A collection of the leading political science, public policy, and international relations journals, together with working papers, conference proceedings, country reports, policy papers and other sources.
This resource provides in-depth and timely policy analysis of the latest topics and news from Washington DC. The document drawer offers relevant primary and secondary source material, while the Data Point service provides infographics and other visuals to supplement hot topics.
Non-partisan. Includes CQ Press Almanac, Congress Collection, Researcher Plus Archive, CQ Press Magazine, Politics in America, Supreme Court Yearbook, Voting and Elections Collection, and interactive tools to retrieve data.
Election College - PodcastA short and easy to understand podcast that talks about each election going back to George Washington
The Pollsters"Explore what America’s thinking with two of the country’s leading pollsters–the bipartisan team of Democrat Margie Omero and Republican Kristen Soltis Anderson. In this weekly podcast we take a fresh, friendly look at the numbers driving the week’s biggest stories in news, politics, tech, entertainment and pop culture. Along with the occasional interview with pollsters, journalists, and other industry leaders, we’ll lift the hood on the numbers revealing the hidden secrets of the public’s mind."
Purplish - CPR"Over the last two decades, (Colorado) has voted for an equal number of Republicans and Democrats for president, and voters are evenly split between Republicans, Democrats and Independents...Hosted by CPR News Reporter Sam Brasch, this podcast dives into the ...ish. Each week until Election Day 2018, he'll ask a big question about Colorado’s democracy and where it might be headed next"
POLITICO's NerdcastPOLITICO's top reporters dive into the political landscape, the latest numbers that matter, and detail what's really happening behind closed doors.
Women Belong in the House"...in this narrative-style show we're digging into stories of hope. We're talking about the record number of women running for office this November. Jenny Kaplan brings you candidates - plus experts and thought leaders to explain why there are so few women in office, what it would mean if there were more, and how Congress would change if it looked more like the people it represents"
Pod Save AmericaThis liberal-learning podcast claims to be a "no-bullsh** conversation about politics. And check out Vote Save America; their web presence and voter guide https://crooked.com/articles/be-a-voter-save-america/
The Ricochet NetworkA comprehensive collection of conservative-learning podcasts with numerous shows dedicated to the midterm elections
FiveThirtyEight's - Politic's Podcast"Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis to tell compelling stories about elections, politics, sports, science, economics, and more"
Civics 101This podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is a "refresher course on the basics of how our democracy works"
The Weeds - by Vox"Matthew Yglesias is joined by Ezra Klein, Sarah Kliff, Dara Lind, Jane Coaston and other Vox voices to dig into the weeds on important national issues, including healthcare, immigration, housing, and everything else that matters"
NPR Politics Podcast"The NPR Politics Podcast is where NPR's political reporters talk to you like they talk to each other. With weekly roundups and quick takes on news of the day, you don't have to keep up with politics to know what's happening."
We The People"National Constitution Center president and CEO Jeffrey Rosen hosts "We The People," a weekly balanced conversation with leading scholars of all viewpoints on contemporary and historical topics about the United States Constitution"
Constitutional - Washington Post"As a follow-up to the popular Washington Post podcast “Presidential,” reporter Lillian Cunningham returns with this series exploring the Constitution and the people who framed and reframed it — revolutionaries, abolitionists, suffragists, teetotalers, protesters, justices, presidents – in the ongoing struggle to form a more perfect union across a vast and diverse land"
Presidential - Washington Post"In 44 chronological episodes, the “Presidential” podcast takes listeners on an epic historical journey through the personality and legacy of each of the American presidents. Created and hosted by Washington Post reporter Lillian Cunningham, “Presidential” features interviews with the country’s greatest experts on the presidency, including Pulitzer Prize-winning biographers Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough, Jon Meacham and Bob Woodward. Start listening at the very beginning, with the life of George Washington, or jump ahead to any president whose story you want to better understand"
The Woman's Hour by Elaine Weiss"Both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for every reader"--Hillary Rodham Clinton Soon to Be a Major Television Event The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote. "With a skill reminiscent of Robert Caro, [Weiss] turns the potentially dry stuff of legislative give-and-take into a drama of courage and cowardice."--The Wall Street Journal "Weiss is a clear and genial guide with an ear for telling language ... She also shows a superb sense of detail, and it's the deliciousness of her details that suggests certain individuals warrant entire novels of their own... Weiss's thoroughness is one of the book's great strengths. So vividly had she depicted events that by the climactic vote (spoiler alert: The amendment was ratified!), I got goose bumps."--Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible. Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.
