William H. Riker – författare

In twelve entertaining stories from history and current events, a noted political scientist and game theorist shows us how some of our heroes we as well as ordinary folk have manipulated their opponents in order to win political advantage.  The stories come from many times and places, because manipulation of people by other people is universal: from the Roman Senate through the Constitutional Convention of 1787, to the Congress, state legislatures, and city councils of twentieth-century America.The results of manipulation are not trivial, as we see, for example, in Riker’s account of Lincoln’s outmaneuvering of Douglas in their debates and in his description of the parliamentary trick that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment only six years ago in the Virginia Senate.The tales can be enjoyed by anyone. For the scholar, they are held together by a concluding chapter in which Riker discusses the feature of politics that all of the manipulators exploited and sketches out the new political theory that explains why manipulation works the way it does.PrefaceLincoln at FreeportChauncey DePew and the Seventeenth AmendmentThe Flying ClubGouverneur Morris in the Philadelphia ConventionHeresthetic in FictionCamouflaging the GerrymanderPliny the Younger on Parliamentary LawTrading Votes at the Constitutional ConventionHow to Win on a Roll Call by Not VotingWarren Magnuson and Nerve GasExploiting the Powell AmendmentReed and Cannon Conclusion“A useful and entertaining informal essay on political tactics that will have direct utility in the classroom.”—Douglas W. Rae, Yale UniversityWilliam H. Riker is Wilson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and a former president of the American Political Science Association. He is the author of numerous books, including Theory of Political Coalitions, a classic in the field.

This book, the last work of an eminent political scientist, is an innovative study of persuasion in a landmark political event: the 1787-88 campaign to ratify the United States Constitution. William Riker uses both historical and rational choice analysis to examine the rhetoric and strategic manipulations used in this campaign, and he points out patterns and principles that should be applicable to political campaigns in general.Riker examines the campaign's rhetoric and derives strategic principles that seem to guide campaigners. These principles explain, among other things, the frequent reliance on negative themes in campaigns. He also investigates what he calls "heresthetic"—how campaigners structured situations so that their preferred outcome was more likely to occur. He discusses several heresthetical maneuvers that made the Federalists' narrow victory possible, such as their proposal of a constitution that was broader than most citizens would have preferred, and their design of the ratification process as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, so that they could prevent any ratifying state from altering it. Riker concludes by examining the relationship between rhetoric and heresthetic. He shows that both were necessary for the Federalist victory: rhetoric, to build support for Federalist positions, and heresthetic, to structure the choice process so that this level of support would be sufficient. His analysis yields a new understanding of the ratification campaign, and the tools and approaches he develops lead toward the further development of the science of political campaigns, of political rhetoric generally, and of the art and science of heresthetic.

The chapters of this book have diverse origins. They were written over the period 1954-1984. Several (i.e., three, four, seven, and ten) were originally published in scholarly journals. Several (i.e., one, eight, nine, and eleven) are excerpts from my previous books: Soldiers of the States and Federalism: Origin, Operation and Significance. And several (i.e., two, five, and six) were written for conferences and are now published here for the first time. Despite the fact that this history suggests they are quite unrelated, these chapters do indeed center on one theme: the continuity of American federalism. In order to emphasize that theme, I have written an introduction and an initial commentary for each chapter. These commen­ taries, taken together, with the introduction, constitute the exposition of the theme. Some of these chapters (four, six, and ten) were written with my students, Ronald Schaps, John Lemco, and William Bast. They did much of the research and analysis so the credit for these chapters belongs to them as much as to me. Chapter five is based quite closely on William Paul Alexander's dissertation for the Ph. D. degree at the University of Rochester, 1973.