The Making Of A Southern Democracy

The story of modern politics in North Carolina is very much one of American democracy, with all its grand ambitions, limitations, and pitfalls. So argues Tom Eamon in his probing narrative of the state's political path since the 1940s. He charts the state's political transformation into a modern democratic society to show that this change was more than an evolution--it was a revolution, one that largely came about through political means, driven by strong movements and individuals working for change. By tracking the turbulence of politics throughout the period, from racial tensions to student demonstrations to fierce rivalries in the higher education arena, Eamon explores how conflict helped build a better society even as the state continued to lag in many areas. This rich account opens to readers the unforgettable people and hard-fought elections that have shaped North Carolina's competitive personality and have led to the state's emergence as a major player in twenty-first-century American politics.

For Cochran, the sense of deja vu is overwhelming - and alarming."--BOOK JACKET.

After the Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, southern white backlash seemed to explode overnight. Journalists profiled the rise of a segregationist movement committed to preserving the "southern way of life" through a campaign of massive resistance. In Defending White Democracy, Jason Morgan Ward reconsiders the origins of this white resistance, arguing that southern conservatives began mobilizing against civil rights some years earlier, in the era before World War II, when the New Deal politics of the mid-1930s threatened the monopoly on power that whites held in the South. As Ward shows, years before "segregationist" became a badge of honor for civil rights opponents, many white southerners resisted racial change at every turn--launching a preemptive campaign aimed at preserving a social order that they saw as under siege. By the time of the Brown decision, segregationists had amassed an arsenal of tested tactics and arguments to deploy against the civil rights movement in the coming battles. Connecting the racial controversies of the New Deal era to the more familiar confrontations of the 1950s and 1960s, Ward uncovers a parallel history of segregationist opposition that mirrors the new focus on the long civil rights movement and raises troubling questions about the enduring influence of segregation's defenders.

Bold and unconventional, this book advocates for an institutional turn-about in the relationship between democracy and constitutionalism.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

A strong case can be made that the South has had the greatest impact of any region on the transformation of U.S. politics and government. Since 1968, we have seen the demise of the "solid (Democratic) South" and the rise of the Republican-dominated South; the rise of the largely southern white evangelical religious right movement; and demographic changes that have vastly altered the political landscape of the region and national politics. Overriding all of these changes is the major constant of southern politics: race. Since the 1990s, the Republican Party has dominated politics in the Southern United States. Race relations were a large factor in this shift that began about a half century ago, but nonetheless, race and demographic change are once again realigning party politics in the region, this time back toward an emergent Democratic Party. Membership in the Southern Democratic Party is majority African American, Latino, and Asian, and rapidly expanding with an influx of immigrants, primarily Latino. While race continues to shape politics in the region, population growth is, as this book argues, the major factor affecting politics in the South. In fact, the populations of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia have grown more rapidly than the population of the nation as a whole over the past half century--and each of these states has gained at least one seat in Congress. These growth states are the ones in which populations are diversifying, economies are surging, and Democrats are making headway. They, along with Florida and Texas, are also among the most competitive states with the largest numbers of Electoral College votes in the region. It is likely, therefore, that among the key battlegrounds for determining the presidency will be the southern states with the fastest growing populations. This will especially be the case once the Latino population in Texas mobilizes. This book describes and analyzes the ways in which demographic change has shaped politics in the South since the late 1960s and may enable the Democratic Party in the future to re-take politics in the region, and even shut out Republicans from the nation's highest office.

Why do some democratic governments succeed and others fail? In a book that has received attention from policymakers and civic activists in America and around the world, Robert Putnam and his collaborators offer empirical evidence for the importance of "civic community" in developing successful institutions. Their focus is on a unique experiment begun in 1970 when Italy created new governments for each of its regions. After spending two decades analyzing the efficacy of these governments in such fields as agriculture, housing, and health services, they reveal patterns of associationism, trust, and cooperation that facilitate good governance and economic prosperity.

Using thorough and stark statistics, Kennedy describes a South emerging from World War II, coming to grips with the racism and feudalism that had held it back for generations. He includes an all-out Who’s Who, based on his own undercover investigations, of the "hate-mongers, race-racketeers, and terrorists who swore that apartheid must go on forever." The first paperback edition brings to a new generation of readers Kennedy’s searing profile of Dixie before the civil rights movement.