with a majority of national offices (presidency, Senate, Judiciary), state legislatures (29), and governors (26).
Topic:: Book Review, Political Science, Donald Trump, and Political Parties
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

12. How to Stop Jihadist Foreign Fighters

Author:: Daniel Byman
Publication Date:: 09-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: DANIEL BYMAN argues that the threat volunteers for al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other jihadist groups pose is potentially grave, but that effective policy can profoundly reduce the danger. He argues that governments can disrupt the recruitment and travel of foreign fighters, hinder their time in war zones, and improve policing and intelligence gathering when they return.
Topic:: Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Jihad, and Foreign Fighters
Political Geography:: Global Focus

13. How to Win a “Long Game”: The Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party, and the Politics of Counter-Enforcement

Author:: Adrienne Jones and Andrew J. Polsky
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: ADRIENNE JONES and ANDREW POLSKY examine how the Republican Party engaged in counter-enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, notably during the Reagan and Bush 43 administrations, in an effort to maximize the voting strength of pro-Republican voting constituencies. They argue that sustained counter-enforcement efforts lead to sharp policy oscillations when parties alternate in power and that if a party pursues the long game of persistent counter-enforcement, it may find itself with the opportunity to achieve lasting results.
Topic:: Domestic Politics, Voting Rights, Political Parties, and Republican Party
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

14. U.S. Geopolitics and Nuclear Deterrence in the Era of Great Power Competitions

Author:: Peter Rudolf
Publication Date:: 03-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: PETER RUDOLF argues that in the new era of great power competitions the United States is faced with the question of whether to seek some form of geopolitical accommodation based on de facto spheres of influence and buffer zones or to push ahead with strategic rivalries overshadowed by the risk of a military conflict with a nuclear dimension.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Power Politics, Geopolitics, Deterrence, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

15. Policy or Pique? Trump and the Turn to Great Power Competition

Author:: Deborah Welch Larson
Publication Date:: 03-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: DEBORAH WELCH LARSON analyzes Donald Trump’s policy toward China and Russia and the return of great power competition. She argues that Trump’s personalization of foreign policy undermined his trade war with China, and efforts to improve relations with Russia and that the Joe Biden administration will continue to compete but seek cooperation in areas of shared interests.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Power Politics, Trade Wars, Donald Trump, Strategic Competition, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Eurasia, Asia, North America, and United States of America

16. The Presidential and Congressional Elections of 2020: A National Referendum on the Trump Presidency

Author:: Gary C. Jacobson
Publication Date:: 03-2021
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: GARY C. JACOBSON discusses the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. He argues that the elections were above all a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency, which provoked extreme levels of party loyalty, partisan polarization, and partisan animosity in the electorate, as well as the highest voter turnout in more than a century.
Topic:: Elections, Voting, Donald Trump, Referendum, and Polarization
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

17. Limits of the Conservative Revolution in the States

Author:: Matt Grossmann
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Matt Grossmann analyzes the policy consequences of increasing Republican control of U.S. state governments since the 1990s. He finds that Republican states have enacted some new conservative policies, but many other liberal policy revolutions have continued unabated. He argues that conservative policymaking is difficult because federal policy and electoral incentives incentivize continued government expansion.
Topic:: Government, Politics, Conservatism, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

18. Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide, Jonathan Rodden

Author:: Jamie Monogan
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The importance of political geography is likely to see renewed attention amid the redistricting cycle following the 2020 census and the controversies that new constituency maps are likely to bring. Many argue that gerrymandering in the United States is a key cause of electoral polarization and the observation that Democrats often are legislatively underrepresented relative to their aggregate vote shares. Jonathan Rodden convincingly shows that although gerrymandering may be a factor at the margins, the primary cause of these patterns is an urban-rural political divide that causes a political geography problem for Democrats. Rodden makes this case by showing historically how party platforms and constituencies evolved and illustrating the implications for political geography. This historical tracing of the parties speaks to how the battle between Republicans and Democrats came to be a culture war. This starts with the Democrats’ historical position as the party of laborers. Since factories were concentrated in cities, Democratic politicians who wanted to maintain their seats had to adopt positions that were appealing to growing portions of urban populations, taking progressive positions on social issues in addition to representing the interests of laborers. As the economy has shifted, the Democrats’ urban coalition has remained, with Republicans finding appeal in rural and exurban areas. The United States is not alone in this phenomenon. Rodden shows that nations such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia—all of which also conduct single-member plurality elections— have also seen left-of-center parties become urban parties with similar geographic patterns in constituencies.
Topic:: Elections, Book Review, Political Science, Urban, Rural, and Cities
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

19. Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison, Ahmet T. Kuru

Author:: Elizabeth R. Nugent
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The economic decline of the Muslim world and the rise of Western Europe has long captured the attention of scholars across disciplines. Explanations largely focus either on Islam, whether its financial institutions or the essence of its teachings, or on Western colonialism as the culprit. In Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment, Ahmet T. Kuru puts forward a new explanation rooted in class relations. He takes issue with existing approaches, convincingly demonstrating the intellectual and economic vibrancy of the Muslim world between the eighth and twelfth centuries, undermining arguments about Islam’s incompatibility with progress, and asserting that colonialism occurred too late to explain multiple political and socioeconomic crises. Instead, Kuru identifies the eleventh century as a critical juncture when the Muslim world witnessed the emergence of alliances between Islamic scholars (ulema; singular alim) and the military. These alliances persisted through path dependence and gradually hindered intellectual and economic creativity by marginalizing independent intellectual and bourgeois classes in the Muslim world. In turn, the absence of these classes led to the persistence of authoritarianism and the well-documented underdevelopment in the contemporary period.
Topic:: Development, Islam, History, Authoritarianism, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, and North Africa

20. Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics, Austin Carson

Author:: Erik J. Dahl
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this valuable new book, Austin Carson examines the phenomenon of covert military intervention, which he defines as occurring when an external major power secretly provides military assistance during war. Carson argues that such interventions are more common than might be expected and that they often lead to a puzzling dynamic, whereby an adversary detects the intervention but does not publicize it. Carson’s use of the term “covert” follows the conventional definition of government activities designed to conceal the actor’s role in that activity, but by focusing on covert military intervention, he is studying a phenomenon different from “covert action,” which in the American context usually refers to activities undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency, rather than by military forces. This book is therefore a complement to other works on covert action, including Lindsey A. O’Rourke’s recent Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War.
Topic:: Military Intervention, Book Review, Conflict, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and United States of America

21. Conformity: The Power of Social Influences, Cass R. Sunstein

Author:: Frank J. Gonzalez
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In the polarized, post-truth, tribal era of politics that we find ourselves in, a book on conformity—how to understand it and take concrete steps toward diminishing it—should (rightfully) be expected to be of great interest to many. In Conformity: The Power of Social Influences, the prolific Cass R. Sunstein delivers exactly this. This book stands out from Sunstein’s other books in its focus on the broad societal implications of social influence. Sunstein grounds his argument in the principles underlying American democracy, and in doing so, he makes it difficult not to become depressed at how distant our current state of affairs seems from that ideal. However, Sunstein offers optimism in the form of a framework for actionable solutions. Sunstein begins with a model of the two major features of human psychology that he says reinforce conformity: (1) the tendency to believe something is true if others believe it is true (especially “confident” others) and (2) the desire for positive social standing and reputation. In Chapter 1, he explains how conformity is frequently harmful because it encourages individuals to suppress their “private signals” (that is, expressions of what they individually think is right or wrong), which decreases the diversity of ideas in a group and ultimately leads to undesirable outcomes. In Chapter 2, Sunstein advances beyond the framework he has traditionally worked within by considering cascades, or the spread of ideas and practices through conformity pressures, which ultimately give rise to social movements. He acknowledges that cascades are not necessarily “bad”—they are likely what led to the rise of the #MeToo movement—but they were also likely crucial to the propagation of genocide during the Holocaust.
Topic:: Book Review, Psychology, Political Science, and Polarization
Political Geography:: Global Focus

22. Foreign Policy Dilemmas and Opportunities for a New Administration: An Opinion Piece

Author:: Robert Jervis
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Robert Jervis speculates about the likely foreign policy that a Democratic administration will follow if its candidate wins in November. He argues that President Donald Trump will have left a difficult legacy and his successor will have to simultaneously rebuild trust and instructions while also utilizing the leverage that Trump has generated.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Elections, Political Science, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

23. The Rise of Andrew Jackson: Myth, Manipulation, and the Making of Modern Politics, David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler

