Bøger i Chicago Studies in American Politics (CHUP) serien

The United States imprisons far more people, total and per capita, than any other country in the world. Among the more than 1.5 million Americans incarcerated, minorities and the poor are disproportionately represented. The author offers evidence that living in a high-imprisonment neighborhood significantly decreases political participation.

Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This book shows that for several decades, unelected insiders in both major parties effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box.

Despite George W Bush's opposition to big government, federal spending increased under his watch more quickly than it did during the Clinton administration. This book shows that efforts to expand markets and shrink government have the ironic effect of expanding government's reach by creating problems that force legislators to enact new rules.

Illuminates the workings of democracies beyond the United States. This book presents an account of how policy issues rise and fall on the national agenda. It offers a different interpretation by taking the long view of several issues - including nuclear energy, urban affairs, smoking, and auto safety.

From World War II to the war in Iraq, periods of international conflict seem like unique moments in US political history - but when it comes to public opinion, they are not. This work explodes conventional wisdom about American reactions to World War II, as well as the more recent conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Combining existing research with novel data from US presidential archives, this book shows that presidents make policy by largely ignoring the views of most citizens in favor of affluent and well-connected political insiders. It is suitable for those interested in US politics, public opinion, democratic theory, and more.

When the author's sister-in-law, Marcella Wagner, was run off the freeway by a hit-and-run driver, she was left paralyzed from the chest down. Like so many Americans, neither Marcella nor her husband, Dave, had health insurance. Using Marcella and Dave's situation as a case in point, the author reveals the system's many shortcomings.

One-third of America's adult population has passed through the criminal justice system and now has a criminal record. This book argues that the broad reach of the criminal justice system has recast the relation between citizen and state, resulting in a sizable - and growing - group of second-class citizens.

Eight of the last twelve presidents were millionaires when they took office. Why is it that most politicians in America are so much better off than the people who elect them - and does the social class divide between citizens and their representatives matter? The author answers this question with a resounding - and disturbing - yes.

Drawing on experiments and survey data, this title shows that Americans who watch partisan programming do become more certain of their beliefs and less willing to weigh the merits of opposing views or to compromise.

The United States is once again experiencing a major influx of immigrants. Rather than simply characterizing Americans as either nativist or nonnativist, this book argues that controversies over immigration policy are best understood as questions of political membership and belonging to the nation.

Responds to the growing chorus of critics who fear that the politics of running for office undermine judicial independence. The author presents a comprehensive study of the impact of campaigns on public perceptions of fairness, impartiality, and the legitimacy of elected state courts - and his findings are both counterintuitive and controversial.

Surveying critical episodes in the development of American political parties, this book shows how they address three fundamental problems of democracy: how to regulate the number of people seeking public office, how to mobilize voters, and how to achieve and maintain the majorities needed to accomplish goals once in office.

With the 2012 presidential election upon us, will voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platforms and positions best match their own? Or will the race for the next president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaigning? This book reveals how both factors come into play.

Barack Obama's presidential victory naturally led people to believe that the United States might finally be moving into a post-racial era. This title argues that the 2008 election was more polarized by racial attitudes than any other presidential election on record.

Drawing on the analysis of counterterrorism in the years after 9/11 - including the issuance of terror alerts and the decision to invade Iraq - this title presents a case that the Bush administration hyped fear, while obscuring civil liberties abuses and concrete issues of preparedness.

The Obama administration has been criticized for its inability to convey how much it has accomplished for ordinary citizens. This title argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the 'submerged state.'

In the modern Congress, one of the highest hurdles for major bills or nominations is gaining the sixty votes necessary to shut off a filibuster in the Senate. But this wasn't always the case. This title shows that filibustering is a game with slippery rules in which legislators who think fast and try hard can triumph over superior numbers.

Ethnocentrism - our tendency to partition the human world into in-groups and out-groups - pervades societies around the world. This book explains how ethnocentrism shapes American public opinion.

Backed by careful analysis of public opinion surveys, the authors show how, despite changing American politics, those issues that receive extended coverage in the national news become more important to viewers, while those that are ignored lose credibility.

Lays out the underlying logic of contemporary poverty governance in the United States. This book argues that poverty governance - how social welfare policy choices get made, how authority gets exercised, and how collective pursuits get organized - has been transformed in the United States by two significant developments.

We are not just social animals, but social citizens whose political choices are significantly shaped by peer influence. Drawing upon data from settings as diverse as South Los Angeles and Chicago's wealthy North Shore, the author shows that social networks do not merely inform citizens' behavior, they can - and do - have the power to change it.

As Washington elites drifted toward ideological poles over a few decades, did ordinary Americans follow their lead? This book reveals that we have responded to this trend - but not, for the most part, by becoming more extreme ourselves.