Patrick Parr, "Malcolm Before X" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024)

Thomas Holyoke has recently published Competitive Interests: Competition and Compromise in American Interest Group Politics with Georgetown University Press (2011). Tom is an Associate Professor of Political Science at California State University – Fresno. His book advances political science knowledge of the political process through an in-depth analysis of the role of interest groups. The book is based on interviews with nearly 90 lobbyists who have advocated on issues as varied as environmental policy to banking reform. The book contributes a rich empirical analysis supported by statistical models, but also a careful development of theory. Holyoke speaks to both the interest group audience and the wider field of American politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Nov 201229min

Lisa Garcia Bedolla and Melissa Michelson are the co-authors of Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns (Yale University Press 2012). Lisa is associate professor of social and cultural studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and Melissa Michelson is professor of political science at Menlo College. Their book takes up the challenge to better understand how effective voter mobilization efforts actually are. Using field experiments across California conducted in partnership with community organizations, they demonstrate what works and what doesn’t work to get ethnoracial voters out to the polls. The book can be read by scholars and practitioners alike who are interested in the civic engagement, political behavior, and democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Okt 201226min

Daniel Kreiss is an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama (Oxford University Press, 2012) traces the integration of new media into the presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and then Barack Obama. Kreiss argues that by focusing on innovation, infrastructure, and organization, scholars can better understand how new media has become central to understanding political campaigns in the US. The book draws on dozens of interviews with most of the largely unknown, but integral members of the campaigns of Dean and Obama. The story Kreiss tells reveals much about the nature of modern political campaigns and how the Internet has shaped the last decade of American politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Sep 201239min

Mitchel A. Sollenberger, assistant professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Mark J. Rozell, professor of public policy at George Mason University, have co-authored the provocative The President’s Czars: Undermining Congress and the Constitution (University of Kansas Press, 2012). The book uses a public law methodology to study the evolving role so-called “czars” play in the presidency. Presidential czars, as they define them, are given policy making authority by the president, but are not confirmed by the Senate. Thus, they operate with little accountability to the legislative branch. Their existence, which increased in numbers and importance over the twentieth century, raises serious questions about their appropriateness and constitutionality. The book concludes with a set of recommendations to address these concerns and rebalance the relationship between the president and Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Jun 201234min

Enid Logan‘s At this Defining Moment: Barack Obama: Presidential Candidacy and the New Politics of Race (NYU Press, 2011) examines the campaign and politics around the election of Barack Obama from a sociological perspective. Drawing on a rich array of television, newspaper, and blogs, Logan challenges many of the conventional interpretations of the Obama victory. In trying to define the “new politics of race”, the book is a contribution to the field of political science, where scholars have also grappled with putting the first African American president into political, historical, and social context. One of the more compelling chapters of the book deals with the intersection of Hispanic and Asian Americans and the Obama campaign. The length, clear-writing, and salient topic should make this a considered adoption for many courses in American politics, race and politics, and campaigns/elections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Jun 201235min

In his new book Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic (Broadside Books, 2012), Jay Cost, a political analyst and columnist for The Weekly Standard, traces the history of the Democratic party from its 1828 conception through to the modern day. Costa believes the party has strayed from its once noble goal of standing up for the “little guy” and become a political force ruled by the combined influences of a variety of special interest groups. In our interview, we talked about why he sees Woodrow Wilson, not FDR, as the founder of the modern Democratic party, the relationship between the Democrats and the press, and how American labor unions have changed over time. Read all about it, and more, in Cost’s tough new book. Please become a fan of New Books in Public Policy on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Jun 201252min

In his new book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind (St. Martin’s Press, 2011), Tim Groseclose, Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA, discusses his quantitative measurements of political bias in the American news media. Based on years of in-depth studies, he concludes that nearly every mainstream media outlet is skewed to the left of the American electorate, and that this bias has helped push the American electorate to the left of where it would be otherwise. In our interview, we talked about different kinds of media bias, as well as bias in academia, and the effect it has had on Professor Groseclose’s career. Read all about it, and more, in Groseclose’s illuminating new book Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Des 201147min

In his new book, Democracy Denied: How Obama is Ignoring You and Bypassing Congress to Radically Transform America – and How to Stop Him (BenBella Books, 2011), Phil Kerpen, vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity and columnist at FoxNews.com, argues that President Obama’s is trying to bypass Congress with an activist regulatory agenda. In our interview, we talked about the regulatory process, the Obama health care law, and what net neutrality means for the future of the Internet. Read all about it, and more, in Kerpen’s alarming new book. Please become a fan of “New Books in Public Policy” on Facebook if you haven’t already. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Des 201147min