Author:: Adam Pratt
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: It would be easy to read David Heidler and Jeanne Heidler’s study of the improbable rise of Andrew Jackson to the nation’s highest political office and equate it with the even more improbable rise of the current occupant of the Oval Office. Indeed, the text is littered with quotations that make it nearly impossible not to draw parallels to contemporary politics. As early as 1822, for example, the influential editor of the Richmond Enquirer, Thomas Ritchie, admitted that a Jackson presidency had not been taken “by anyone, seriously,” until the Tennessee legislature nominated Jackson (p. 131). Such a myopic reading would be a mistake, though, for the Heidlers have written a book that transcends our current political situation and speaks more directly to the power of communicating myths about political candidates by a committed group of supporters whose machinations can propel their favorites to the highest levels of success in American electoral politics.
Topic:: Politics, Book Review, Political Science, and Andrew Jackson
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

24. Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism through a Turbulent Century, Torben Iversen and David Soskice

Author:: Christopher Way
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In a climate of concern about the future of capitalism and democracy, this book provides a robust defense of both. Capitalism and democracy, Torben Iversen and David Soskice argue, are mutually reinforcing, and the combination has been remarkably successful over the past century. In what will probably be the most discussed part of the book, they anticipate that the symbiotic pair will continue to thrive, overcoming the challenges posed by populism and inequality. Democracy and Prosperity provides a challenge to those who believe that capitalism is increasingly unable to fulfill the needs of broad swaths of society and that democracy is creaking under the strains of populism.
Topic:: History, Democracy, Capitalism, and Book Review
Political Geography:: Global Focus

25. Disenfranchising Democracy: Constructing the Electorate in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, David A. Bateman

Author:: Dawn Langan Teele
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: David A. Bateman’s new book explores nearly all of the crucial questions concerning democracy and inclusion that we are grappling with today, from the very broad—how do the ways in which we think about the origins of our nation inform the welcoming or hostile attitudes we assume in relation to immigrants and outsiders?—to the very narrow—do requirements that voters present physical documents verifying their identity reduce the electoral participation of minority groups? In answering these questions, Bateman offers a detailed portrait of the political machinations that result in electoral reforms, describing elites’ efforts to blur lines between expediency and morality and the circumstances that led conservative parties (the same that today seek to abolish laws that give special status to protected classes of people) to work hard to establish and maintain legal provisions that awarded different rights to different groups. Fundamentally, Bateman explains why steps toward inclusive democratic institutions are often accompanied by steps back, which leave us uncertain of our accomplishments and anxious about our future. Remarkably, though, Disenfranchising Democracy considers these familiar dynamics and dilemmas not in the contemporary world but in the rather distant past, drawing on a wealth of archival sources to analyze the timing of electoral reforms, the emergence and ossification of party- based patterns of support for franchise reform, and the political ideas of would-be reformers and resisters in three of the world’s first semidemocratic countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
Topic:: History, Elections, Democracy, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Europe, France, North America, and United States of America

26. Do Global Publics View Human Rights Organizations as Handmaidens of the United States?

Author:: David Crow and James Ron
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: David Crow and James Ron look at how global publics view the relationship between human rights organizations and the U.S. government. They argue that ordinary people across various world regions do not perceive human rights groups as “handmaidens” of U.S. foreign policy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Government, Human Rights, Non-Governmental Organization, and Public Opinion
Political Geography:: Global Focus and United States of America

27. Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind, Gary C. Jacobson

Author:: Chris Baylor
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: As we learned in high school civics, the Founders failed to anticipate political parties when they designed a Constitution premised on a separation of powers into three separate branches. Policymaking power was delegated primarily to the legislative branch, not the executive branch. But Gary C. Jacobson’s new book, Presidents and Parties in the Public Mind, shows how legislators mostly rise and fall with a president of their own party, affecting their ability to legislate and win elections. With little or no change to the president’s formal powers, a government informally organized around parties has become a government informally organized around the president.
Topic:: Book Review, Political Science, and Political Parties
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

28. Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing, Robert A. Caro

Author:: Meena Bose
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Robert Caro’s monumental study of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) and multivolume (four books completed and a fifth in progress) work on Lyndon B. Johnson comprise years of intensive data collection about each individual’s formative years, strategic advancement in public leadership and political power, and mastery of policymaking. To develop these unique and authoritative biographies, Caro undertakes a daunting research agenda that includes comprehensive scrutiny of the public archival record, interviews with numerous people who knew or worked with Moses or LBJ, and immersion in the physical setting that molded each individual. In Working, Caro takes readers into his world of analyzing how these two leaders acquired and used political power, providing an inside look at the diligent, indefatigable search for truth underlying these unparalleled biographies. The advice that has guided Caro throughout his writing career, first as a journalist and then in his books, comes from an editor who memorably said, “Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page” (p. 11). Caro heeded this advice when he began working on the Moses book, which he decided to write after learning that Moses, as commissioner of New York City’s Department of Parks, had succeeded in getting state approval for a study to construct a new bridge, despite multiple traffic and pollution concerns. As Caro writes, Moses “had enough power to turn around a whole state government in one day” (p. 13).
Topic:: History, Book Review, Political Science, and Public Policy
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

29. Toppling Foreign Governments: The Logic of Regime Change, Melissa Willard-Foster

Author:: Alexander B. Downes
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The rapid-fire overthrow of the theocratic Taliban regime in Afghanistan (2001) and Saddam Hussein’s Baathist dictatorship in Iraq (2003) by the United States—and the disastrous aftermaths of those and other recent interventions (such as the ouster of Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011)— has sparked popular and scholarly interest in the causes and consequences of foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC). One of the enduring puzzles about FIRCs is that, as highlighted in Melissa Willard-Foster’s terrific book Toppling Foreign Governments, three-quarters of them are carried out by great powers against minor powers in situations of extreme power asymmetry. “Though this asymmetry of power makes an imposed change feasible,” writes Willard-Foster, a political scientist at the University of Vermont, “it should also make that change unnecessary” because “militarily weak leaders who are bereft of allies should back down when confronted by stronger states” (pp. 2–3). The 133 regime changes in Willard-Foster’s study, however, testify that the weak regularly defy the strong—and pay the price for it.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Government, Regime Change, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, and United States of America

30. Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America, Thomas Milan Konda

Author:: Joseph M. Parent
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: How did it come to this? Time was when the lunatic fringe was on the fringe. Politicians, scientists, and network anchors told us things, and we believed them. Democracy usually worked as advertised. Now, the lunatics are running the asylum, possibly into the ground. Conspiracy theories are breeding and seething like a zombie apocalypse, scaling the battlements of civilization with their countless corpses and bottomless hunger for brains. “Conspiracism has reached such a point of prominence today that we must ask whether it is about to destroy democracy and civil society,” (p. 12) warns Thomas Konda. Konda’s central question is this: “Americans see hoaxes and plots everywhere…. why?” (p. 1). Yet the book is really about “how” questions. The focus of the work is “conspiracism—a mental framework, a belief system, a worldview that leads people to look for conspiracies, to anticipate them, to link them into a grander overarching conspiracy” (p. 2). Konda’s explanation is that modern conspiracism dates back to the French Revolution; it developed in fits and starts during the nineteenth century, mostly in the United States, “gained a permanent foothold in the public consciousness first as an anti-Semitic conspiracy, then as a global-Communist-new world order conspiracy” (p. 12), and went mainstream following the election of Barack Obama, especially after the 2016 presidential election. That is how it came to this.
Topic:: Book Review, Political Science, and Conspiracy Theory
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

31. Striking a Blow for Unity? Race and Economics in the 2010 New Orleans Mayoral Election

Author:: Marek Steedman, Iliyan Iliev, Marcus Coleman, and Allan McBride
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Marek Steedman, Iliyan Iliev, Marcus Coleman, and Allan McBride analyze the 2010 New Orleans mayoral election. They find that racial, economic, and partisan context affected voting behavior. They argue that analytical approaches that account for the effects of social context on political behavior are important to understanding urban politics.
Topic:: Economics, Race, Elections, Political Science, and Urban
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

