Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2019 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — Political Science — U.S. Politics

This book is required reading for anyone interested in the evolution of Congress and how members perceive their roles as representatives in a polarized era. The qualitative methodology helps to provide a holistic understanding of how congresswomen navigate and make a difference in a male-dominated institution. Through interviews with more than 75 percent of the women who served in the 114th Congress (2015-17), the authors successfully give voice to the multifaceted identities of congresswomen. While these qualitative data bring the experiences and perceptions of congresswomen to life, the conclusions emerge from a deep understanding of scholarship on women and politics. By grounding the investigation in existing scholarship, the authors are able to confirm and challenge findings from past research and open new avenues of inquiry. The consistent refrain in the interviews about the intersection of gender, race, class, and partisan identities urges readers to look beyond women as a monolithic group to understand the contribution their presence makes in Congress, and encourages researchers to more fully examine the experiences of women of color and Republican women in Congress. Thus, this study points the way forward for students and scholars of gender and politics.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

The US criminal justice system has spent decades attempting to reduce crime with a philosophy rooted largely in punishment. In Confronting Underground Justice, Kelly (sociology, Univ. of Texas, Austin) and Pitman (US district judge for the Western District of Texas) analyze how plea bargaining, prosecution, public defense for indigent offenders, and pretrial procedures and policies have contributed to mass incarceration, and how these tactics could be reformed to reduce incarcerated populations and thus budgets devoted to incarceration. The authors highlight problems with the criminal justice system and potential solutions, not only by citing statistics but also by interviewing lawyers and judges. The authors seek to redefine the roles of the individual actors in the justice system. In addition they clearly outline the challenges to implementing criminal justice reform and suggest incentives to inspire attitudinal change toward reform in lawmakers and the general public. Because it describes the problems in the US criminal justice system without using complex statistics or jargon, this book will be invaluable for criminal justice practitioners and the general public as well as for students and scholars of psychology, sociology, criminology, criminal justice, law enforcement, and social work. The book concludes with a full bibliography, detailed notes, and an exhaustive index.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Can police brutality be separated from the institution of policing? This question arises from Taylor's important study, which provides nuanced context for concerns about how race and power intersect in New York City. This history of police brutality looks at violence and resistance on the parts of those who fought against it and those who were victimized: Adam Clayton Powell, Malcolm X, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo. Taylor (history, Baruch College, CUNY) resurrects the stories of African American men and women whose experiences at the hands of the New York Police Department (NYPD) were calls to action. Sadly, the 2014 murder of Eric Garner had significant historical precedent. In this detailed study, Taylor draws attention to strategies Powell and the Nation of Islam used in the first half of the 20th century to frame the NYPD as an institution incapable of justly policing NYC's black communities. Later chapters provide a considered view of the limits of policies enacted by both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his successor, Bill de Blasio, and the sustained work--on the parts of civil rights organizations, the civil review board, and community activists, among others--that informs decades of efforts to advance justice in NYC.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

A professional journalist, Thomas is known in particular for his stints at Newsweek and Time magazines; this is his 10th book. Although one can find many biographies of Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court, Thomas's is by far the most comprehensive to date. In addition to interviews with O'Connor, her law clerks, and various close friends of the O'Connors, Thomas was given access to O'Connor's papers (up through the time when Clarence Thomas joined the Court, since she did not want any sitting justices to be included) and to O'Connor's husband's personal diaries. These extensive materials enabled Thomas to discuss not only publicly known aspects of O'Connor's life--her childhood on a ranch in Arizona, her education at Stanford, her political and judicial careers prior to her appointment--but also more personal details, including her thoughts on various matters. With more than 30 pages of endnotes, the book is both well referenced and a pleasure to read.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

O'Brien (San Diego State Univ.) traces the history of "crimmigration," starting with a detailed analysis of the debate surrounding the 1920s passage of the Johnson-Reed Act and Senate Bill 5094. O'Brien identifies three threat frames characterizing the portrayal of immigrants at the time: economic, cultural, and criminal. He discusses the congressional debate on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the subsequent Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, observing that congressional rhetoric was often more balanced, acknowledging the economic contributions of migrants and the push/pull factors of undocumented migration from Mexico. O'Brien then presents data on public opinion and perceptions of immigrant criminality, persuasively arguing that the threat frames used to condemn undocumented Mexican migration today echo those used in the early 20th century. This book contributes to understanding of the political history and the evolution of public policy responses to immigration. Well researched, accessible, and engaging, this text should be used in political science, border studies, sociology, public policy, and research methods classes.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

