The Long War over Party Structure
Democratic Representation and Policy Responsiveness in American Politics
Byron E Shafer author Regina L Wagner author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:22nd Aug '19
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£30.99(9781108718868)
Discusses the structure of political parties in order to help understand modern American politics.
A blend of historical and contemporary analysis that opens up many of the puzzles - and curses - of modern American politics, for both professional political scientists and interested lay readers.A long-standing debate in American politics is about the proper structure for political parties and the relative power that should be afforded to party professionals versus issue activists. In this book, Byron E. Shafer and Regina L. Wagner draw systematically on new data and indexes to evaluate the extent to which party structure changed from the 1950s on, and what the consequences have been for policy responsiveness, democratic representation, and party alignment across different issue domains. They argue that the reputed triumph of volunteer parties since the 1970s has been less comprehensive than the orthodox narrative assumes, but that the balance of power did shift, with unintended and sometimes perverse consequences. In the process of evaluating its central questions, this book gives an account of how partisan alignments evolved with newly empowered issue activists and major post-war developments from the civil rights movement to the culture wars.
'The book is clear, accessible, well organized, and well researched. Required reading for scholars interested in the history of US political parties.' C. Kinsella, Choice
ISBN: 9781108484916
Dimensions: 235mm x 157mm x 15mm
Weight: 420g
205 pages