32. Billionaires and Stealth Politics, Benjamin I. Page, Jason Seawright and Matthew J. Lacombe

Author:: David Szakonyi
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: As the 2020 presidential campaign heats up, the issue of billionaires ascendant within American politics will once again take center stage. The country could see another billionaire candidate challenge the incumbent billionaire president, whose many informal advisers and cabinet members run in similar circles. Several ultrarich elites will inevitably break new records with their individual campaign contributions. A voter could be forgiven for thinking that billionaires have publicly co-opted the political system. In a much-needed new book Billionaires and Stealth Politics, Benjamin I. Page, Jason Seawright, and Matthew J. Lacombe argue that these public actions are just the tip of the iceberg. For all the money billionaires invest in campaigns, parties, and issues, only rarely do they say anything in public to explain their preferences or reasons for pursuing specific aims. Billionaires engage in what the authors term stealth politics: they are extremely active in politics but remain intentionally quiet about the extent of their activities and influence. That silence is even more deafening with regard to issues where billionaires diverge from their less affluent fellow citizens, such as tax rates and redistributive policies.
Topic:: Economics, Politics, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

33. How Democracy Ends, David Runciman

Author:: Tom Ginsburg
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: It is hardly a secret that democracy is in trouble around the world, and the phenomenon of backsliding has prompted a small wave of books diagnosing the problem and suggesting solutions. David Runciman’s contribution to this literature is a breezy and readable tour through mechanisms and alternatives. Easily weaving political theory with grounded examples, he has produced a highly accessible analysis focusing more on diagnosis than cure. Runciman’s title is to be distinguished from accounts of how specific democracies are dying or what might be done to save constitutional democracy. Instead, he focuses on the idea that Western democracy is undergoing something of a midlife crisis. Nothing lasts forever, and while democracy has had a pretty good run, it now “looks exhausted in the places it has the deepest roots” (p. 72). Contemplating democracy’s death, the book is organized around a series of mechanisms by which this might come about: coup, environmental catastrophe, technological displacement, and the various alternatives of benevolent and not so benevolent authoritarianism that have been put on offer. His main argument is that while we are attracted to democracy because of its history, the past does not repeat itself, and we are likely to face new challenges not yet contemplated. If democracy dies, the autopsy will be a new one.
Topic:: Democracy, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Global Focus

34. Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution, Monica Prasad

Author:: Christopher Faricy
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Why has the Republican Party centered its domestic agenda around tax cuts for three decades? Monica Prasad presents a thorough, complicated, and convincing story of the political motivations and impact of Ronald Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981. Starving the Beast argues that the ERTA marked the transformation of the Republican Party from a party of fiscal responsibility to one of tax cuts. Reagan showed his fellow Republicans that running on tax cuts was not only electorally popular but came with no economic or political costs. Republicans could now distribute government benefits through the tax code as a counter to Democratic expansions of the welfare state. This strategy united disparate factions within the party and is still one of the GOP’s only popular policy positions.
Topic:: History, Political Science, Tax Systems, and Ronald Reagan
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

35. Changing Cultures in Congress: From Fair Play to Power Plays, Donald R. Wolfensberger

Author:: Ryan D. Williamson
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In 2017, then Speaker of the House Paul Ryan broke the record for most closed rules in a single session. Ironically, this feat came only two years after vowing to lead the House in a more open and inclusive manner than his recent predecessors had. This about-face was not new or unique to Ryan, though. Indeed, he was simply the next in a string of Speakers over the previous few decades to promise greater debate, only to renege shortly thereafter. Chronicling this decline of deliberation in Congress is the focus of Donald R. Wolfensberger’s work. The former Republican staff director for the House Rules Committee offers a detailed yet accessible insight into how Congress has evolved in recent history. Beginning with a brief discussion of the history of majoritarian politics in Congress, Wolfensberger specifically looks at a litany of case studies from the last two decades. Topics cover a wide range, including health care reform, budgets and deficits, and the Iran nuclear deal, to name a few. Within each, a common theme pervades—the majority party must “rely on extraordinary consultation, pressures, and compromises within its own ranks, as well as on a creative use of the rules, to eke out a victory on contentious legislation” (p. 57).
Topic:: Government, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

36. Drones and Support for the Use of Force, James Igoe Walsh and Marcus Schulzke

Author:: Avery Plaw
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The reasons why armed drones have been embraced by recent American presidents are obvious. They offer pilot invulnerability, protecting military personnel from harm in the conduct of operations and protecting political leaders from the criticism that follows it. They are also exceptionally well designed for selectivity—that is, for distinguishing legitimate targets from innocent civilians and precisely targeting the former without harming the latter. What may be less obvious is why they have proved anathema to so many critics who are genuinely concerned to make sure that American armed force is used ethically and legally, harming only legitimate targets. After all, both enhanced selectivity and pilot invulnerability reduce unintended harms. Yet many drone critics argue that these weapons pose an exceptional threat precisely because of pilot invulnerability and in some cases target selectivity. Their argument goes like this: democratic leaders and publics are casualty averse, and the fear of public backlash often deters leaders from going to war, but drones remove the danger of military casualties (and potentially diminish collateral civilian casualties) and hence remove the chief sources of public opposition and hence the main deterrents to using force (pp. 32–33). The consequence is that democracies will more frequently resort to force. This will lead to more armed conflict, more harm and a worse world.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Drones, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

37. American Grand Strategy and the Rise of Offensive Realism

Author:: Ionut Popescu
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Ionut Popescu outlines the principles of a new American grand strategy grounded in an offensive realist theoretical framework. He argues that offensive realism is better suited to the new era of geopolitical competition with China and Russia.
Topic:: Geopolitics, Grand Strategy, Political Science, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:: Russia, China, North America, and United States of America

38. The Government-Citizen Disconnect, Suzanne Mettler

Author:: Christopher Wlezien
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Much research posits a “disconnect” between the public and government. This work focuses primarily on the behavior of politicians and the mismatch between their policy actions and citizens’ preferences. Suzanne Mettler’s book concentrates instead on the public and the degree to which people accurately perceive and appreciate what government does. This book complements her earlier work Submerged State, which delineated how many government policies, such as tax expenditures, are not visible to many citizens, which distorts their views. The Government-Citizen Disconnect, by contrast, examines how experience with government policies influences what people think.
Topic:: Government, Citizenship, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

39. Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction, David Bateman, Ira Katznelson and John S. Lapinski

Author:: Paul E. Herron
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In his treatise on southern politics, V.O. Key Jr. wrote that “in state politics the Democratic party is no party at all but a multiplicity of factions struggling for office. In national politics, on the contrary, the party is the Solid South; it is, or at least has been, the instrument for the conduct of the ‘foreign relations’ of the South with the rest of the nation” (Southern Politics in State and Nation [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949], 315). In an early (and laudatory) review of that book, Richard Hofstadter suggested that Key missed an opportunity to fully consider whether the South had affected national politics in more ways than through the reliable delivery of Democrats to Washington, but he noted that this might require another book (p. 7). David Bateman, Ira Katznelson, and John S. Lapinski have written that book. Southern Nation examines how the South influenced public policy, Congress, and the development of the American state from the close of Reconstruction to the beginning of the New Deal. The authors focus on the region’s role in national politics at a critical juncture when industrialization and a rapidly changing economy required new policy solutions. They show that the white South used this opportunity to rebuild its place in the federal government, secure home rule, and shape the national agenda.
Topic:: Government, History, Book Review, Political Science, and White Supremacy
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

40. Migrants and Political Change in Latin America, Luis F. Jiménez

Author:: Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: How do international migrants affect their origin countries’ politics? Drawing on evidence from the cases of Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, Migrants and Political Change in Latin America argues that migrants gain new attitudes and economic resources as a result of experiences in their receiving countries that they then transmit to their origin countries through economic and social remittances and through return migration. Jiménez claims that by transmitting resources and ideas through these three channels, migrants create changes in the politics of their origin countries that they never intended or envisioned. These effects are mediated by local conditions in origin countries such as levels of education and wealth. Moreover, the social networks in which both types of remittances and return migrants are embedded augment their political effects.
Topic:: Migration, Politics, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Latin America

41. Dynasties and Democracy: The Inherited Incumbency Advantage in Japan, Daniel M. Smith

Author:: Carlos Velasco Rivera
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Political dynasties are a common feature of democracies. Prominent examples of dynastic politicians include George W. Bush in the United States, Winston Churchill in the United Kingdom, and Indira Gandhi in India. Research has found that members of dynasties benefit from the political capital they inherit from their relatives (for example, name recognition and political networks). Yet few studies have sought to understand the wide variation in dynastic politicians across democracies over time. Dynasties and Democracy offers a comprehensive answer to this question. The book focuses on legacy politicians, defined as those related to politicians who served in the national legislative or executive office. According to Daniel M. Smith, legacy politicians are antithetical to democracy, as this form of government is aimed at removing any marks of distinction as a prerequisite for access to office. However, politicians of this kind have existed and continue to exist in democracies. One may be tempted to explain the existence of legacy politicians as a product of modernity (economic or political). But Smith warns us that this explanation does not takes us very far, as Japan, a highly developed country, reports to this day a high percentage of legacy candidates running for office and seats in the national legislature.
Topic:: Democracy, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: Japan and Asia

