Richard J Ellis – författare

This new set of original case studies is designed to offer an empirical counterpart to Cultural Theory (Westview, 1990 ), the landmark statement of political culture theory authored by Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky, and to extend and challenge the analysis developed there.

This new set of original case studies is designed to offer an empirical counterpart to Cultural Theory (Westview, 1990 ), the landmark statement of political culture theory authored by Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky, and to extend and challenge the analysis developed there. Here, the theoretical concepts laid out in that book

Culture Matters explores the role of political culture studies as one of the major investigative fields in contemporary political science. Culture theory was the focal point of the late Aaron Wildavsky's teaching and research for the last decade of his life, a life that profoundly affected many fields of political science from the study of the pres

Why do people who identify themselves as liberal or egalitarian sometimes embrace intolerance or even preach violence? This book examines the illiberal tendencies of egalitarian movements in American history, from the radical abolitionists of the 1830s, to the New Left activists of the 1960s.

A critical analysis of the statewide initiative process in the United States, challenging readers to look beyond populist rhetoric and face political reality. Through prose, anecdotes and historical context, Richard Ellis seeks to reveal the ""dark side"" of direct democracy.

In office less than half a year, President George Washington undertook an arduous month-long tour of New England to promote his new government and to dispel fears of monarchy. More than two hundred years later, American presidents still regularly traverse the country to advance their political goals and demonstrate their connection to the people.In this first book-length study of the history of presidential travel, Richard Ellis explores how travel has reflected and shaped the changing relationship between American presidents and the American people. Tracing the evolution of the president from First Citizen to First Celebrity, he spins a lively narrative that details what happens when our leaders hit the road to meet the people.Presidents, Ellis shows, have long placed travel at the service of politics: Rutherford ""the Rover"" Hayes visited thirty states and six territories and was the first president to reach the Pacific, while William Howard Taft logged an average of 30,000 rail miles a year. Unearthing previously untold stories of our peripatetic presidents, Ellis also reveals when the public started paying for presidential travel, why nineteenth-century presidents never left the country, and why earlier presidents - such as Andrew Jackson, once punched in the nose on a riverboat - journeyed without protection.Ellis marks the fine line between accessibility and safety, from John Quincy Adams skinny-dipping in the Potomac to George W. clearing brush in Crawford. Particularly important, Ellis notes, is the advent of air travel. While presidents now travel more widely, they have paradoxically become more remote from the people, as Air Force One flies over towns through which presidential trains once rumbled to rousing cheers. Designed to close the gap between president and people, travel now dramatizes the distance that separates the president from the people and reinforces the image of a regal presidency.As entertaining as it is informative, Ellis' book is a sprightly account that takes readers along on presidential jaunts through the years as our leaders press flesh and kiss babies, ride carriages and trains, plot strategies on board ships and planes, and try to connect with the citizens they represent.

As Americans, we cherish the freedom to associate. However, with the freedom to associate comes the right to exclude those who do not share our values and goals. What happens when the freedom of association collides with the equally cherished principle that every individual should be free from invidious discrimination? This is precisely the question posed in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, a lawsuit that made its way through the courts over the course of a decade, culminating in 2000 with a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Judging the Boy Scouts of America, Richard J. Ellis tells the fascinating story of the Dale case, placing it in the context of legal principles and precedents, Scouts policies, gay rights and the “culture wars” in American politics.The story begins with James Dale, a nineteen-year old Eagle Scout and assistant scoutmaster in New Jersey, who came out as a gay man in the summer of 1990. The Boy Scouts, citing their policy that denied membership to “avowed homosexuals,” promptly terminated Dale’s membership. Homosexuality, the Boy Scout leadership insisted, violated the Scouts’ pledge to be “morally straight.” With the aid of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, Dale sued for discrimination.Ellis tracks the case from its initial filing in New Jersey through the final decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in favour of the Scouts. In addition to examining the legal issues at stake, including the effect of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the law of free association, Ellis also describes Dale’s personal journey and its intersection with an evolving gay rights movement. Throughout he seeks to understand the puzzle of why the Boy Scouts would adopt and adhere to a policy that jeopardised the organisation’s iconic place in American culture - and, finally, explores how legal challenges and cultural changes contributed to the Scouts’ historic policy reversal in May 2013 that ended the organisation’s ban on gay youth (though not gay adults).

