Steadfast Democrats

White and Laird seek to answer the question "Why has ideological change toward conservatism failed to push Black Americans into the Republican party? They answer this question with a new theory that foregrounds the specificity of the Black American experience and illuminates social pressure as the key element of Black Americans’ unwavering support for the Democratic Party. White and Laird argue that the roots of Black political unity were established through the adversities of slavery and segregation, when Black Americans forged uniquely strong social bonds for survival and resistance. They explain how these tight communities have continued to produce and enforce political norms—including Democratic Party identification in the post–Civil Rights era. Black voters are uniquely influenced by the social expectations of other Black Americans to prioritize the group’s ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. When navigating the choice of supporting a political party, this social expectation translates into affiliation with the Democratic Party. Through fresh analysis of survey data and original experiments, White and Laird explore where and how Black political norms are enforced, what this means for the future of Black politics, and how this framework can be used to understand the electoral behavior of other communities. --Adapted from publisher description.

The election of America’s first black president has led many to believe that race is no longer a real obstacle to success and that remaining racial inequality stems largely from the failure of minority groups to take personal responsibility for seeking out opportunities. Often this argument is made in the name of the long tradition of self-reliance and American individualism. In Awakening to Race, Jack Turner upends this view, arguing that it expresses not a deep commitment to the values of individualism, but a narrow understanding of them. Drawing on the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, Turner offers an original reconstruction of democratic individualism in American thought. All these thinkers, he shows, held that personal responsibility entails a refusal to be complicit in injustice and a duty to combat the conditions and structures that support it. At a time when individualism is invoked as a reason for inaction, Turner makes the individualist tradition the basis of a bold and impassioned case for race consciousness—consciousness of the ways that race continues to constrain opportunity in America. Turner’s “new individualism” becomes the grounds for concerted public action against racial injustice.

How popular democracy has paradoxically eroded trust in political systems worldwide, and how to restore confidence in democratic politics In recent decades, democracies across the world have adopted measures to increase popular involvement in political decisions. Parties have turned to primaries and local caucuses to select candidates; ballot initiatives and referenda allow citizens to enact laws directly; many places now use proportional representation, encouraging smaller, more specific parties rather than two dominant ones.Yet voters keep getting angrier.There is a steady erosion of trust in politicians, parties, and democratic institutions, culminating most recently in major populist victories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Frances Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue that devolving power to the grass roots is part of the problem. Efforts to decentralize political decision-making have made governments and especially political parties less effective and less able to address constituents’ long-term interests. They argue that to restore confidence in governance, we must restructure our political systems to restore power to the core institution of representative democracy: the political party.

The period since the end of the Cold War has been characterised by an acceleration in the European integration process, a changing pattern of political ideologies and the emergence of new political parties and issues. This book assesses the impact of these phenomena on Christian Democratic parties in the current and future member states of the European Union and highlights some of the particularities and universalities of European Christian Democracy from a comparative and transnational perspective. Political scientists and historians from various universities examine the way in which Christian Democratic parties have responded to these challenges (for instance by a rapprochement with non-Christian Democrats) and explain how those responses have resulted in failure in some cases and success in others.

In this book, George Gilder claims that the reason there is such hatred and crticism of the current state of Israel is because these critics are envious of Israel’s sudden rise as a world power. This, he claims, is an inherent quality of Judaism, which, “perhaps more than any other religion, favors capitalist activity and provides a rigorous moral framework for it.” Those who currently hate Israel’s economy, such as surrounding countries in the Middle East and Western European nations that are facing socialist decline, have failed the “Israel Test” because they seek to tear down this country’s success, and America’s ability and desire to defend Israel will define our future survival as a nation: “If Israel is destroyed,” he says, “capitalist Europe will likely die as well, and America, as the epitome of productive and creative capitalism spurred by Jews, will be in jeopardy.”

The memoirs of former Opposition leader Tony Leon provide a unique glimpse into the political life of South Africa in the democratic era. In incisive, finely focused prose, On the Contrary records Leon's thirteen-year leadership of the Democratic Alliance and its predecessor, the Democratic Party, years in which the party grew from its marginal position on the brink of political extinction into the second largest political force in South Africa. This is an adventure in ideas that involves vivid real people - friends, colleagues and enemies alike. There is new light shed on many of the figures who have shaped modern South Africa, including Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki. A trained lawyer, Tony Leon entered Parliament at age 32 at the dawn of South Africa's period of revolution and reform. He actively participated in the constitutional negotiations that led to the birth of the democratic South Africa.

What do you think of when you hear about an African American Republican? Are they heroes fighting against the expectation that all blacks must vote democratic? Are they Uncle Toms or sellouts, serving as traitors to their race? What is it really like to be a black person in the Republican Party? Black Elephants in the Room considers how race structures the political behavior of African American Republicans and discusses the dynamic relationship between race and political behavior in the purported “post-racial” context of US politics. Drawing on vivid first-person accounts, the book sheds light on the different ways black identity structures African Americans' membership in the Republican Party. Moving past rhetoric and politics, we begin to see the everyday people working to reconcile their commitment to black identity with their belief in Republican principles. And at the end, we learn the importance of understanding both the meanings African Americans attach to racial identity and the political contexts in which those meanings are developed and expressed.

Persistent racial/ethnic gaps in voter turnout produce elections that are increasingly unrepresentative of the wishes of all Americans.