American party ideology, as taught in political science, philosophy, and history courses, needs to be reconceptualized given Verlan Lewis's study of how it evolves based on the interpretations of the two dominant parties and which one controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Students of public opinion and political behavior will have an answer to their question of why it so often seems that average citizens, or non-elites, have difficulty correlating ideologies, specifically conservatism and liberalism, with policy positions. For that matter, it is no wonder that many lack attitude constraint. It brings to mind Philip Converse's seminal essay, "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics" (1964). Lewis provides a key to understanding why, for example, a self-identified conservative can be pro-life and pro-death penalty. It depends on how those in power define the terms and set the parameters of the debate. He analyzes party platforms, political actors' rhetoric, roll call votes, presidential decisions, and survey results in three issue domains: economic policy, foreign policy, and judicial policy. Ideas of Power is essential reading for students of political parties, public opinion and political behavior, and political theory.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

The subtitle--What Everyone Needs to Know--is descriptive of the book's scope. This is particularly relevant in the current political climate, in which Trump's political adversaries regularly threaten to impeach him. Gerhardt (UNC-Chapel Hill) leaves no stone unturned. The political, constitutional, legal, procedural, and historical dynamics of the impeachment process are addressed. Moreover, impeachment in the states and international examples are brought into the mix. This is not a slight accomplishment in a relatively brief book. There are numerous insights into the impeachment process, e.g., it is a legal and political proceeding; the grounds for impeachment, i.e., what are high crimes and misdemeanors; and who may be impeached. In the final analysis, impeachment is a political process with constitutional, legal, and political constraints on the advocates for impeachment and its targets. Public opinion is the ultimate deciding factor in high profile impeachment proceedings. Although public opinion may be instrumental in the launch of the impeachment process, the process itself provides an opportunity for the target of impeachment to reshape public opinion to his/her advantage. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the impeachment process as both a check on the abuse of power and a political weapon.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Prisoners of Politics explores the failures of the prison system in addressing public safety, the politics that reproduce these failures, and possible l structural changes to institutions that could alleviate these issues. After setting the background of what is known as "penal populism"--i.e., a scenario in which political entities take advantage of popular sentiment and compete with each other to be tough on crime in the hope of winning votes--Barkow advocates for a justice system that uses data and expertise and eschews popular conceptions of justice. Barkow has worked with sentencing commissions and other groups that engage in work on convictions, and she has written extensively on this topic. Prisoners of Politics complements other works on mass incarceration and reforms by focusing on parties involved and by engaging in real-world analysis. In particular, Barkow addresses the structural issues Anthony Bradley identifies in Ending Overcriminalization and Mass Incarceration: Hope from Civil Society(CH, Jan'19, 56-2156). Barkow's study is an invaluable resource for those studying or addressing mass incarceration and/or wrongful convictions.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

The institutional mechanism by which the president of the United States is selected, the Electoral College, is one of the least understood elements of the American political process. How does the Electoral College relate to the concept of representation? Although he is an admitted critic of the Electoral College, Alexander (Ohio Northern Univ.) provides a thorough, thoughtful, balanced analysis, carefully and engagingly shedding light on the multiple ways the Electoral College affects the nature of representation in the US. Drawing on historical primary source materials, original surveys of presidential electors, and previous scholarly work, Alexander explores the Founders' design of and original intent for the Electoral College and looks at how the institution has consistently evolved away from its origins. Federalism is a key focus. As one might expect, Alexander gives particular attention to those presidential contests in which the winner of the Electoral College vote did not win the popular vote, singling out the 2016 election. The author closes with insightful thoughts on possible reform options. An invaluable examination of the Electoral College at a critical juncture in American politics, this book could not be more timely.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

The most heralded works of political science tend to provide readers with either a well-supported original argument or useful reference materials and findings that others can build on. In Repugnant Laws, Whittington (Princeton) does both. Also author of, among other works, Political Foundations of Judicial Supremacy: The Presidency, the Supreme Court, and Constitutional Leadership in U.S. History(CH, Oct'07, 45-1143), Whittington here offers a thorough rejoinder to the often-repeated notion that the Supreme Court's exercise of judicial review is counter majoritarian. He does so by painstakingly discussing the history of the court, including its often mundane exercise of that power in cases where Congress did not always act on behalf of the majority. He also offers novel and thought-provoking analyses of famous cases, e.g., Marbury v. Madison and Dred Scott, placing them in new light. With a conservative high court majority now on the rise, there may be no better time to seek a fuller understanding of how judicial independence (whether in the form of activism or otherwise) can arise in different forms. Whittington's book is sure to inform those discussions.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers.

