Analyzing American Political Development as It Happens

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Institutional Analysis ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Institutional Contexts

Historical institutional scholars can analyze politics as it happens, not just developments long past. A powerful theoretical approach should give clear guidance about questions worth asking and pinpoint factors that need to be taken into account to explain current and possible future developments. Historical institutional analysis stresses timing and sequence, institutional contexts, and policy feedbacks – factors that are crucial for deciphering immediately unfolding political transformations. To illustrate the point, this chapter dissects the early Obama presidency, examining why its reformist goals succeeded in some policy areas but fell short in others. In addition, the chapter explores how and why the Tea Party erupted and pushed the Republican Party further to the extreme right during the Obama presidency

Staying Tuned: LGBTQIA Politics in the Trump Era

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-560
Author(s):  
Susan R. Burgess ◽  
Marla Brettschneider ◽  
Christine (Cricket) Keating
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Party Realignment ◽  
Political Time ◽  
Democratic Principles

Since Donald Trump took office in 2017, the White House has issued several clear anti-LGBTQIA signals and initiatives. Reflecting on Trump's election as U.S. president, many political scientists have analyzed his rise in the context of the literature on American political development (e.g., Skowronek 2017) and comparative governments (e.g., Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018). Some of this work has received significant media attention and attained a popular readership. The American political development analyses have often focused on the lens of political time and potential party realignment, exploring the possibility of a “disjunctive presidency,” which foretells the demise of the coalition that has enabled the Republican Party to dominate U.S. politics since the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s. Comparative work in the discipline argues that Trump initiatives are threatening to democratic principles, portending a turn toward authoritarianism that parallels the rise of right-wing authoritarian leaders across the globe.

Southern Lawmaking

2018 ◽  
pp. 28-70
Author(s):  
David A. Bateman ◽  
Ira Katznelson ◽  
John S. Lapinski
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The South ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Heterogeneous Region ◽  
Analytical Approaches

This chapter conceptualizes the potential for southern influence. It begins by detailing standard accounts of congressional lawmaking and influence, and then turns to a discussion of southern exceptionalism. It outlines a theory of southern representation that focuses on how lawmakers from a heterogeneous region balanced their diverse constituent and individual demands with the distinctive imperatives and constraints unique to the South. The chapter suggests that standard accounts of congressional lawmaking need to be modified to accommodate the distinctive identity and goals of southern lawmakers across different historical and institutional contexts. It concludes by outlining a research strategy, inspired by the analytical approaches of V. O. Key and Richard Hofstadter, which allows the evaluation of theoretical expectations, identifies the mechanisms by which southerners were able to influence the national political agenda, and assesses the importance of their influence for American political development.

Reconsideration of the Research Trajectory on the Carceral State

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-207
Author(s):  
Juliette Barbera
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
The Political ◽  
Carceral State ◽  
Research Framework ◽  
Research Production ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
And Control

For decades, both incarceration and research on the topic have proliferated. Disciplines within the Western sciences have studied the topic of incarceration through their respective lenses. Decades of data reflect trends and consequences of the carceral state, and based on that data the various disciplines have put forth arguments as to how the trends and consequences are of relevance to their respective fields of study. The research trajectory of incarceration research, however, overlooks the assumptions behind punishment and control and their institutionalization that produce and maintain the carceral state and its study. This omission of assumptions facilitates a focus on outcomes that serve to reinforce Western perspectives, and it contributes to the overall stagnation in the incarceration research produced in Western disciplines. An assessment of the study of the carceral state within the mainstream of American Political Development in the political science discipline provides an example of how the research framework contributes to the overall stagnation, even though the framework of the subfield allows for an historical institutionalization perspective. The theoretical perspectives of Cedric J. Robinson reveal the limits of Western lenses to critically assess the state. The alternative framework he provides to challenge the limits imposed on research production by Western perspectives applies to the argument presented here concerning the limitations that hamper the study of the carceral state.

scholarly journals Just Mothering: Amy Coney Barrett and the Racial Politics of American Motherhood

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
H. Howell Williams
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
White Family ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Republican Motherhood ◽  
A Site ◽  
Confirmation Hearings

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation featured frequent references to her role as a mother. This article situates these references within the trajectory of American political development to demonstrate how motherhood operates as a mechanism for enforcing a white-centered racial order. Through a close analysis of both the history of politicized motherhood as well as Barrett’s nomination and confirmation hearings, I make a series of claims about motherhood and contemporary conservatism. First, conservatives stress the virtuousness of motherhood through a division between public and private spheres that valorizes the middle-class white mother. Second, conservatives emphasize certain mothering practices associated with the middle-class white family. Third, conservatives leverage an epistemological claim about the universality of mothering experiences to universalize white motherhood. Finally, this universalism obscures how motherhood operates as a site in which power distinguishes between good and bad mothers and allocates resources accordingly. By attending to what I call the “republican motherhood script” operating in contemporary conservatism, I argue that motherhood is an ideological apparatus for enforcing a racial order premised on white protectionism.

Letters to the Editors

1987 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 337-342
Author(s):  
Eric Monkkonen
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Local State ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political News ◽  
Island Communities ◽  
Over Time

Samuel Kernell's article “The Early Nationalization of Political News in America,” in Studies in American Political Development: An Annual (1986), 1: 255–78, raises issues that are at once interesting and puzzling. He measures the number and length of all political articles in leading Cleveland newspapers through the middle decades of the nineteenth century in order to ask about the amount of newspaper attention paid to local, state, and national political issues. He observes that local issues were predominant only very early in the nineteenth century and that they declined quickly over time. Kernell concludes that politics nationalized far earlier than historians like Robert Wiebe had ever thought. Wiebe's “island communities” were gone by 1845. It is a clever piece of research of substantial significance.

The Phantom at The Opera

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney Tarrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Social

Movements and parties have given rise to two largely separates specialties in the social sciences. This Element is an effort to link the two literatures, using evidence from American political development. It identifies five relational mechanisms governing movement/party relations: two of them short term, two intermediate term, and one long-term. It closes with a reflection on the role of movement/party relations in democratization and for democratic resilience.

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