Reforming American Politics

Thinking About Political Reform: How to Fix, or Not Fix, American Government and Politics offers the most comprehensive, yet easily readable, and well researched analysis of the major flaws and weaknesses of American political institutions and processes, with a thorough list and analysis of reform proposals considered in the light of the scholarship of political science, economics, and law.

Few relationships have proved more pivotal in changing the course of American politics than those between presidents and social movements. For all their differences, both presidents and social movements are driven by a desire to recast the political system, often pursuing rival agendas that set them on a collision course. Even when their interests converge, these two actors often compete to control the timing and conditions of political change. During rare historical moments, however, presidents and social movements forged partnerships that profoundly recast American politics. Rivalry and Reform explores the relationship between presidents and social movements throughout history and into the present day, revealing the patterns that emerge from the epic battles and uneasy partnerships that have profoundly shaped reform. Through a series of case studies, including Abraham Lincoln and abolitionism, Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights movement, and Ronald Reagan and the religious right, Sidney M. Milkis and Daniel J. Tichenor argue persuasively that major political change usually reflects neither a top-down nor bottom-up strategy but a crucial interplay between the two. Savvy leaders, the authors show, use social movements to support their policy goals. At the same time, the most successful social movements target the president as either a source of powerful support or the center of opposition. The book concludes with a consideration of Barack Obama’s approach to contemporary social movements such as Black Lives Matter, United We Dream, and Marriage Equality.

A landmark work on how the Progressive Era redefined the playing field for conservatives and liberals alike. During the 1912 presidential campaign, Progressivism emerged as an alternative to what was then considered an outmoded system of government. A century later, a new generation of conservatives criticizes Progressivism as having abandoned America’s founding values and miring the government in institutional gridlock. In this paradigm-shifting book, renowned contributors examine a broad range of issues, including Progressives’ interpretation of the Constitution, their expansion and redistribution of individual rights, and reforms meant to shift power from political parties to ordinary citizens.

This book describes how American society has evolved over the past half century by examining the cultural context for political change. It explores the profound alterations that have occurred in American political process and discusses the reforms that have altered the American politics.

Discussion of political reforms undertaken in the United States in the early twentieth century, how they were undertaken, and why.

Highlighting the crucial yet largely overlooked role played by society's middle layers in the historical development of Latin America, Patrick Barr-Melej provides the first comprehensive analysis of the rise of Chile's middle-class reform movement and its profound impact on that country's cultural and political landscapes. He shows how a diverse collection of middle-class intellectuals, writers, politicians, educators, and bureaucrats forged a "progressive" nationalism and advanced an ambitious cultural-political project between the 1890s and 1940s. Together, reformers challenged the power of elite groups and sought to quell working-class revolutionary activism as they endeavored to democratize culture and fortify liberal democracy. Using sources that range from archival documents and newspapers to short stories, novels, and school textbooks, Barr-Melej examines the reform movement's cultural ideas and their political applications, especially as they were articulated in the areas of literature and public education. In the process, he provides a new framework for understanding Chile's cultural and political evolution, as well as the complicated place of the middle class in a society experiencing the swift changes inherent in capitalist modernization.

This work provides an overview and analysis of the rise, development, decline, and end of liberal reform movements and their alternation with periods of reaction in the United States from the 1890s through the mid-1980s. Broesamle's volume reassesses the course of U.S. political history over the last century and presents a new theory of American politics that reinterprets the way the system actually produces change. He relates the life cycles of reform movements to the key social, economic, and cultural developments of their eras, investigates commonalities among movements, and assesses the extent to which each movement is individual. No other history of liberalism has propounded the same thesis. The work is ambitious in its intellectual breadth and inclusiveness, and exceptionally comprehensive in both design and execution. Reform and Reaction answers the questions: What is the exact nature of the reform-reaction rhythm? What gives rise to it? Is it truly cyclical? Does each crest and trough resemble its prior and succeeding counterpart, or are they distinct? If there is a resemblance, can these political transformations be expected to repeat themselves in the future? The answers to these questions will alter previous perceptions of the relationship between the political realm and society at large and especially with respect to such phenomena as upheavals of youth, the rise and decline of campaigns on behalf of workers and farmers, feminist movements, and changing moral standards. The study is divided into three major sections: Reform, Resistance, and Reaction, each of which is preceded by a short introductory essay that establishes its fundamental direction. By employing historical examples and resurveying the chronological territory chapter by chapter, the study details the reform movements of the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Kennedy-Johnson period of the 60s as well as the reactionary periods of the 1920s, the 1950s, and the 1970s and 1980s. Broesamle establishes links between political trends on one hand, and social and intellectual trends on the other, that have not been delineated before. Reform and Reaction in Twentieth Century American Politics has a wide appeal to a very broad audience: professors and teachers in the fields of twentieth century U.S. history and political science, practicing political professionals, journalists covering the American political scene, and any informed generalist interested in learning more about historical and contemporary politics in the U.S. The book would be an addition to the reading lists for graduate and upper division classes on virtually any aspect of American political history from the 1890s to the mid-1980s as well as courses on current political affairs.

Most American cities are now administered by appointed city managers and governed by councils chosen in nonpartisan, at-large elections. In the early twentieth century, many urban reformers claimed these structures would make city government more responsive to the popular will. But on the whole, the effects of these reforms have been to make citizens less likely to vote in local elections and local governments less representative of their constituents. How and why did this happen? Ariane Liazos examines the urban reform movement that swept through the country in the early twentieth century and its unintended consequences. Reformers hoped to make cities simultaneously more efficient and more democratic, broadening the scope of what local government should do for residents while also reconsidering how citizens should participate in their governance. However, they increasingly focused on efficiency, appealing to business groups and compromising to avoid controversial and divisive topics, including the voting rights of African Americans and women. Liazos weaves together wide-ranging nationwide analysis with in-depth case studies. She offers nuanced accounts of reform in five cities; details the activities of the National Municipal League, made up of prominent national reformers and political scientists; and analyzes quantitative data on changes in the structures of government in over three hundred cities. Reforming the City is an important study for American history and political development, with powerful insights into the relationships between scholarship and reform and between the structures of city government and urban democracy.