Linda Gordon, "Seven Social Movements That Changed America" (LIveright, 2025)

Stephen Medvic is the author of In Defense of Politicians: The Expectations Trap and Its Threat to Democracy (Routledge 2013). He is associate professor of government at Franklin and Marshall University. Medvic confronts the widespread dissatisfaction with Washington, Congress, and politicians from a new perspective. He argues that much of the antipathy towards politicians is based on faulty expectations, what he calls an “expectations trap”. The public wants often contradictory things from politicians: strongly held beliefs and the willingness to make deals; ambition and wisdom, but not so much of each that they are self-serving. Medvic calls for more realistic expectations of what function politicians play in a democracy to move beyond some of the current public frustrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Des 201318min

William G. Howell, Saul P. Jackman, and Jon C. Rogowski are the authors of The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics of Threat (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Howell is professor of political science at the University of Chicago, Jackman is a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Rogowski is assistant professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis. The book is a meaty and complex analysis of the presidency during war. They rely on formal modeling to develop a theory of Policy Priority. In other work, that has bogged down the prose, but here the writing is clear and the case studies presented toward the end of the book enrich their analysis. What we learn is that presidents benefit from war in their domestic agenda. As members of congress shift to focusing on national concerns, rather than local, they more closely adhere to the preferences of the president. This pattern isn’t without exceptions, and Howell et al. show the interesting cases (LBJ with Vietnam and GW Bush in 2005 with social security reform) where the model doesn’t predict outcomes as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Des 201320min

Glenn Feldman is the author of The Irony of the Solid South: Democrats, Republicans, and Race, 1865-1944 (Alabama UP 2013). He is professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the author of eight other books. Feldman’s book is a deeply provocative analysis of southern politics and political history. He explains the recurring themes in southern politics as an outgrowth of “Reconstruction Syndrome”. Themes of anti-government, anti-taxation, and deep suspicion of outsiders (African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants), run throughout the history of southern politics, and remain today. Feldman focuses much of his book on showing that the Democratic Party lost the south long before the passage of the civil rights laws in the 1960s. He tracks the shift in political allegiances back to the 1930s and even earlier. The book challenges conventional notions and is likely to stimulate debate and controversy. It is a worthwhile read for historians of the time period and political scientists, alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Nov 201328min

Stella M. Rouse is the author of Latinos in the Legislative Process: Interests and Influence (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Rouse is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland and a research fellow at the Center for American Politics and Citizenship. Commentators lauded Latino voters in 2012, but it is Latino elected-officials that increasingly hold power at the national and state-levels. In 2009, 242 Latino served in state legislatures and 27 Latinos were in the House of Representatives. While these numbers are not proportionate to the size of the Latino population, they are record highs. Rouse links together this descriptive representation to the ways those Latino officials make policy and vote on issues important to Latinos, what she labels substantive representation. She finds that education, healthcare, and jobs were the top priorities for Latino legislators – immigration was named by only 8% of respondents. She concludes that “Immigration is important, but it is not at the forefront of priorities for either the Latino public or for Latino elites.” Rouse extends this analysis to the agenda setting and voting behavior of Latinos. She finds that Latino legislators are more likely to introduce Latino-interest legislation when the percentage of Latinos in the party is smaller. At the roll call stage of the legislative process, though, Latino legislators behave no differently than others. Overall, Rouse’s new book has a lot to offer scholars of Congress, agenda setting, and ethnic studies. Her analysis is timely and advances what we know about Latinos and politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

14 Okt 201325min

Vanessa Williamson is coauthor (with Theda Skocpol) of The Tea Party: Remaking of Republican Conservatism (Oxford University Press, 2012), a New Yorker magazine “Ten Best Political Books of 2012”). Williamson is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University and Skocpol is professor of government and sociology at Harvard University. A lot has been written about the Tea Party, much from journalists and commentators. Williamson and Skocpol add a welcome scholarly vantage point, but don’t rest on the distance many academic prefer. They travel the country, interviewing Tea Party advocates, attending Tea Party gatherings in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Arizona. They also mine traditional social science sources of information as well. What results is a nuanced portrait of a very complex modern political phenomenon. The Tea Party, according to Williamson and Skocpol, is in part the result of grassroots activism, part top-down policy entrepreneurship, and part modern media promotion. This book unearths many of the institutional dimensions of the Tea Party movement that help explain how it grew so quickly – 1,000 Tea Party groups formed in just the initial period – and grew so powerful – millions of dollars coalesced to help fund, train, and mobilize supporters and candidates. The electoral successes in the 2010 elections and subsequent policy victories in state tax, budget, and voting policy are the most obvious legacy to date. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Aug 201324min

William G. Howell (with David Brent) is the author of the new book Thinking about the Presidency: The Primacy of Power (Princeton UP, 2013). Howell is the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago, where he holds a joint appointment in the Harris School of Public Policy. Howell’s thesis is simple: “Power is every president’s North Star.” He argues in this succinct book that by focusing attention on the expansion of power, we can best understand the presidency and its evolution. Combining historical analysis of key documents and a synthesis of current scholarship, Howell offers a convincing and provocative case for power as the central feature of the presidency. Given the current attention to the Obama presidency’s treatment of secrets, privacy, and security, Howell’s book has much to add to these contemporary debates. The book builds a deep, scholarly argument, but one that could be read and appreciated by undergraduates and the public-at-large. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Jul 201323min

Barbara Palmer and Dennis Simon are authors of Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change (Lynne Rienner, 2012). Palmer is associate professor of political science at Baldwin Wallace University and Dixon is professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. They have combined to write a deeply informative book about the trajectory of women in congress. The book offers many great anecdotes from the trail blazers: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the first woman to run for congress), Margaret Chase Smith (the first woman elected to the Senate), and Shirley Chisom (the first African American woman elected to Congress). The authors also put together a new dataset of the universe of women candidates for office. What they find about where women succeed and the challenges they face after winning reveals a lot about what it means for a woman to run for office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Jul 201329min

Andrew J. Taylor is the author of Congress: A Performance Appraisal (Westview Press, 2013). Taylor is professor of political science in the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. His newest book examines the much maligned branch of government and offers some help. He takes the novel approach of establishing a series of benchmarks, as the federal government might about an intransigent agency, and then assesses the extent to which Congress meets those benchmarks. There are 37 benchmarks in total, some that Congress scores highly on – such as many elements of transparency and accessibility – while others – for example, effective policy making – Congress scores poorly. Taylor ends the book with offering recommendations about how to improve Congress through some familiar, but other novel changes. The book would make a great addition to an undergraduate survey of Congress or US political institutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Jul 201328min