The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol ◽  
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Short Term ◽  
White House ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Ongoing Effort ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Policy Agendas ◽  
The Right ◽  
The U.S

Presidential election years attract attention to the rhetoric, personalities, and agendas of contending White House aspirants, but these headlines do not reflect the ongoing political shifts that will confront whoever moves into the White House in 2017. Earthquakes and erosions have remade the U.S. political terrain, reconfiguring the ground on which politicians and social groups must maneuver, and it is important to make sure that narrow and short-term analyses do not blind us to this shifting terrain. We draw from research on changes since 2000 in the organizational universes surrounding the Republican and Democratic parties to highlight a major emergent force in U.S. politics: the recently expanded “Koch network” that coordinates big money funders, idea producers, issue advocates, and innovative constituency-building efforts in an ongoing effort to pull the Republican Party and agendas of U.S. politics sharply to the right. We review the major components and evolution of the Koch network and explore how it has reshaped American politics and policy agendas, focusing especially on implications for right-tilted partisan polarization and rising economic inequality.

A Tale of  Two PACs

2020 ◽  
pp. 222-248
Author(s):  
Emily J. Charnock
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Action Committee ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
Conservative Coalition ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

This chapter traces the diffusion of the PAC concept from the left to the right of the political spectrum in the late 1950s, with the formation of conservative electoral groups such as the Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) to counter liberal ones like the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). By the early 1960s the business community had cast off its earlier resistance to overt electioneering, with the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) forming the Business-Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) to channel campaign resources to favored congressional candidates. Though they initially sought to bolster the conservative coalition, these groups soon embraced a dynamic partisan strategy focused on the Republican Party, seeking to shift it rightward much as labor and liberal groups sought to push the Democratic Party to the left. This reactive process culminated in the presidential election of 1964, a contest to which the roots of modern partisan “polarization” are often traced.

Cross-Racial Mobilization in Perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 160-174
Author(s):  
Loren Collingwood
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Racial Lines ◽  
The Right ◽  
The U.S

The final chapter summarizes the research developed and presented in chapters 1 through 5. The chapter discusses the rise of Donald Trump, his takeover of the Republican Party, and what this means for continued political polarization along racial lines. Despite the immigration policies of the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and general warmth to Latinos under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, the contemporary GOP seems set to generate policies that disproportionately target and lock up immigrants. The pull to the right on immigration policy is likely generating major long-term political and coalitional consequences. While this policy may be smart for the GOP in the short term (i.e., Trump won the 2016 election by employing hard-right anti-Mexican racial appeals), in the long term, as the U.S. rapidly diversifies, this approach will lead to an extremely untenable for the GOP and Democrats work to strengthen their position with minority voters in general and Latinos in particular.

The Impact of Persistent Terrorism on Political Tolerance: Israel, 1980 to 2011

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 817-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK PEFFLEY ◽  
MARC L. HUTCHISON ◽  
MICHAL SHAMIR
Keyword(s):  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

How do persistent terrorist attacks influence political tolerance, a willingness to extend basic liberties to one's enemies? Studies in the U.S. and elsewhere have produced a number of valuable insights into how citizens respond to singular, massive attacks like 9/11. But they are less useful for evaluating how chronic and persistent terrorist attacks erode support for democratic values over the long haul. Our study focuses on political tolerance levels in Israel across a turbulent 30-year period, from 1980 to 2011, which allows us to distinguish the short-term impact of hundreds of terrorist attacks from the long-term influence of democratic longevity on political tolerance. We find that the corrosive influence of terrorism on political tolerance is much more powerful among Israelis who identify with the Right, who have also become much more sensitive to terrorism over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for other democracies under threat from terrorism.

Asymmetric Partisan Polarization, Labor Policy, and Cross-State Political Power-Building

2019 ◽  
Vol 685 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-79
Author(s):  
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
State Level ◽  
Labor Policy ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Feedback Strategies ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Right

As the Republican Party has moved to the Right, conservative politicians have become more comfortable viewing policy as a means of demobilizing their political adversaries. In this article, I show how conservative activists within the Republican Party have leveraged cutbacks to union rights to weaken their political opponents. This case study thus reveals the role of policy feedback strategies in asymmetric partisan polarization. It also illustrates lessons about the conditions under which policy feedback can durably shift the distribution of power in America’s fragmented polity. These insights underscore how the success of policy feedback effects depends not just on the initial passage of policies in one city or state, but on the ability of political actors to organize in multiple venues simultaneously. In particular, they highlight the importance of organizing at the cross-state level given the substantial political authority of states.