ISBN: 9780525429722
Publication Date: 2018-03-06
The Fall of Wisconsin by Dan KaufmanFor more than a century, Wisconsin has been known nationwide for its progressive ideas and government. It famously served as a "laboratory of democracy," a cradle of the labor and environmental movements, and birthplace of the Wisconsin Idea, which championed expertise in the service of the common good. But following a Republican sweep of the state's government in 2010, Wisconsin's political heritage was overturned, and the state went Republican for the first time in three decades in the 2016 presidential election, elevating Donald J. Trump to the presidency. The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, searing account of how the state's progressive tradition was undone and turned into a model for national conservatives bent on remaking the country. Dan Kaufman, a Wisconsin native who has been covering the story for several years, traces the history of progressivism that made Wisconsin so widely admired, from the work of celebrated politicians like Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette and Gaylord Nelson, to local traditions like Milwaukee's "sewer socialism," to the conservationist ideas of Aldo Leopold and the state's Native American tribes. Kaufman reveals how the "divide-and-conquer" strategy of Governor Scott Walker and his allies pitted Wisconsin's citizens against one another so powerful corporations and wealthy donors could effectively take control of state government. As a result, laws protecting voting rights, labor unions, the environment, and public education were rapidly dismantled. Neither sentimental nor despairing, Kaufman also chronicles the remarkable efforts of citizens who are fighting to reclaim Wisconsin's progressive legacy against tremendous odds: Chris Taylor, a Democratic assemblywoman exposing the national conservative infrastructure, Mike Wiggins, the head of a Chippewa tribe battling an out-of-state mining company, and Randy Bryce, the ironworker whose long-shot challenge to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has galvanized national resistance to Trump.
ISBN: 9780393635201
Publication Date: 2018-07-10
The Contest by Michael SchumacherA dramatic, deeply informed account of one of the most consequential elections and periods in American history 1968--rife with riots, assassinations, anti-Vietnam War protests, and realpolitik--was one of the most tumultuous years in the twentieth century, culminating in one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history. The Contest tells the story of that contentious election and that remarkable year. Bringing a fresh perspective to events that still resonate half a century later, this book is especially timely, giving us the long view of a turning point in American culture and politics.Author Michael Schumacher sets the stage with a deep look at the people with important roles in the unfolding drama: Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and especially Hubert H. Humphrey, whose papers and journals afford surprising new insights. Following these politicians in the lead-up to the primaries, through the chaotic conventions, and down the home stretch to the general election, The Contest combines biographical and historical details to create a narrative as intimate in human detail as it is momentous in scope and significance.An election year when the competing forces of law and order and social justice were on the ballot, the Vietnam War divided the country, and the liberal regime begun with Franklin D. Roosevelt was on the defensive, 1968 marked a profound shift in the nation's culture and sense of itself. Thorough in its research and spellbinding in the telling, Schumacher's book brings sharp focus to that year and its lessons for our current critical moment in American politics.
ISBN: 9780816692897
Publication Date: 2018-07-03
Ballot Battles by Edward FoleyThe 2000 presidential race resulted in the highest-profile ballot battle in over a century. But it is far from the only American election determined by a handful of votes and marred by claims of fraud. Since the founding of the nation, violence frequently erupted as the votes were beingcounted, and more than a few elections produced manifestly unfair results. Despite America's claim to be the world's greatest democracy, its adherence to the basic tenets of democratic elections - the ability to count ballots accurately and fairly even when the stakes are high - has always beenshaky. A rigged gubernatorial election in New York in 1792 nearly ended in calls for another revolution, and an 1899 gubernatorial race even resulted in an assassination. Though acts of violence have decreased in frequency over the past century, fairness and accuracy in ballot counting nonethelessremains a basic problem in American political life. In Ballot Battles, Edward Foley presents a sweeping history of election controversies in the United States, tracing how their evolution generated legal precedents that ultimately transformed how we determine who wins and who loses. While weaving a narrative spanning over two centuries, Foleyrepeatedly returns to an originating event: because the Founding Fathers despised parties and never envisioned the emergence of a party system, they wrote a constitution that did not provide clear solutions for high-stakes and highly-contested elections in which two parties could pool resourcesagainst one another. Moreover, in the American political system that actually developed, politicians are beholden to the parties which they represent - and elected officials have typically had an outsized say in determining the outcomes of extremely close elections that involve recounts. Thisunderlying structural problem, more than anything else, explains why intense ballot battles that leave one side feeling aggrieved will continue to occur for the foreseeable future. American democracy has improved dramatically over the last two centuries. But the same cannot be said for the ways in which we determine who wins the very close races. From the founding until today, there has been little progress toward fixing the problem. Indeed, supporters of John Jay in 1792 andopponents of Lyndon Johnson in the 1948 Texas Senate race would find it easy to commiserate with Al Gore after the 2000 election. Ballot Battles is not only the first full chronicle of contested elections in the US. It also provides a powerful explanation of why the American election system has been- and remains - so ineffective at deciding the tightest races in a way that all sides will agree is fair.