Choice Outstanding TitleH. R. Haldeman, President Nixon's former chief of staff, is said to have boasted: "Every president needs a son of a bitch, and I'm Nixon's. I'm his buffer and I'm his bastard. I get done what he wants done and I take the heat instead of him."Richard Ellis explores the widely discussed but poorly understood phenomenon of presidential "lightning rods"-cabinet officials who "take the heat" instead of their bosses. Whether by intent or circumstance, these officials divert criticism and blame away from their presidents. The phenomenon is so common that it's assumed to be an essential item in every president's managerial toolbox. But, Ellis argues, such assumptions can oversimplify our understanding of this tool.Ellis advises against indiscriminate use of the lightning rod metaphor. Such labeling can hide as much as it reveals about presidential administration and policymaking at the cabinet level. The metaphor often misleads by suggesting strategic intent on the president's part while obscuring the calculations and objectives of presidential adversaries and the lightning rods themselves.Ellis also illuminates the opportunities and difficulties that various presidential posts-especially secretaries of state, chiefs of staff, and vice presidents-have offered for deflecting blame from our presidents. His study offers numerous detailed and instructive examples from the administrations of Truman (Dean Acheson); Eisenhower (Richard Nixon, John Foster Dulles, Herbert Brownell, and Ezra Taft Benson); LBJ (Hubert Humphrey); Ford (Henry Kissinger); and Reagan (James Watt).These examples, Ellis suggests, should guide our understanding of the relationship between lightning rods and presidential leadership, policymaking, and ratings. Blame avoidance, he warns, does have its limitations and may even backfire at times. Nevertheless, President Clinton and his successors may need to rely on such tools. The presidency, Ellis points out, finds itself the object of increasingly intense partisan debate and microscopic scrutiny by a wary press. Lightning rods can deflect such heat and help the president test policies, gauge public opinion, and protect his political power and public image. Ellis's book is an essential primer for helping us understand this process.

A fresh reassessment of the Emancipation Proclamation that looks beyond the Lincoln mythos and sees the decision as Lincoln's last resort after his failure to persuade a divided country.There is a certain comfort in being able to see Lincoln—or any president—simply as either a hero or a villain. The truth, however, is more complicated. Lincoln’s Last Card helps us look beyond the myths to see Lincoln as the flawed and consequential leader that he was.Few presidential edicts are more famous or misunderstood than the Emancipation Proclamation. The traditional myth about the proclamation is that President Lincoln freed the slaves with a bold stroke of his pen. This popular understanding deifies Lincoln as the sagacious Great Emancipator and constructs a narrative of American history centered around the heroic deeds of our “great” presidents. A more cynical view, bolstered by recent historical examinations of Lincoln’s own racial biases, says the proclamation was much ado about nothing; a largely hollow gesture that freed no slaves at all and lacked even a moral indictment of slavery. Both views, however, see presidential power as largely unrestricted and unilateral, so that Lincoln’s decisions occur in a virtual vacuum—a timeless display of his moral virtue, or lack thereof.Richard Ellis, a veteran scholar of the American presidency, suggests that we look at Lincoln’s proclamation through the lens of presidential weakness rather than greatness. To do so, Ellis draws on the work of renowned political scientist Richard Neustadt, who explored “three cases of command” from the twentieth century in his 1960 work, Presidential Power. Where the public saw presidential success, Neustadt saw presidents engaged in “a painful last resort,” suggesting not political mastery but rather the failure to achieve goals through other means. Ellis applies this same perspective to the Emancipation Proclamation, showing how Lincoln’s great success was, in fact, his last card. Lincoln’s original hope was to persuade the border states to endorse his plan for gradual, compensated abolition, preferably coupled with some level of voluntary colonization. Contrary to conventional wisdom and in contrast to Lincoln’s reputation as the greatest presidential orator, Ellis shows how the Emancipation Proclamation was a sign of Lincoln’s failure to persuade.