White Backlash

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa Abrajano ◽  
Zoltan L. Hajnal
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
White Backlash ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Racial Divide ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Backlash

This book provides an authoritative assessment of how immigration is reshaping American politics. Using an array of data and analysis, it shows 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. The book demonstrates 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 book indicates, now outweigh divisions by class, age, gender, and other demographic measures. The book 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.

The Politics of Evangelical Identity

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Bean
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
Political Conservatism ◽  
Evangelical Identity ◽  
Moral Attitudes ◽  
The U.S

It is now a common refrain among liberals that Christian Right pastors and television pundits have hijacked evangelical Christianity for partisan gain. This book challenges this notion, arguing that the hijacking metaphor paints a fundamentally distorted picture of how evangelical churches have become politicized. The book reveals how the powerful coalition between evangelicals and the Republican Party is not merely a creation of political elites who have framed conservative issues in religious language, but is anchored in the lives of local congregations. Drawing on research at evangelical churches near the U.S. border with Canada, this book compares how American and Canadian evangelicals talk about politics in congregational settings. While Canadian evangelicals share the same theology and conservative moral attitudes as their American counterparts, their politics are quite different. On the U.S. side of the border, political conservatism is woven into the very fabric of everyday religious practice. The book shows how subtle partisan cues emerge in small group interactions as members define how “we Christians” should relate to others in the broader civic arena, while liberals are cast in the role of adversaries. It explains how the most explicit partisan cues come not from clergy but rather from lay opinion leaders who help their less politically engaged peers to link evangelical identity to conservative politics. This book demonstrates how deep the ties remain between political conservatism and evangelical Christianity in America.

Main Forms of Propagandistic Activities of the Right-Wing Parties (1904–1914)

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 656-676
Author(s):  
Igor V. Omeliyanchuk
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Periodical Press ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article examines the main forms and methods of agitation and propagandistic activities of monarchic parties in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century. Among them the author singles out such ones as periodical press, publication of books, brochures and flyers, organization of manifestations, religious processions, public prayers and funeral services, sending deputations to the monarch, organization of public lectures and readings for the people, as well as various philanthropic events. Using various forms of propagandistic activities the monarchists aspired to embrace all social groups and classes of the population in order to organize all-class and all-estate political movement in support of the autocracy. While they gained certain success in promoting their ideology, the Rights, nevertheless, lost to their adversaries from the radical opposition camp, as the monarchists constrained by their conservative ideology, could not promise immediate social and political changes to the population, and that fact was excessively used by their opponents. Moreover, the ideological paradigm of the Right camp expressed in the “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” formula no longer agreed with the social and economic realities of Russia due to modernization processes that were underway in the country from the middle of the 19th century.

The Future of Global Great Power Competition after the Coronavirus

2020 ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
Burhanettin Duran
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International System ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
World War ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
The Future ◽  
Policy Agendas ◽  
The U.S

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the domestic and foreign policy agendas of all countries have been turned upside down. The pandemic has brought new problems and competition areas to states and to the international system. While the pandemic politically calls to mind the post-World War II era, it can also be compared with the 2008 crisis due to its economic effects such as unemployment and the disruption of global supply chains. A debate immediately began for a new international system; however, it seems that the current international system will be affected, but will not experience a radical change. That is, a new international order is not expected, while disorder is most likely in the post-pandemic period. In an atmosphere of global instability where debates on the U.S.-led international system have been worn for a while, in the post-pandemic period states will invest in self-sufficiency and redefine their strategic areas, especially in health security. The decline of U.S. leadership, the challenging policies of China, the effects of Chinese policies on the U.S.-China relations and the EU’s deepening crisis are going to be the main discussion topics that will determine the future of the international system.

Biracial Stereotypes Explored

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Skinner ◽  
Sylvia Perry ◽  
Sarah Gaither
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Parent Group ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Parent Groups ◽  
Fitting In ◽  
The U.S

Stereotypes often guide our perceptions of members of social groups. However, research has yet to document what stereotypes may exist for the fastest growing youth demographic in the U.S.—biracial individuals. Across seven studies (N = 1,104) we investigate what stereotypes are attributed to various biracial groups, whether biracial individuals are stereotyped as more similar to their lower status monoracial parent group (trait hypodescent), and whether contact moderates these stereotypes. Results provide evidence of some universal biracial stereotypes that are applied to all biracial groups: attractive and not fitting in or belonging. We also find that all biracial groups are attributed a number of unique stereotypes (i.e., which are not associated with their monoracial parent groups). However, across all studies, we find little evidence of trait hypodescent and no evidence that the tendency to engage in trait hypodescent varies as a function of contact.

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