42. Forecasting Models and the Presidential Vote

Author:: Kenneth Wink
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Kenneth A. Wink compares and contrasts a number of U.S. presidential election forecasting models and finds that some perform better than others. He argues that some systematic factors have an impact in every election regardless of the characteristics of the candidates, the effectiveness of the campaigns, and the events that occur in a particular election year.
Topic:: Government, Elections, Political Science, and Quantitative
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

43. Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World, Ronald F. Inglehart

Author:: George E. Marcus
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Consolidating more than four decades of research, Ronald F. Inglehart elaborates on the enlightenment story that reliance on science and technology enables nations to meet the material needs of their populations. To that story he adds that populations, finding their security needs being met, are increasingly abandoning materialist values for post-material values. The meaning of life satisfaction is changing. Inglehart advances this story by converting it into explicit hypotheses and subjecting them to extensive empirical testing. Inglehart marshals considerable evidence chiefly drawing on the World Values and European Values Surveys covering something on the order of 90 percent of the world’s population from 1981 to 2014. Along the way, Inglehart demonstrates the potent role of culture in advancing or retarding the overall trajectory of economic growth and life satisfaction. These shifts occur on a time scale marked in decades through intergenerational change.
Topic:: Culture, Book Review, Political Science, State, and Corporations
Political Geography:: Global Focus

44. Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady and Sidney Verba

Author:: Spencer Piston
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Who participates in American democracy? In particular, is it those with high levels of resources who most often vote, protest, contact elected officials, and discuss politics with friends? How unequal is political participation? Political scientists Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady, and Sidney Verba have contributed important answers to these questions over the past few decades. In their first book, Voice and Equality (1995) these scholars traced associations between resource possession and political participation, finding extensive evidence of inequalities in political voice. In their second book, The Unheavenly Chorus (2012), the authors reiterated and updated the analyses of the first. The authors also extended Voice and Equality in a number of ways, primarily by examining organizational-level as well as individual-level participatory inequalities, and by assessing the likely efficacy of various reform strategies. This third volume, Unequal and Unrepresented, “distill[s] two substantial books into a relatively short one…” (p. ix), repeating the core themes of the two earlier volumes. The presentation of the book is slightly different, foregrounding substance (even) more than before by relegating methodological details to footnotes. Thus, the book is perhaps best suited to an undergraduate audience.
Topic:: Politics, Inequality, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

45. Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon

Author:: Victor Asal
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Over the last 20 years, research in the area of terrorism studies has expanded enormously in many directions, including studies focusing on terrorist events as well as on individual behavior and the behavior and characteristics of organizations. One of the topics that has been of great interest to researchers of terrorist organizations is the nature, impact, and cause of terrorist organizational alliances. From Marc Sageman’s groundbreaking book Understanding Terror Networks and a growing body of articles and books, researchers are trying to understand the impact of such connections on terrorist organizations. There is still a lot of research, though, that needs to be done in this area. For example, Sageman’s book focuses more on internal connections and especially on jihadist organizations. Much of the other literature focuses on organizations allying in the same milieu. In Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon expands on this perspective by exploring why terrorist organizations would form connections beyond their domestic competition and make the effort to ally with other groups internationally. This is an interesting and important effort in the literature on terrorist alliances given the regular focus on like organizations making alliances with like. The book is well laid out and explains its argument and the supporting evidence in a clear and useful manner.
Topic:: Terrorism, Non State Actors, Book Review, and Alliance
Political Geography:: Middle East, Palestine, and Egypt

46. Are Politics Local? The Two Dimensions of Party Nationalization around the World, Scott Morgenstern

Author:: Arjan H. Schakel
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The statement that geography matters for politics probably will not be contested by many political scientists. Therefore, it is quite surprising that few studies have systematically explored how the territorial distribution of preferences affects political processes and policy outcomes. This book by Scott Morgenstern is an important landmark study that puts geography high on the research agenda of comparative political science. Three features make this book worthwhile reading for scholars working on the nationalization of elections and parties. First, Morgenstern identifies two dimensions of party nationalization and shows that they are theoretically and empirically unrelated. Static nationalization refers to the extent to which party vote shares are homogeneously distributed across districts at a particular point in time. Dynamic nationalization taps into the consistency in the change of a party’s vote shares across time. The combination of these two dimensions leads to a useful fourfold categorization of nationalized, unstable, unbalanced, and locally focused parties. As Morgenstern shows in Chapters 7, 8, and 9, each type of party has different implications for electoral accountability and bill co-sponsorship among legislators.
Topic:: Politics, Book Review, Political Science, Political Parties, and Nationalization
Political Geography:: Global Focus

47. The Forgotten Americans: An Economic Agenda for a Divided Nation, Isabel Sawhill

Author:: Mark Joseph Stelzner
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Income inequality in the United States has been increasing rapidly over the last 40 years. This, paired with weak economic growth, means that many Americans have been left behind. In her book, Forgotten Americans: An Economic Agenda for a Divided Nation, Isabel Sawhill proposes a “radical centrist” response of promoting social responsibility, increased vocational and private sector training, and social insurance reform. While inequality is an important issue that needs an immediate response, Sawhill misdiagnoses both the economic and political roots of inequality and proposes a narrow solution that ironically is not radical but parallels much of the policy that created current inequality and Trumpism.
Topic:: Income Inequality, Economy, Book Review, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

48. Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office, Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt

Author:: Kelly Dittmar
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this book Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt leverage an impressive data collection to make the case that women legislators are more active and more responsive to their constituents than men. Moreover, they offer a theoretical argument to explain why women appear to work harder to meet constituent needs and demands, suggesting that women legislators’ perceptions of their electoral vulnerability—even as incumbents—motivate them to focus their legislative efforts on proving to their constituents that they are worthy of re-election. The bulk of the text is dedicated to analyzing more than 12 measures of legislative activity and responsiveness—from the number and types of bills sponsored to the amount of mail sent to districts and staff allocated to district offices—in the 103rd to 110th Congresses (1993–2005). The analyses focus on between-gender differences in each chamber. Lazarus and Steigerwalt find the strongest evidence that women outwork and out-represent their male counterparts in the U.S. House of Representatives. Findings of gender differences are more limited in the U.S. Senate but still affirm the previous studies showing that women members are more likely to “bring home the bacon” in the form of earmarks (see Anzia and Berry 2011) and to sponsor and co-sponsor more bills and resolutions. The authors also find that women’s roll call behavior and committee assignments align more with constituent needs and interests than those of their male colleagues. Even with these differences by chamber, Lazarus and Steigerwalt fairly conclude that “electing women results in better substantive representation for all constituents” (p. 17). They effectively expand claims already evident in the women and politics literature that women members better represent women's interests by demonstrating how women’s presence in the Congress will better serve all citizens—men and women alike.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Politics, Women, Book Review, and Political Science
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

49. American Grand Strategy and the Rise of Offensive Realism

Author:: Ionut Popescu
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: FOR MOST OF THE POST–COLD WAR ERA, and some say even as far back as the dawn of the Cold War, America’s grand strategy has been portrayed as having had its theoretical underpinnings in a liberal internationalist understanding of world politics. Washington’s role in the world, the dominant narrative goes, was that of a security and economic guarantor of a “liberal world order.” 1 More often than not, this world order was grounded in a set of rules and institutions that helped advance America’s goals but also generally promoted international peace, stability, and prosperity. In G. John Ikenberry’s words, America was a “liberal Leviathan.”
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

50. The Government‐Citizen Disconnect. Review

Author:: Christopher Wlezien
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Much research posits a “disconnect” between the public and government. This work focuses primarily on the behavior of politicians and the mismatch between their policy actions and citizens’ preferences. Suzanne Mettler’s book concentrates instead on the public and the degree to which people accurately perceive and appreciate what government does. This book complements her earlier work Submerged State, which delineated how many government policies, such as tax expenditures, are not visible to many citizens, which distorts their views. The Government‐Citizen Disconnect, by contrast, examines how experience with government policies influences what people think.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

51. Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction. Book Review

Author:: David Bateman
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In his treatise on southern politics, V.O. Key Jr. wrote that “in state politics the Democratic party is no party at all but a multiplicity of factions struggling for office. In national politics, on the contrary, the party is the Solid South; it is, or at least has been, the instrument for the conduct of the ‘foreign relations’ of the South with the rest of the nation” (Southern Politics in State and Nation [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949], 315). In an early (and laudatory) review of that book, Richard Hofstadter suggested that Key missed an opportunity to fully consider whether the South had affected national politics in more ways than through the reliable delivery of Democrats to Washington, but he noted that this might require another book (p. 7). David Bateman, Ira Katznelson, and John S. Lapinski have written that book. Southern Nation examines how the South influenced public policy, Congress, and the development of the American state from the close of Reconstruction to the beginning of the New Deal. The authors focus on the region’s role in national politics at a critical juncture when industrialization and a rapidly changing economy required new policy solutions. They show that the white South used this opportunity to rebuild its place in the federal government, secure home rule, and shape the national agenda
Topic:: Post Colonialism, Race, and International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

52. Welcoming New Americans? Local Governments and Immigrant Incorporation. Book Review

Author:: George Hawley
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Survey data consistently show that large swaths of the American electorate favor restrictionist immigration policies. Politicians at the state and national levels regularly campaign on promises to crack down on undocumented immigration and discuss immigrants as a source of crime and a drain on resources. They are often rewarded at the ballot box for doing so. Yet these facts coexist with another trend: relatively few municipal governments pursue restrictionist policies at the local level. In fact, even in places where the GOP dominates, policies that accommodate immigrants are more common than policies designed to drive them away.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

53. Migrants and Political Change in Latin America. Book Review

Author:: Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: How do international migrants affect their origin countries’ politics? Drawing on evidence from the cases of Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, Migrants and Political Change in Latin America argues that migrants gain new attitudes and economic resources as a result of experiences in their receiving countries that they then transmit to their origin countries through economic and social remittances and through return migration. Jiménez claims that by transmitting resources and ideas through these three channels, migrants create changes in the politics of their origin countries that they never intended or envisioned. These effects are mediated by local conditions in origin countries such as levels of education and wealth. Moreover, the social networks in which both types of remittances and return migrants are embedded augment their political effects.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

54. Campaign Finance Complexity: Before Campaigning Retain an Attorney

Author:: David L. Wiltse
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In the study of candidate emergence, the cost term in the utility calculus has been of central concern. In this book, Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd makes a valuable contribution to the study of candidate emergence and campaign finance by considering how legal complexity increases the cost term in the emergence calculus. Grounded in complexity theory, she employs complexity measures of entire sections of state campaign finance laws to test whether candidates are deterred from running for office by the costs incurred in learning and complying with campaign finance law.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

55. Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable. Book Review

Author:: Kristen Coopie
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this book, former CNN analyst and current George Mason University professor Bill Schneider offers his take on the causes and implications of the growing partisan divide in the United States. Conflict exists between the “New America,” a product of the 1960s that “celebrates diversity in age, race, sexual orientation, and lifestyles” (p. 11), and the “Old America,” consisting of the “mostly white, mostly male, mostly older, mostly conservative, and mostly religious, and mostly nonurban,” (p. 2) which longs for the days when “the country was whiter, men were in charge, government was smaller, and religion was more influential” (p. 117). This rift is reflected in the parties and politics of the nation (it is easy to see how the “New America” is representative of the Democratic coalition and the “Old America” of the Republican Party), ultimately leading to the populist backlash that elected Donald Trump in 2016
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

56. Forecasting Models and the Presidential Vote

Author:: Kenneth Wink
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: FOR DECADES NOW, political scientists, journalists, campaign managers, and pundits have sought to predict the outcomes of elections well in advance of the day the votes are cast. As the ultimate office in the U.S. political system, the presidency has been the focus of much of this activity. Since the late twentieth century, a number of prognosticators in the discipline of political science have used forecasting models to predict presidential elections. These models have become visible in pre‐ and post‐ election coverage, and a sort of competition has emerged to produce the most accurate model whose variables offer the greatest amount of forecasting lead time before the election. Once considered “recreational political science,” forecasting presidential elections has become a cottage industry. Furthermore, the attention paid to the accuracy of these models has led to better explanations of election outcomes and allowed interested persons to see patterns in elections that are stable from year to year and to identify outlier elections and the factors that led to unique election outcomes.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

57. Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age

Author:: Kay Lehman Schlozman and Henry E Brady
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Who participates in American democracy? In particular, is it those with high levels of resources who most often vote, protest, contact elected officials, and discuss politics with friends? How unequal is political participation? Political scientists Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady, and Sidney Verba have contributed important answers to these questions over the past few decades. In their first book, Voice and Equality (1995) these scholars traced associations between resource possession and political participation, finding extensive evidence of inequalities in political voice. In their second book, The Unheavenly Chorus (2012), the authors reiterated and updated the analyses of the first. The authors also extended Voice and Equality in a number of ways, primarily by examining organizational-level as well as individual-level participatory inequalities, and by assessing the likely efficacy of various reform strategies.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

58. Cultural Evolution: People’s Motivations are Changing, and Reshaping the World

Author:: F Inglehart
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Consolidating more than four decades of research, Ronald F. Inglehart elaborates on the enlightenment story that reliance on science and technology enables nations to meet the material needs of their populations. To that story he adds that populations, finding their security needs being met, are increasingly abandoning materialist values for post-material values. The meaning of life satisfaction is changing.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

59. Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances. Book Review

Author:: Victor Asal
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Over the last 20 years, research in the area of terrorism studies has expanded enormously in many directions, including studies focusing on terrorist events as well as on individual behavior and the behavior and characteristics of organizations. One of the topics that has been of great interest to researchers of terrorist organizations is the nature, impact, and cause of terrorist organizational alliances. From Marc Sageman’s groundbreaking book Understanding Terror Networks and a growing body of articles and books, researchers are trying to understand the impact of such connections on terrorist organizations. There is still a lot of research, though, that needs to be done in this area. For example, Sageman’s book focuses more on internal connections and especially on jihadist organizations. Much of the other literature focuses on organizations allying in the same milieu.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

60. Are Politics Local? The Two Dimensions of Party Nationalization around the World

Author:: Arjan H. Schakel
Publication Date:: 03-2019
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The statement that geography matters for politics probably will not be contested by many political scientists. Therefore, it is quite surprising that few studies have systematically explored how the territorial distribution of preferences affects political processes and policy outcomes. This book by Scott Morgenstern is an important landmark study that puts geography high on the research agenda of comparative political science. Three features make this book worthwhile reading for scholars working on the nationalization of elections and parties.
Topic:: International Affairs
Political Geography:: Global Focus

61. Between the Eagle and the Dragon: America, China, and Middle State Strategies in East Asia

Author:: G. John Ikenberry
Publication Date:: 03-2016
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: For more than half a century, the United States has played a leading role in shaping order in East Asia. This East Asian order has been organized around American military and economic dominance, anchored in the U.S. system of alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other partners across Asia. Over the decades, the United States found itself playing a hegemonic role in the region—providing security, underwriting stability, promoting open markets, and fostering alliance and political partnerships. It was an order organized around “hard” bilateral security ties and “soft” multilateral groupings. It was built around security, economic, and political bargains. The United States exported security and imported goods. Across the region, countries expanded trade, pursued democratic transitions, and maintained a more or less stable peace.
Topic:: Security, Diplomacy, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, Bilateral Relations, and Hegemony
Political Geography:: Japan, East Asia, and South Korea

62. Report X Marks the Spot: The British Government's Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD

Author:: Eric Herring and Piers Robinson
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT PUBLISHED A DOSSIER on 24 September 2002 setting out its claims regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Parliament was recalled for an emergency session on the same day to hear Prime Minister Tony Blair's presentation of it. The dossier stated that Iraq had WMD and was producing more. After the invasion in March 2003, no WMD were found. Ever since, there has been controversy as to whether the dossier reported accurately intelligence which turned out to be wrong, as Blair has claimed consistently, or whether the dossier deliberately deceived by intentionally giving the impression of greater Iraqi WMD capability and threat than the intelligence suggested.
Topic:: Government and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: Pakistan, China, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia

63. Presidential Reelection Fundraising from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama

Author:: Brendan J. Doherty
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: BRENDAN J. DOHERTY analyzes President Obama's unprecedented reelection fundraising. He discusses the implications of these developments for governance, for the president's role as party leader, for Obama's second term in the White House, and for future presidents. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19314#sthash.L1c5PDpH.dpuf
Topic:: Governance

64. U.S. House Incumbent Fundraising and Spending in a Post-Citizens United and Post-McCutcheon World

Author:: Eric S. Heberlig and Bruce A. Larson
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: ERIC S. HEBERLIG and BRUCE A. LARSON examine how the changing campaign ﬁnance landscape affects the resources available to those who consider running for political ofﬁce. As incumbents running for the U.S. House of Representatives distribute more funds among themselves, less gets shared with potential new recruits. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19315#sthash.qzK9n6du.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States