A fresh reassessment of the Emancipation Proclamation that looks beyond the Lincoln mythos and sees the decision as Lincoln's last resort after his failure to persuade a divided country.There is a certain comfort in being able to see Lincoln—or any president—simply as either a hero or a villain. The truth, however, is more complicated. Lincoln’s Last Card helps us look beyond the myths to see Lincoln as the flawed and consequential leader that he was.Few presidential edicts are more famous or misunderstood than the Emancipation Proclamation. The traditional myth about the proclamation is that President Lincoln freed the slaves with a bold stroke of his pen. This popular understanding deifies Lincoln as the sagacious Great Emancipator and constructs a narrative of American history centered around the heroic deeds of our “great” presidents. A more cynical view, bolstered by recent historical examinations of Lincoln’s own racial biases, says the proclamation was much ado about nothing; a largely hollow gesture that freed no slaves at all and lacked even a moral indictment of slavery. Both views, however, see presidential power as largely unrestricted and unilateral, so that Lincoln’s decisions occur in a virtual vacuum—a timeless display of his moral virtue, or lack thereof.Richard Ellis, a veteran scholar of the American presidency, suggests that we look at Lincoln’s proclamation through the lens of presidential weakness rather than greatness. To do so, Ellis draws on the work of renowned political scientist Richard Neustadt, who explored “three cases of command” from the twentieth century in his 1960 work, Presidential Power. Where the public saw presidential success, Neustadt saw presidents engaged in “a painful last resort,” suggesting not political mastery but rather the failure to achieve goals through other means. Ellis applies this same perspective to the Emancipation Proclamation, showing how Lincoln’s great success was, in fact, his last card. Lincoln’s original hope was to persuade the border states to endorse his plan for gradual, compensated abolition, preferably coupled with some level of voluntary colonization. Contrary to conventional wisdom and in contrast to Lincoln’s reputation as the greatest presidential orator, Ellis shows how the Emancipation Proclamation was a sign of Lincoln’s failure to persuade.

Usually remembered for its slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” the election of 1840 is also the first presidential election of which it might be truly said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Tackling a contest best known for log cabins, cider barrels, and catchy songs, this timely volume reveals that the election of 1840 might be better understood as a case study of how profoundly the economy shapes the presidential vote.Richard J. Ellis, a veteran scholar of presidential politics, suggests that the election pitting the Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren against Whig William Henry Harrison should also be remembered as the first presidential election in which a major political party selected—rather than merely anointed—its nominee at a national nominating convention. In this analysis, the convention’s selection, as well as Henry Clay’s post-convention words and deeds, emerge as crucial factors in the shaping of the nineteenth-century partisan nation. Exploring the puzzle of why the Whig Party’s political titan Henry Clay lost out to a relative political also-ran, Ellis teases out the role the fluctuating economy and growing antislavery sentiment played in the party’s fateful decision to nominate the Harrison-Tyler ticket. His work dismantles the caricature of the 1840 campaign (a.k.a. the “carnival campaign”) as all froth and no substance, instead giving due seriousness to the deeply held moral commitments, as well as anxieties about the political system, that informed the campaign.In Old Tip vs. the Sly Fox, the campaign of 1840 can finally be seen clearly for what it was: a contest of two profoundly different visions of policy and governance, including fundamental, still-pressing questions about the place of the presidency and Congress in the US political system.

George W. Bush's presidency has helped accelerate a renewed interest in the legal or formal bases of presidential power. It is now abundantly clear that presidential power is more than the sum of bargaining, character, and rhetoric. Presidential power also inheres in the Constitution or at least assertions of constitutional powers. Judging Executive Power helps to bring the Constitution and the courts back into the study of the American presidency by introducing students to sixteen important Supreme Court cases that have shaped the power of the American presidency. The cases selected include the removal power, executive privilege, executive immunity, and the line-item veto, with particularly emphasis on a president's wartime powers from the Civil War to the War on Terror. Through introductions and postscripts that accompany each case, landmark judicial opinions are placed in their political and historical contexts, enabling students to understand the political forces that frame and the political consequences that follow from legal arguments and judgments.

George W. Bush's presidency has helped accelerate a renewed interest in the legal or formal bases of presidential power. It is now abundantly clear that presidential power is more than the sum of bargaining, character, and rhetoric. Presidential power also inheres in the Constitution or at least assertions of constitutional powers. Judging Executive Power helps to bring the Constitution and the courts back into the study of the American presidency by introducing students to sixteen important Supreme Court cases that have shaped the power of the American presidency. The cases selected include the removal power, executive privilege, executive immunity, and the line-item veto, with particularly emphasis on a president's wartime powers from the Civil War to the War on Terror. Through introductions and postscripts that accompany each case, landmark judicial opinions are placed in their political and historical contexts, enabling students to understand the political forces that frame and the political consequences that follow from legal arguments and judgments.