ISBN: 9780190235277
Publication Date: 2016-01-04
The Fight to Vote by Michael Waldman"Important and engaging" --The Washington Post From the president of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice and the author of The Second Amendment, the history of the long struggle to win voting rights for all citizens. In The Second Amendment, Michael Waldman traced the ongoing argument on gun rights from the Bill of Rights to the current day. Now in The Fight to Vote, Michael Waldman takes a succinct and comprehensive look at a crucial American struggle: the drive to define and defend government based on "the consent of the governed." From the beginning, and at every step along the way, as Americans sought to right to vote, others have fought to stop them. This is the first book to trace the full story from the founders' debates to today's challenges: a wave of restrictive voting laws, partisan gerrymanders, the flood of campaign money unleashed by Citizens United. Americans are proud of our democracy. But today that system seems to be under siege, and the right to vote has become the fight to vote. In fact, that fight has always been at the heart of our national story, and raucous debates over how to expand democracy have always been at the center of American politics. At first only a few property owners could vote. Over two centuries, working class white men, former slaves, women, and finally all Americans won the right to vote. The story goes well beyond voting rules to issues of class, race, political parties, and campaign corruption. It's been raw, rowdy, a fierce, and often rollicking struggle for power. Waldman's The Fight to Vote is a compelling story of our struggle to uphold our most fundamental democratic ideals.
ISBN: 9781501116483
Publication Date: 2016-02-23
The Embattled Vote in America by Allan J. LichtmanThe New York Times bestselling author of The Case for Impeachment reveals the founders' biggest mistake--leaving voting rights to the discretion of individual states--and shows that gerrymandering and voter suppression have a long history. "[An] important book... [Lichtman] uses history to contextualize the fix we're in today. Each party gropes for advantage by fiddling with the franchise... Growing outrage, he thinks, could ignite demands for change. With luck, this fine history might just help to fan the flame." --New York Times Book Review Americans have fought and died for the right to vote. Yet the world's oldest continuously operating democracy guarantees no one, not even its citizens, the right to elect its leaders. For most of U.S. history, suffrage has been a privilege restricted by wealth, sex, race, residence, literacy, criminal conviction, and citizenship. Economic qualifications were finally eliminated in the nineteenth century, but the ideal of a white man's republic persisted long after that. Today, voter identification laws, registration requirements, felon disenfranchisement, and voter purges deny many millions of American citizens the opportunity to express their views at the ballot box. An award-winning historian who has testified in more than ninety voting rights cases, Allan Lichtman gives us the deep history behind today's headlines and shows that calls of voter fraud, political gerrymandering and outrageous attempts at voter suppression are nothing new. The players and the tactics have changed--we don't outright ban people from voting anymore--but the battle and the stakes remain just as high.