In Rivalry and Reform, veteran political scientists Sidney Milkis (Univ. of Virginia) and Daniel Tichenor (Univ. of Oregon) examine a relationship that has received relatively little scholarly attention--the relationship between US presidents and US social movements. This lack of attention is surprising given that presidents and social movements share core characteristics, most significant among them the desire to alter the American political system. The authors devote the bulk of the book to case studies, notably Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist movement, Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Movement, and Ronald Reagan and the religious Right. The cases highlight the often-fraught and sometimes-synergic relationship between presidents and social movements, and show how the relationship can produce profound policy change, though not quickly. Social movements remain an important part of the US political landscape, so this book is timely and important.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Helg (history, Univ. of Geneva, Switzerland) delivers a thorough examination of the history of slavery in the Americas. Beginning in the 16th century and ending in the 19th century, Helg unravels the evidence to provide new insight into how slaves over those three centuries pursued freedom. She demonstrates that slaves were often strategic in exploiting holes in the system that worked to their advantage over time. This contrasts with the commonly held belief that slaves only acted to free themselves in revolts or revolutions. Freed slaves often found contentment as landowners or in gradually congregating and making their own small communities in specific regions. This comprehensive study distinguishes itself as unique in terms of the investigation of slavery. Helg does an excellent job of incorporating historiography for the three centuries she covers. This is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of slavery, emancipation, and abolition, or in the economic history of the Americas as it relates to slavery.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Few phrases resonate more deeply in US history than "the pursuit of happiness." When Thomas Jefferson included those words in the Declaration of Independence, in his litany of cherished birthrights, he launched a still-unresolved debate over the precise meaning of the phrase. With this insightful study, Conklin (Univ. of Missouri School of Law) assumes a prominent role in the ongoing scholarly discussion. Whereas the traditional interpretation has viewed Jefferson's construction as simply a generic, and arguably more egalitarian, substitute for John Locke's cherished right of "property," Conklin offers a deep and rich analysis that persuasively demonstrates that the pursuit of happiness was far more than a substitute for property. Ultimately, she concludes, the contemporaneous understanding of happiness encompassed a multi-layered array of legal, religious, and philosophical constructs that, properly discerned and appreciated, provide the appropriate cultural context for understanding Jefferson's choice of words. Though perhaps a bit esoteric for nonspecialists, Conklin's nuanced treatment makes an important contribution to an evolving cross-disciplinary conversation. It deserves a broad audience.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

In this volume, Gienapp (Stanford) provides a decisive and necessary intervention in discourse over the place and nature of the Constitution in US history and politics. Eschewing both hidebound originalism and context-free interpretations, The Second Creation grounds the Constitution and its evolution in the 1790s firmly within historical context. Using the intriguing descriptor "constitutional imagination," Gienapp argues that the Constitution emerged from the 1787 convention in a more fluid state than is generally acknowledged. In the 1790s, US political movements "fixed" the governing framework. Gienapp uses fixed in two senses: The Constitution became fixed in the meaning of settled law and fixed in the political imagination as a static urtext. This process explains the emphatically partisan politics of the 1790s, which Gienapp sees as driven by ideas and interests; the larger process of fixing the US's constitutional imagination unfolded in all its complexity and contingency. Recovering the sense of contingency that pervaded this era's political culture is one of the book's signal accomplishments. Deeply researched and convincingly argued, Gienapp's work should be read by all who are interested in the early American Republic and US constitutionalism.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

For years, observers of demographic trends have predicted that the increased diversity of the US electorate, combined with traditional patterns of preference by non-whites for the Democratic Party, would generate massive changes to our politics. Yet, as Fraga (Indiana) observes, this has yet to occur, due to the persistent turnout gap: white turnout regularly exceeds black, Latino, and Asian participation. Using unique and large data sets, including individual-level data on voters moved via redistricting decisions, Fraga illustrates decisively that this is due not to public policy (e.g., the Voting Rights Act or voter ID laws) or to socioeconomic variables, but to variation in perceived influence. When minorities constitute a large proportion of an electorate (measured at the state or district level), they are more likely to vote; when whites dominate the population, people of color are more likely to stay home. The findings persist even when taking into consideration the racial identity of the candidates running for office and the competitiveness of the election. This persistent turnout gap means whites will continue to dominate for decades to come. Effective mobilization and empowerment of people of color are often able to overcome policies meant to suppress their voter turnout; demographic change is not enough.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Section 230 of the 1996 Communication Decency Act (CDA) has allowed the flourishing of free expression on the internet. By providing websites with a shield against lawsuits for harms caused by unedited third-party postings, Section 230 permits social media platforms to carry hurtful communications such as defamatory statements, revenge pornography, "catfishing," and cyberstalking with little fear of liability. Kosseff (cybersecurity law, US Naval Academy) traces the historical roots, judicial interpretations, and contemporary impacts of the CDA's 26-word safe harbor provision. In clear, jargon-free prose, Kosseff explains the key legal decisions and policy debates that shaped this legislation and clarifies the law's parameters. To illustrate the continuing struggle over the proper balancing of free expression against the control of online bad behavior, Kosseff presents an insider's account of the current dispute over whether a website should be permitted to profit from publishing advertisements that sell illegal sexual services possibly performed by minors. This book is extremely timely as both US lawmakers and the nation's courts are struggling over the proper regulation of online hate speech, fake news, political bias, and other systematic manipulations employing this increasingly powerful form of communication.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.