Culture Matters explores the role of political culture studies as one of the major investigative fields in contemporary political science. Cultural theory was the focal point of the late Aaron Wildavsky’s teaching and research for the last decade of his life, a life that profoundly affected many fields of political science, from the study of the presidency to public budgeting. In this volume, original essays prepared in Wildavsky’s honor examine the areas of rational choice, institutions, theories of change, political risk, the environment, and practical politics.

Why do people want what they want? Why does one person see the world as a place to control, while another feels controlled by the world? A useful theory of culture, the authors contend, should start with these questions, and the answers, given different historical conditions, should apply equally well to people of all times, places, and walks of life.Taking their cue from the pioneering work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, the authors of Cultural Theory have created a typology of five ways of life,egalitarianism, fatalism, individualism, hierarchy, and autonomy,to serve as an analytic tool in examining people, culture, and politics. They then show how cultural theorists can develop large numbers of falsifiable propositions.Drawing on parables, poetry, case studies, fiction, and the Great Books, the authors illustrate how cultural biases and social relationships interact in particular ways to yield life patterns that are viable, sustainable, and ultimately, changeable under certain conditions. Figures throughout the book show the dynamic quality of these ways of life and specifically illustrate the role of surprise in effecting small- and large-scale change.The authors compare Cultural Theory with the thought of master social theorists from Montesquieu to Stinchcombe and then reanalyze the classic works in the political culture tradition from Almond and Verba to Pye. Demonstrating that there is more to social life than hierarchy and individualism, the authors offer evidence from earlier studies showing that the addition of egalitarianism and fatalism facilitates cross-national comparisons.

Presidents shape not only the course of history but also how Americans remember and retell that history. From the Oval Office they instruct us what to respect and what to reject in our past. They regale us with stories about who we are as a people, and tell us whom in the pantheon of greats we should revere and whom we should revile. The president of the United States, in short, is not just the nation's chief legislator, the head of a political party, or the commander in chief of the armed forces, but also, crucially, the nation's historian in chief.In this engaging and insightful volume, Seth Cotlar and Richard Ellis bring together top historians and political scientists to explore how eleven American presidents deployed their power to shape the nation's collective memory and its political future. Contending that the nation's historians in chief should be evaluated not only on the basis of how effective they are in persuading others, Historian in Chief argues they should also be judged on the veracity of the history they tell.

At a time when the institution of the presidency seems in a state of almost permanent crisis, it is particularly important to understand what sort of an institution the framers of the Constitution thought they were creating. Founding the American Presidency offers a first-hand view of the minds of the founders by bringing together extensive selections from the constitutional convention in Philadelphia as well as representative selections from the subsequent debates over ratification. Organized topically, the book focuses on those issues of executive power that most deeply concerned and often sharply divided the founders, including the electoral college and impeachment, the presidential term and reeligibility, the veto power and war powers, the power of appointment and the power of pardon. Ellis’ judicious selections mean that teachers and students no longer need to settle for the meager rations of a Federalist paper or two supplemented by a quick summary of the founders' thoughts before being fast-forwarded to the contemporary presidency. Pointed discussion questions provoke students to consider new perspectives on the presidency. Ideal for all courses on the presidency, the book is also important for all citizens who want to understand not only the past but the future of the American presidency.

A full understanding of the institution of the American presidency requires us to examine how it developed from the founding to the present. This developmental lens, analyzing how historical turns have shaped the modern institution, allows for a richer, more nuanced understanding. The Development of the American Presidency pays great attention to that historical weight but is organized by the topics and concepts relevant to political science, with the constitutional origins and political development of the presidency its central focus. Through comprehensive and in-depth coverage, Richard J. Ellis looks at how the presidency has evolved in relation to the public, to Congress, to the executive branch, and to the law, showing at every step how different aspects of the presidency have followed distinct trajectories of change. Each chapter promotes active learning, beginning with a narrative account of some illustrative puzzle that brings to life a central concept. A wealth of photos, figures, and tables allow for the visual presentations of concepts.New to the Fourth Edition Explicit and expanded attention to the role of norms in shaping and constraining presidential power, with special focus on Trump’s norm-breaking and Biden’s efforts to shore up norms; Enhanced focus on the prospects for institutional reform, including in the electoral college, presidential relations with Congress, war powers, and the selection of Supreme Court justices; A full reckoning with the Trump presidency and its significance for the future of American democracy, presidential rhetoric, the unilateral executive, and the administrative state; Coverage of the first year of Biden’s presidency, including presidential rhetoric, relations with Congress and the bureaucracy, use of the war powers, and unilateral directives; Comprehensive updating of debates about the removal power, including the Supreme Court cases of Seila Law v. CFPB and Collins v. Yellen; In-depth exploration of the impact of partisan polarization on the legislative presidency and effective governance; Analysis of the 2020 election and its aftermath; Expanded discussion of impeachment to incorporate Trump’s two impeachments; Examination of presidential emergency powers, with special attention to Trump’s border wall declaration; Review of Biden’s and Trump’s impact on the judiciary; Assessment of Biden’s and Trump’s place in political time.