65. Sanctions, Regime Type, and Democratization: Lessons from U.S.–Central American Relations in the 1980s

Author:: C. William Walldorf, Jr.
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: C. WILLIAM WALLDORF, JR. discusses sanctions and their effectiveness to promote democracy and human rights. He draws from a set of historical cases in Latin America and argues that his Findings have direct policy implications for present day sanctions against countries like Burma and Syria. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19316#sthash.l7UjcdcH.dpuf
Topic:: Human Rights
Political Geography:: Central America and Syria

66. Clientelism with Chinese Characteristics: Local Patronage Networks in Post-Reform China

Author:: Wooyeal Paik and Richard Baum
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: WOOYEAL PAIK and RICHARD BAUM argue that a growing number of Chinese feel frustrated by and alienated from local government agencies. They argue that clientelist alliances constitute a growing threat to the stability of the Chinese Communist party. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19317#sthash.m3LZzRfU.dpuf
Topic:: Government and Reform
Political Geography:: China

67. Perspectives on Higher Education and the American Dream: A Review Essay

Author:: C. Anthony Broh
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: C. ANTHONY BROH reviews Suzanne Mettler's Degrees of Inequality and discusses the participation of private, for-proﬁt institutions in higher education. He ﬁnds that several admissions and ﬁnancial aid practices in all sectors of higher education stratify family choices while perpetuating economic inequality. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19318#sthash.PGD2SuBc.dpuf
Topic:: Education
Political Geography:: America

68. Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, John Paul Stevens

Author:: Geoffrey R. Stone
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The U.S. Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. Twenty-five of those amendments were designed in one way or another to improve the text of the Constitution. Only two of those amendments were designed to override what the nation deemed an erroneous interpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court. The Eleventh Amendment, adopted in 1798, overrode the Court's decision in Chisolm v. Georgia (1793), which had held that a citizen of South Carolina could sue the State of Georgia. The Sixteenth Amendment, adopted in 1913, overrode the Court's decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Co. (1895), which had held unconstitutional the federal income tax. On average, then, the nation has amended the Constitution in order to override Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution roughly once every 112 years. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19319#sthash.6zb3UPfi.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States

69. More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures, Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu

Author:: Karen Beckwith
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Why are there so few women in legislative office in the United States? Recog¬nizing that electoral politics in the United States is “far from gender-neutral territory” (p. 61), Susan J. Carroll and Kira Sanbonmatsu engage this question by considering major changes in women's election to state legislative office, where women's representation continues to be low, and is declining in the new millennium, with women's legislative numbers driven primarily by the success of Democratic women. At the state legislative level, Republican women are being closed out of office, even where the Republican Party has been increasingly successful overall. Why are men so over-represented in state legislatures? Why is women's representation declining? Why have Republican women been increasingly less successful in winning election to state legislative office than have their Democratic sisters? - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19320#sthash.nhWH74y2.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States

70. Financing Medicaid: Federalism and the Growth of America's Health Care Safety Net, Shanna Rose

Author:: Frank J. Thompson
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In a well-written and insightful volume, Shanna Rose has joined a growing number of scholars in assessing the remarkable rise of Medicaid in the American health care system. Thought to be subject to erosion because of the forces of interstate economic competition and because a “program for the poor is a poor program,” Medicaid has instead expanded. The program now insures more than 70 million people and costs federal and state governments well over $400 billion annually. Viewed by many in 1965 as a down-at-the-heels second cousin to Medicare that would fade away with the coming of national health insurance, Medicaid instead became a key plank in Obamacare in 2010. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19321#sthash.ALrrwILZ.dpuf
Topic:: Government
Political Geography:: United States

71. Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream, Christina M. Greer

Author:: Wilbur C. Rich
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: America prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, and part of what attracts them to its shores is a tolerance for phenotype diversity and ethnic pluralism. Immigrants are allowed to keep their religion, language, dress, and cultural traditions. Yet many immigrants work hard to assimilate into their host communities. When a group refuses to assimilate, they attract notice. This is especially true for African American immigrants, who seem to be flirting with remaining outsiders. Why would these new Americans who share an African phenotype set themselves apart socially and politically? - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19322#sthash.qxXeIDiA.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

72. The Pathologies of Power: Fear, Honor, Glory, and Hubris in U.S. Foreign Policy, Christopher J. Fettweis

Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Books about improving U.S. foreign policy are a dime a dozen. But in The Pathologies of Power, Christopher Fettweis offers an unusual take on what he sees as the subpar foreign policy performance of the planet's sole superpower. Fettweis claims that U.S. foreign policy is driven by four pathological beliefs—fear, honor, glory, and hubris—that lead to poor policymaking. The book devotes a chapter to each of the beliefs that Fettweis contends account for foreign policy disasters like the Iraq war and the Vietnam war. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19323#sthash.zyK7HBZX.dpuf
Topic:: Foreign Policy
Political Geography:: United States and America

73. No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad, Daniel S. Markey

Author:: Sumit Ganguly
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Daniel S. Markey's recent book constitutes an impassioned plea for sustaining a strategic relationship with Afghanistan even as the United States seeks to disengage itself from that country. Markey makes a plausible argument for maintaining this relationship, given the significant stakes that are involved. He contends that the United States needs to work with Pakistan because of at least three compelling reasons. In his view, in the absence of American vigilance toward and engagement with the country, al Qaeda and its associates could reconstitute themselves, that nuclear weapons or materials within Pakistan might end up in hostile hands and instability within Pakistan, given its geostrategic location could adversely affect the future of American interests in Asia. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19324#sthash.lvz1vTZ5.dpuf
Political Geography:: Pakistan and America

74. Whose Rights? Counterterrorism and the Dark Side of American Public Opinion, Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza

Author:: Shana Kushner Gadarian
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: How do American citizens deal with an often frightening world where terrorism may come ashore again at any moment? Does the threat of terrorism bind Americans together more tightly or does threat expose underlying weaknesses in the American community? In a tour of post-September 11 American public opinion, Clem Brooks and Jeff Manza depict an American public willing to forego the rights and liberties of citizens, particularly groups traditionally considered outsiders. This dark side of public opinion is deeply rooted in American history, as the authors show in a chapter outlining key moments of both expansion and retrenchment of rights. What Brooks and Manza demonstrate through a series of survey experiments is that this retrenchment of rights may be enduring when the targets of surveillance and detention are seen as non-citizens, Middle-Easterners, or Muslims. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19325#sthash.1kfYugAb.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

75. Merit: The History of a Founding Ideal from the American Revolution to the Twenty-First Century, Joseph F. Kett

Author:: S. Adam Seagrave
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: This book engages in an admirable attempt to understand an impressive range of important American historical trends and events through the lens of an idea. Joseph F, Kett begins by describing the uneasy existence of widely acknowledged “Men of Merit” within a revolutionary era inspired by ideas of equal rights and popular sovereignty/consent. These revolutionary leaders and American Founders understood merit as an inherent personal quality evidenced externally by public achievements and recognition, which Kett terms “essential merit.” - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19326#sthash.u0OKVk21.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

76. Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition, Lewis Perry

Author:: Charles Disalvo
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Lewis Perry offers this intriguing history of civil disobedience in the United States. In it, he argues that a distinct and robust American tradition of civil disobedience has had a repeated and significant influence in forcing our institutions to rectify “the systematic inequality of power.” His sweep is wide. He does not simply examine the great social movements that are familiar to students of civil disobedience—the movements against slavery and conscrip¬tion and for the rights of women and workers—but he also introduces the reader to the unfamiliar—disobedience deployed in the movement against Indian removal and in defense of religious freedom in colonial America. He not only expands our understanding of Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, and Martin Luther King, Jr., but also acquaints us for the first time with Angelina Grimke and Albert Gallatin Riddle. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19327#sthash.MylTyXYB.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States and America

77. Fictive Kinship, Catherine Lee

Author:: Peter J. Spiro
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Almost two thirds of legal immigrants to the United States qualify as relatives of U.S. citizens or existing permanent resident aliens. As Catherine Lee observes in Fictive Kinship, “family appears to be a firmly entrenched, privileged category in American immigration policy” (p. 101). Across the political spectrum, there has been broad agreement for the last half century that family unification is a core objective of immigration policy. This study asks important questions about an understudied but central element of the country's immigration story. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19328#sthash.XhJuN99X.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States

78. Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy, Erik J. Engstrom

Author:: Seth C. McKee
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Three quarters of American political history transpired before the 1960s, and yet virtually all of the research on congressional redistricting examines its effects after the 1962 one-person, one-vote ruling. The commonly held academic opinion that redistricting registers limited effects ignores the very different political setting of the late eighteenth and entire nineteenth centuries, when the absence of judicial oversight and congressional intervention produced an electoral milieu whose signature feature was noholds-barred partisan gerrymandering. The lack of attention to the role of redistricting, as it was practiced throughout most of American history, not only has created scholarly blind spots, but these gaps in knowledge have led political scientists to overemphasize the critical-election narrative of party system change and its attendant effects on congressional policymaking. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19329#sthash.DVpyXMMw.dpuf
Topic:: Political Economy
Political Geography:: America

79. Model Immigrants and Undesirable Aliens: The Cost of Immigration Reform in the 1990s, Christina Gerken

Author:: Maddalena Marinari
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Christina Gerken makes a critical contribution to our knowledge of the debate over immigration reform in the recent past. Her detailed and richly documented analysis of the content and social implications of the debate that led to critical changes to the American immigration system provides the most¬detailed discussion to date of the immigration reform discourse of the mid-1990s. Through the lens of critical-race theory and neoliberalism, Gerken analyzes how the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Personal Responsibility Act, and the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act during the administration of Bill Clinton profoundly reshaped the rights and responsibilities of immigrants in the United States. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19330#sthash.F2iED60M.dpuf
Topic:: Immigration and Reform
Political Geography:: United States

80. Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Author:: Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Our America is about turning perspectives upside down. It is about reading self-satisfying narratives of the past irreverently, mockingly, unsparingly. It is about elucidating the political work that History, with a capital H, does. History creates myths that move and inspire, but it also creates myths that silence. Our America is a book about myths: the fountain of youth, the cities of Cibola, the pursuit of King Arthur, the realm of Queen Calafia, the curse of Zorro, the revenge of Moroni, the republic of Hesperus. Our America narrates the history of the United States from the perspective of the South, rather than the East. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19331#sthash.vdZhAyqB.dpuf
Political Geography:: United States and America

81. The Woman Suffrage Movement in America: A Reassessment, Corrine M. McConnaughy

Author:: Shannon M. Risk
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Previously, women's historians have endeavored to keep women central in the story of personal politics. Corrine M. McConnaughy, however, focuses on the inner workings of state legislatures that have had the most power to define the electorate, and shows that analysis of partisan politics in state legislatures fills the gaps in previous histories without pushing women out of women's history. Women's ability to build coalitions with groups outside of their initial identity group, which took considerable effort, began to bear fruit by the early 1900s. She describes two scenarios under which male state legislators considered expanding the voter base to include women: strategic enfranchisement and programmatic enfranchisement. The former implied that a major political party would find it advantageous to add women voters to the rolls. McConnaughy debunks this approach because female voters could not guarantee any political party their vote as a bloc. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19332#sthash.qN51OK2C.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America

82. A Storm over This Court: Law, Politics, and Supreme Court Decision Making in Brown v. Board of Education, Jeffrey D. Hockett

Author:: Sabrina Zirkel
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: At this 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Jeffrey D. Hockett offers us a new interpretation of the dilemmas, debates, and deliberations that members of the Court engaged in on their way to this decision. Hockett challenges conceptualizations of the decision in Brown as emerging purely from any one set of motives and that it can be analyzed through only one theoretical or methodological lens. Instead, he argues through painstaking review of the discussions between the justices about the case and early drafts of opinions that different justices were swayed by different arguments, took into account different considerations, and made different compromises. In short: There was no “one” road to Brown v. Board—there were potentially as many paths as there were justices. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19333#sthash.mXg1UKS3.dpuf
Topic:: International Relations, Education, Politics, and Law
Political Geography:: America

83. Subsidizing Democracy: How Public Funding Changes Elections and How It Can Work in the Future, Michael G. Miller

Author:: Brian E. Adams
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Most empirical research on campaign finance reform attempts to identify the effects of reform using large quantities of data. These studies are useful, but do not present a complete picture of how reform influences electoral dynamics, because they lack information on underlying causal mechanisms. Michael Miller's research, based on surveys and interviews of state legislative candidates, is a welcome addition to the literature and nicely complements existing research by examining how public financing, and in particular the “clean elections” regimes in Arizona, Maine, and Connecticut, affect the behavior of candidates and voters. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19334#sthash.KJh7ywlR.dpuf
Topic:: Reform
Political Geography:: America and Arizona

84. The Death of the Income Tax: A Progressive Consumption Tax and the Path to Fiscal Reform, Daniel S. Goldberg

Author:: Jason Oh
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this ambitious book, Daniel S. Goldberg begins with the claim that the income tax is “broken beyond repair” (p. 3). Some of these problems, like the proliferation of tax provisions that benefit special interests, are a matter of design. Others, like the inconsistent taxation of economic gains, are endemic to any tax on income. In the first half of The Death of the Income Tax, the author painstakingly details these and many other problems with our current tax system. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19335#sthash.7vGZLJKC.dpuf
Topic:: Economics and Reform

85. Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era, Saladin Ambar

Author:: Felix Germain
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this well-written book, Saladin Ambar adds substance to the extensive literature on Malcolm X. Retracing the steps of Malcolm X in France and England, where he debated at the Oxford Student Society, Ambar contends that the debate comprises the foundation of Malcolm X's political philosophy, particularly the one he espoused at the end of his life. Indeed, during this important debate, not only did Malcolm X outline a notion of humanity based on a universal principal of equality, but he also described the struggle for equality in the United States, Europe, and Africa as an emancipatory process for both the oppressor and the oppressed. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19336#sthash.O9m49nRo.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Europe, and England

86. The Contested Removal Power, 1789–2010, J. David Alvis, Jeremy D. Bailey and F. Flagg Taylor IV

Author:: Matthew S. Brogdon
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: The removal power has loomed large in every expansion of national adminis¬trative capacity since the First Congress. Written in 1923 amidst a burgeoning administrative state, Charles Thach's seminal work, The Creation of the Presidency, thus concluded with an incisive analysis of the “decision of 1789,” treating presidential control of administration as the consummation of the Framers' new constitutional order. Ninety years later, the robust congressional debate with which Thach concluded is the point of departure for J. David Alvis, Jeremy D. Bailey, and F. Flagg Taylor's The Contested Removal Power, a penetrating account of the developmental pathway from the First Congress to the John Roberts Court. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19337#sthash.Z4k59ZwL.dpuf
Topic:: Development

87. Coming of Political Age: American Schools and the Civic Development of Immigrant Youth, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller

Author:: Sara Z. Poggio
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: In this insightful study, Rebecca M. Callahan and Chandra Muller show the importance of the national educational system of the United States in the social and civic integration of children of immigrants—one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. The relevance of education, and public education in particular, has been highlighted, as mentioned by the authors, in the education program “No Child Left Behind,” initiated by President George W. Bush in 2001 and in “Race to the Top.” one of several programs initiated by the administration of Barack Obama. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19338#sthash.ik0TWfYQ.dpuf
Topic:: Development, Education, Politics, and Immigration
Political Geography:: United States and America

88. How Change Happens—Or Doesn't: The Politics of U.S. Public Policy, Elaine C. Kamarck

Author:: Rob A. Deleo
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: From streams theory to the punctuated equilibrium model to the advocacy coalition framework, “policy change” is one of the most heavily theorized topics in the subfield of public policy. Elaine Kamarck's How Change Happens—Or Doesn't: The Politics of US Public Policy provides an insider's view of policy change, forgoing rigid empiricism in lieu of a more applied investigation. How Change Happens is essentially a “how to” guide for policy entrepreneurs, identifying the various political levers, players, norms, and processes that drive or stunt large-scale reform. Kamarck argues that policy change is an inherently complex and unpredictable process—often resulting from sheer luck—that cannot be explained via a single unifying academic model. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19339#sthash.9K9Ebu5z.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: United States

89. The American Political Landscape, Byron E. Shafer and Richard H. Spady

Author:: Robert A. Jackson
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Byron Shafer and Richard Spady rely on cutting-edge data analyses and graph¬ical presentations to provide a detailed accounting of how social characteristics have shaped core political values, which, in turn, has structured the presidential vote across the 1984–2008 elections. The study stands apart for the sheer richness and depth of its analyses of a specific data source—namely, the 1987 through 2009 Pew Values Surveys—to gain insight into the shifting contours of the American electorate. An application of item response theory to consistent sets of questions enables Shafer and Spady to produce indicators of two unobservable attitudinal dimensions: economics and culture. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19340#sthash.C8UA9e6m.dpuf
Topic:: Economics, Politics, and Culture
Political Geography:: America