ISBN: 9780674972360
Publication Date: 2018-09-10
The Indispensable Electoral College by Tara RossIs the Electoral College anti-democratic? Some would say yes. After all, the presidential candidate with the most popular votes has nevertheless lost the election at least three times, including 2016. To some Americans, that's a scandal. They believe the Electoral College is an intolerable flaw in the Constitution, a relic of a bygone era that ought to have been purged long ago. But that would be a terrible mistake, warns Tara Ross in this vigorous defense of "the indispensable Electoral College." Far from an obstacle to enlightened democracy, the Electoral College is one of the guardrails ensuring the stability of the American Republic. In this lively and instructive primer, Tara Ross explains: Why the Founders established the Electoral College--and why they thought it vital to the Constitution Why the Electoral College was meant to be more important than the popular vote How the Electoral College prevents political crises after tight elections Why the Electoral College doesn't favor one party over the other Why the states are the driving force behind presidential elections and how efforts to centralize the process have led to divisiveness and discontent Why the Electoral College is inappropriately labeled a "relic of slavery" Every four years, the controversy is renewed: Should we keep the Electoral College? Tara Ross shows you why the answer should be a resounding Yes!
ISBN: 9781621576747
Publication Date: 2017-10-30
Routledge Handbook of Primary Elections by Robert G. Boatright (Editor)Primary elections have been used for the past century for most U.S. elective offices and their popularity is growing in other nations as well. In some circumstances, primaries ensure that citizens have a say in elections and test the skills of candidates before they get to the general election. Yet primaries are often criticized for increasing the cost of elections, for producing ideologically extreme candidates, and for denying voters the opportunity to choose candidates whose appeal transcends partisanship. Few such arguments have, however, been rigorously tested. This innovative Handbook evaluates many of the claims, positive and negative, that have been made about primaries. It is organized into six sections, covering the origins of primary elections; primary voters; US presidential primaries; US subpresidential primaries; primaries in other parts of the world; and reform proposals. The Routledge Handbook of Primary Elections is an important research tool for scholars, a resource guide for students, and a source of ideas for those who seek to modify the electoral process.
ISBN: 9781315544182
Publication Date: 2018-02-15
Everything You Think You Know about Politics ... And Why You're Wrong by Kathleen Hall JamiesonHere, at last, is the book for anyone who ever wondered how the media extravaganzas we call political campaigns really work. Everything You Think You Know About Politics#133;and Why You're Wrong explores why the American public, seemingly so eager for "unspun" information about candidates and their positions, invariably ends up feeling manipulated by our political process.Challenging the reader with strategically placed quizzes, well-known commentator on the media and politics Kathleen Hall Jamieson surveys the existing public record on voting patterns, campaign promises, and all manner of electioneering and comes up with an engaging mix of analysis, surprising factoids, and political cartoons. This book separates the facts from the convenient fictions that deter Americans from caring about the processes and outcomes of elections.
ISBN: 0465036279
Publication Date: 2000-06-23
What You Should Know about Politics ... but Don't by Jessamyn Conrad; Naomi Wolf (Introduction by)Now in its second edition, here is one of the first and only issue-based nonpartisan guides to contemporary American politics. It’s a very exciting time in American politics. Voter turnout in primaries and caucuses across the nation has shattered old records. More than ever, in this election year people are paying attention to the issues. But in a world of sound bites and deliberate misinformation and a political scene that is literally colored by a partisan divide--blue vs. red--how does the average educated American find a reliable source that’s free of political spin?nbsp; What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don’t breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why, whether it’s the economy, the war in Iraq, health care, oil and renewable energy sources, or climate change. If you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it’s the perfect book to brush up on a single topic or read through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics.
ISBN: 9781611454758
Publication Date: 2012-07-15
The Red and the Blue by Steve KornackiFrom MSNBC correspondent Steve Kornacki, a lively and sweeping history of the birth of political tribalism in the 1990s--one that brings critical new understanding to our current political landscape from Clinton to Trump In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him Speaker. The Clinton/Gingrich battles were bare-knuckled brawls that brought about massive policy shifts and high-stakes showdowns--their collisions had far-reaching political consequences. But the '90s were not just about them. Kornacki writes about Mario Cuomo's stubborn presence around Clinton's 1992 campaign; Hillary Clinton's star turn during the 1998 midterms, seeding the idea for her own candidacy; Ross Perot's wild run in 1992 that inspired him to launch the Reform Party, giving Donald Trump his first taste of electoral politics in 1999; and many others. With novelistic prose and a clear sense of history, Steve Kornacki masterfully weaves together the various elements of this rambunctious and hugely impactful era in American history, whose effects set the stage for our current political landscape.