A full understanding of the institution of the American presidency requires us to examine how it developed from the founding to the present. This developmental lens, analyzing how historical turns have shaped the modern institution, allows for a richer, more nuanced understanding. The Development of the American Presidency pays great attention to that historical weight but is organized by the topics and concepts relevant to political science, with the constitutional origins and political development of the presidency its central focus. Through comprehensive and in-depth coverage, Richard J. Ellis looks at how the presidency has evolved in relation to the public, to Congress, to the executive branch, and to the law, showing at every step how different aspects of the presidency have followed distinct trajectories of change. Each chapter promotes active learning, beginning with a narrative account of some illustrative puzzle that brings to life a central concept. A wealth of photos, figures, and tables allow for the visual presentations of concepts.New to the Fourth Edition Explicit and expanded attention to the role of norms in shaping and constraining presidential power, with special focus on Trump’s norm-breaking and Biden’s efforts to shore up norms; Enhanced focus on the prospects for institutional reform, including in the electoral college, presidential relations with Congress, war powers, and the selection of Supreme Court justices; A full reckoning with the Trump presidency and its significance for the future of American democracy, presidential rhetoric, the unilateral executive, and the administrative state; Coverage of the first year of Biden’s presidency, including presidential rhetoric, relations with Congress and the bureaucracy, use of the war powers, and unilateral directives; Comprehensive updating of debates about the removal power, including the Supreme Court cases of Seila Law v. CFPB and Collins v. Yellen; In-depth exploration of the impact of partisan polarization on the legislative presidency and effective governance; Analysis of the 2020 election and its aftermath; Expanded discussion of impeachment to incorporate Trump’s two impeachments; Examination of presidential emergency powers, with special attention to Trump’s border wall declaration; Review of Biden’s and Trump’s impact on the judiciary; Assessment of Biden’s and Trump’s place in political time.

The Development of the American Presidency provides students with a full examination of the historical development of the American presidency. Organized by the topics and concepts relevant to political science, this textbook keeps the constitutional origins and political development of the presidency as its central focus. Through comprehensive and in-depth coverage, Richard J. Ellis looks at how the presidency has evolved in relation to the public, to Congress, to the executive branch, and to the law, showing how different aspects of the presidency have followed distinct trajectories of change. Each chapter promotes active learning for students, beginning with an illustrative puzzle that brings to life a central concept. A wealth of photos, figures, and tables allow for the visual presentation of concepts. In this new edition, the author incorporates new research into each chapter, takes the full measure of the Biden presidency, grapples with what the second Trump presidency means for the institution, and highlights how the functioning of the constitutional system of checks and balances depends on assumptions of presidential self-restraint. Analyzing how history has shaped the modern institution, this book helps undergraduate political science students gain a rich, nuanced understanding of the American presidency.

The Development of the American Presidency provides students with a full examination of the historical development of the American presidency. Organized by the topics and concepts relevant to political science, this textbook keeps the constitutional origins and political development of the presidency as its central focus. Through comprehensive and in-depth coverage, Richard J. Ellis looks at how the presidency has evolved in relation to the public, to Congress, to the executive branch, and to the law, showing how different aspects of the presidency have followed distinct trajectories of change. Each chapter promotes active learning for students, beginning with an illustrative puzzle that brings to life a central concept. A wealth of photos, figures, and tables allow for the visual presentation of concepts. In this new edition, the author incorporates new research into each chapter, takes the full measure of the Biden presidency, grapples with what the second Trump presidency means for the institution, and highlights how the functioning of the constitutional system of checks and balances depends on assumptions of presidential self-restraint. Analyzing how history has shaped the modern institution, this book helps undergraduate political science students gain a rich, nuanced understanding of the American presidency.