Barry C. Burden - Böcker

This 2003 book represents an exciting intellectual meeting of researchers from diverse subfields to analyze how and why uncertainty affects American politics. It seeks to reconnect research traditions that have seldom spoken to one another. Though used by formal theorists, empiricists, and historians in a parallel fashion for a number of years, the notion of uncertainty has often been introduced only to explain away anomalies, provide backing for a larger argument, or justify a particular methodology. Uncertainty has rarely been considered in its own right or as a concept that might connect researchers from different subfields. The authors demonstrate some of the many substantive effects that uncertainty has on the bureaucracy, voters, and elected officials. They also reveal the origins and consequences of uncertainty to remind researchers across the discipline how central the idea should be to any serious study of US politics.

This 2003 book represents an exciting intellectual meeting of researchers from diverse subfields to analyze how and why uncertainty affects American politics. It seeks to reconnect research traditions that have seldom spoken to one another. Though used by formal theorists, empiricists, and historians in a parallel fashion for a number of years, the notion of uncertainty has often been introduced only to explain away anomalies, provide backing for a larger argument, or justify a particular methodology. Uncertainty has rarely been considered in its own right or as a concept that might connect researchers from different subfields. The authors demonstrate some of the many substantive effects that uncertainty has on the bureaucracy, voters, and elected officials. They also reveal the origins and consequences of uncertainty to remind researchers across the discipline how central the idea should be to any serious study of US politics.

Despite heightened partisanship in the U.S. Congress and constituencies split along ideological lines, congressional representatives frequently buck their parties and seldom do precisely what voters ask. In Personal Roots of Representation, Barry Burden challenges standard explanations of legislative preferences to emphasize the important role that personal influences play in representatives' voting behavior. This timely book is the first to examine the extent to which the very same values, experiences, and interests that shape congressional members as individuals and guide their own life choices similarly shape their policymaking decisions. Burden takes a close look at legislative decision making in the areas of tobacco regulation, vouchers and school choice, and religion and bioethics. He finds that personal factors become more significant when legislators are acting proactively rather than reactively, grappling with specific policy issues, and defending rather than challenging the status quo.Marshaling both qualitative and quantitative evidence, Burden reveals that the personal roots of representatives' actions can be as influential as the usual suspects of partisanship and constituency--and that personal factors quite often have the greatest impact when the policymaking stakes are at their highest. Personal Roots of Representation is a provocative book that raises pressing new questions about legislative discretion and the accountability of our elected officials.

Long regarded as the “gold standard” of political parties texts, this new, nineteenth edition of Party Politics in America brings its comprehensive and authoritative coverage of party politics into an age of heightened partisan conflict; threats to the acceptance of democratic institutions; changes in the balance of power among the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court, and judicial rulings that upend long-established precedents. Marjorie Hershey and Barry Burden build on the book’s three-pronged coverage of party organization, party in the electorate, and party in government and incorporate important developments in racial politics, social media use, and battles over access to the vote. The book uses contemporary examples to bring to life the fascinating story of how parties shape our political system.New to the nineteenth edition:Fully updated through the 2022 and 2024 elections, including changes in virtually all the empirical data, boxed materials, and examples throughout the bookDiscusses the transformation of the Republican Party into the Party of Trump, with attendant changes in the parties’ coalitions and electoral prospectsExamines the relevance of party politics and elections to college-age and other young voters in times of intense and off-putting polarizationConsiders the implications of recent changes in both parties to the likelihood that democracy will survive in the USProvides online Instructor’s Resources, including author-written test banks, essay questions, relevant websites with correlated sample assignments, and links to a collection of course syllabi

Long regarded as the “gold standard” of political parties texts, this new, nineteenth edition of Party Politics in America brings its comprehensive and authoritative coverage of party politics into an age of heightened partisan conflict; threats to the acceptance of democratic institutions; changes in the balance of power among the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court, and judicial rulings that upend long-established precedents. Marjorie Hershey and Barry Burden build on the book’s three-pronged coverage of party organization, party in the electorate, and party in government and incorporate important developments in racial politics, social media use, and battles over access to the vote. The book uses contemporary examples to bring to life the fascinating story of how parties shape our political system.New to the nineteenth edition:Fully updated through the 2022 and 2024 elections, including changes in virtually all the empirical data, boxed materials, and examples throughout the bookDiscusses the transformation of the Republican Party into the Party of Trump, with attendant changes in the parties’ coalitions and electoral prospectsExamines the relevance of party politics and elections to college-age and other young voters in times of intense and off-putting polarizationConsiders the implications of recent changes in both parties to the likelihood that democracy will survive in the USProvides online Instructor’s Resources, including author-written test banks, essay questions, relevant websites with correlated sample assignments, and links to a collection of course syllabi

Policymaking in the realm of elections is too often grounded in anecdotes and opinions, rather than in good data and scientific research. To remedy this, The Measure of American Elections brings together a dozen leading scholars to examine the performance of elections across the United States, using a data-driven perspective. This book represents a transformation in debates about election reform, away from partisan and ideological posturing, toward using scientific analysis to evaluate the conduct of contemporary elections. The authors harness the power of newly available data to document all aspects of election administration, ranging from the registration of voters to the counting of ballots. They demonstrate what can be learned from giving serious attention to data, measurement, and objective analysis of American elections.