ISBN: 9780062438980
Publication Date: 2018-10-02
American Politics and Society Today by Robert Singh (Editor)From the attempt to impeach Bill Clinton to the 2000 elections andGeorge W. Bush's presidency, American politics has been marked bycontroversy. American Politics and Society Today analysesthese events and provides a lively and authoritative analysis ofcontemporary politics in the United States. Bringing together a series of leading scholars, the volumecomprises ten important, engaging and critical essays on thecomplex character of America's divided democracy. Challengingconventional textbook wisdoms, the collection provides newinterpretations on American government institutions, publicpolicies and popular culture from jazz and rap to TheSimpsons and South Park. Consistently stimulating,readable and provocative, the book allows readers to make their owninformed and dispassionate assessment of the current state of the'American experiment'. American Politics and Society Today will be ofsubstantial interest to undergraduate and graduate students ofAmerican politics and history, comparative politics, public policyand cultural studies.
ISBN: 0745625266
Publication Date: 2002-08-02
White Backlash by Marisa Abrajano; Zoltan L. HajnalWhite Backlash provides an authoritative assessment of how immigration is reshaping the politics of the nation. Using an array of data and analysis, Marisa Abrajano and Zoltan Hajnal show that fears about immigration fundamentally influence white Americans' core political identities, policy preferences, and electoral choices, and that these concerns are at the heart of a large-scale defection of whites from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Abrajano and Hajnal demonstrate that this political backlash has disquieting implications for the future of race relations in America. White Americans' concerns about Latinos and immigration have led to support for policies that are less generous and more punitive and that conflict with the preferences of much of the immigrant population. America's growing racial and ethnic diversity is leading to a greater racial divide in politics. As whites move to the right of the political spectrum, racial and ethnic minorities generally support the left. Racial divisions in partisanship and voting, as the authors indicate, now outweigh divisions by class, age, gender, and other demographic measures. White Backlash raises critical questions and concerns about how political beliefs and future elections will change the fate of America's immigrants and minorities, and their relationship with the rest of the nation.
ISBN: 9780691164434
Publication Date: 2015-03-22
American Governance by Stephen Schechter (Editor)While high school and college students will find in American Governance clear and authoritative depictions of ideas that are core to the U.S. system of governance, their teachers will be able to use this resource as an extension of, or even as a substitute for, the textbooks supporting government and civics classes. Public library patrons as well as readers in institutional libraries (newsrooms, government libraries, etc.) will find answers in American Governance on all questions related to the variety of ways by which the American people govern themselves from their constitutions and governments to the political norms and ideals that guide their actions as citizens and leaders; to local communities, civic associations, and political associations people form for collective deliberation and action; and to the relationships they form with their elected representatives. Features and Benefits Approximately 700 original, peer-reviewed entries written by content specialists about America s complete system of governance. An authoritative source of scholarship on essential topics of American governance presented in a clear and compelling manner. Satisfies the national standards for civics and government. Includes approximately 300 images. Includes primary source documents."
ISBN: 9780028662497
Publication Date: 2016-02-12
Bending Toward Justice by Gary MayWhen the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 granted African Americans the right to vote, it seemed as if a new era of political equality was at hand. Before long, however, white segregationists across the South counterattacked, driving their black countrymen from the polls through a combination of sheer terror and insidious devices such as complex literacy tests and expensive poll taxes. Most African Americans would remain voiceless for nearly a century more, citizens in name only until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act secured their access to the ballot. In Bending Toward Justice, celebrated historian Gary May describes how black voters overcame centuries of bigotry to secure and preserve one of their most important rights as American citizens. The struggle that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act was long and torturous, and only succeeded because of the courageous work of local freedom fighters and national civil rights leaders--as well as, ironically, the opposition of Southern segregationists and law enforcement officials, who won public sympathy for the voting rights movement by brutally attacking peaceful demonstrators. But while the Voting Rights Act represented an unqualified victory over such forces of hate, May explains that its achievements remain in jeopardy. Many argue that the 2008 election of President Barack Obama rendered the act obsolete, yet recent years have seen renewed efforts to curb voting rights and deny minorities the act's hard-won protections. Legal challenges to key sections of the act may soon lead the Supreme Court to declare those protections unconstitutional. A vivid, fast-paced history of this landmark piece of civil rights legislation, Bending Toward Justice offers a dramatic, timely account of the struggle that finally won African Americans the ballot--although, as May shows, the fight for voting rights is by no means over.