90. The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansion, Richard Drake

Author:: Edward Rhodes
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: “History,” Winston Churchill is reported to have observed, “is written by the vic¬tors.” The losers, if they are lucky enough to avoid vilification, are airbrushed out. When it comes to our understanding of American foreign policies of the first four decades of the twentieth century, the history-writing victors have, for the most part, been liberal internationalists. Democrats and Republicans alike, in the wake of the Second World War, concluded that the task of making the world safe for America demanded active, global U.S. politico-military engagement. In the name of liberal international institutions, Washington's “Farewell” injunctions against entangling alliances would be consigned to the waste bin of quaint anachronisms.- See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19341#sthash.wG3JMQox.dpuf
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Education, and War
Political Geography:: United States and Washington

91. Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation, Sebastian Elischer

Author:: Michael Bratton
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: If you ask any lay person—or most scholars of comparative politics—about the motivation for party formation in Africa, they are likely to offer the same answer: ethnicity. In a welcome antidote to this orthodoxy, Sebastian Elischer argues that African political parties and party systems are much more diverse than that. He relies upon seminal analysis by Larry Diamond and Richard Gunther to propose a typology of five ideal varieties: the mono-ethnic party, the multi-ethnic alliance, the catch-all party, the programmatic party, and the personalistic party. While the first two types arise from ethnic foundations, the last three are distinctly non-ethnic. If nothing else, this book will discourage future analysts from lazily conflating all forms of party organizations in Africa under an ethnic label. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19342#sthash.LW64K7fo.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: Africa

92. The Myth of the Democratic Peacekeeper: Civil–Military Relations and the United Nations, Arturo C. Sotomayor

Author:: Craig Arceneaux
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Peacekeeping appears to offer a golden ticket to civilian supremacy in democratizing states. These missions allow the armed forces in cash-strapped countries to participate in military operations, and they send soldiers overseas, far away from the politics of their home countries. Arturo Sotomayor offers a careful, systematic, and ultimately persuasive critique of this conventional wisdom, with case studies of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. He clearly addresses three questions: Does peacekeeping help civilians reform the military? Does peacekeeping instill attitudes and beliefs in soldiers that complement democracy and civilian control? Does peacekeeping craft bridges across defense and foreign policy establishments? While the conventional wisdom offers a cursory “yes” to these questions, Sotomayor responds with an astute “it depends.” And it is here that the value of his study shines. Peacekeeping can appear in a variety of forms, from observation, to enforcement, to peacebuilding. Peacebuilding really is more like an internal mission, and thus can actually reinforce adverse patterns of civil–military relations. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19343#sthash.9DMzoId6.dpuf
Topic:: United Nations, War, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:: Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay

93. Making Constitutions: Presidents, Parties and Institutional Choice in Latin America, Gabriel L. Negretto

Author:: Tom Ginsburg
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Latin America is something of a constitutional graveyard, in which formal texts have been replaced frequently over the past two centuries. Focusing especially on the period of relative political stability after 1978, Gabriel Negretto has produced a masterful book that helps us to understand constitutional politics in the region and beyond. Integrating quantitative analysis with a series of case studies, Negretto's innovative analysis makes this book required reading for students of constitutional design. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19344#sthash.T6DRR8OT.dpuf
Topic:: Politics
Political Geography:: America and Latin America

94. A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law during the Great War, Isabel V. Hull

Author:: Tanisha M. Fazal
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Isabel Hull's analysis of international law during World War I is a welcome and valuable contribution to an emerging body of scholarship on the laws of war. This is not to undercut its place in the historiography of World War I. Hull rightly points out that most histories of the war have tended to gloss over or even dismiss the role of international law in the war. Hull corrects this bias by delving into British, French, and particularly German archives to show that international law was very much on the minds of all parties to the conflict. Indeed, she argues that preserving the existing structure of international law was a major reason for the outbreak of war. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19345#sthash.HizIRkHF.dpuf
Topic:: International Law and War
Political Geography:: France and Germany

95. America Inc? Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security State, Linda Weiss

Author:: Mark Zachary Taylor
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: This dense, powerful volume offers profound insights into the U.S. innovation system and its driving forces. The driving forces are Americans' twin desires for technology-based military supremacy (which demands government action) and small government (which militates against it). These twin forces have produced a highly successful, ever-evolving, and unique set of federal institutions and policies, which Linda Weiss calls the “national security state” (NSS). The NSS is the secret to American innovation. Since World War II, it has dominated high-risk innovation, revolutionary technological change, and the formation of new S industries. Weiss's book also reveals that the NSS is not static, but changes in response to changes in perceived geopolitical threats and to shifts in popular anti-statist sentiments. The book explains why the NSS came about, how it works, and glimpses its future. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19346#sthash.kIPIPtW6.dpuf
Topic:: Security and Government
Political Geography:: United States and America

96. No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security, Thomas M. Nichols

Author:: Todd S. Sechser
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: At around 5,000 total warheads, the U.S. nuclear stockpile today is a fraction of its former self. One therefore might presume that U.S. nuclear doctrine has undergone an equally significant transformation since the end of the Cold War. Thomas M. Nichols disabuses readers of this notion, showing how the machinery of “mutual assured destruction” remains predominant even though the world that spawned this doctrine disappeared with the Soviet Union. But this doctrine is now obsolete, Nichols argues. Deterrence no longer requires—if it ever did—an expansive nuclear inventory with diverse delivery platforms, a launch-on-warning alert posture, and convoluted targeting plans. In Nichols's view, a pocket-sized nuclear deterrent would be adequate. Yet U.S. strategy remains saddled with the costly baggage of an arms competition that ended a quarter-century ago. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19347#sthash.Giq99dtz.dpuf
Topic:: Security, Cold War, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:: United States and Soviet Union

97. The Fragmented Politics of Urban Preservation: Beijing, Chicago, and Paris, Yue Zhang

Author:: Max Page
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Saving, living in, and visiting historic places is perhaps the most-common way in which people consciously interact with the past. And yet, only in the last several decades has the movement received the sustained scholarly attention that it deserves, from historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and architects. Political scientists focusing on this key strategy of urban development in worldwide urban development, however, have been scarce. The Fragmented Politics of Urban Preservation is, therefore, an invaluable addition to the literature that should bring more attention to the central questions that preservationists ask: why is the effectiveness of preservation efforts so different in cities around the world? What accounts for success and failure in preservation struggles? Most preservationists have preferred to rely on limited answers about the relative significance of the buildings or landscapes to be preserved, or relative effectiveness of the advocacy coalition. In fact, Yue Zhang argues that we must understand not only the fragmented politics that define cities, but also the particular kind of fragmentation that is dominant in a given city. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19348#sthash.BjImlmBj.dpuf
Topic:: Development and Politics
Political Geography:: Paris, Beijing, and Chicago

98. Conceptualizing Containment: The Iranian Threat and the Future of Gulf Security

Author:: Zachary K. Goldman and Mira Rapp-Hooper
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: ZACHARY K. GOLDMAN and MIRA RAPP-HOOPER discuss American security interests in the Persian Gulf region and the prospects for effective cooperation among Gulf states to contain Iran. They ﬁnd that it is unlikely that the United States will be able to establish a containment regime that relies upon the Gulf Cooperation Council and that informal, bilateral ties to states in the region are a preferable policy recourse. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19163#sthash.yMWmTk6Q.dpuf
Topic:: Security
Political Geography:: United States and Iran

99. Philosophical Pragmatism and the Constitutional Watershed of 1912

Author:: Trygve Throntveit
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: TRYGVE THRONTVEIT argues that intellectuals and activists indebted to the pragmatist tradition of American philosophy decisively shaped the debate between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson during the election of 1912. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19164#sthash.lspgECHu.dpuf
Political Geography:: America

100. Did Bush Democratize the Middle East? The Effects of External–Internal Linkages

Author:: Bruce Gilley
Publication Date:: 02-2014
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Political Science Quarterly
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: BRUCE GILLEY examines how the so-called Freedom Agenda of President George W. Bush affected politics in the Middle East. He concludes that this agenda generally exerted positive effects on democratic change in the region, although often working in unintended ways and usually interacting with domestic factors. - See more at: http://www.psqonline.org/article.cfm?IDArticle=19165#sthash.BVzmnkw7.dpuf
Political Geography:: Middle East

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS