Volume 136 - Number 4 - Winter 2021-22

The Geopolitical Consequences of COVID-19: Assessing Hawkish Mass Opinion in China
Joshua Byun, D.G. Kim, and Sichen Li examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Chinese public’s foreign policy attitudes. Drawing on original surveys fielded in China during the first six months of the global pandemic, they find that ordinary Chinese citizens are optimistic about China’s future global position, and that this optimism corresponds with the widespread perception that the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating China’s rise relative to the United States.

How to Cure the Ills of Contemporary American Democracy? A Review Essay
Morris Fiorina reviews Lee Drutman’s book, Breaking the Two Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy. While he agrees with much of Drutman’s diagnosis of what has gone wrong with American politics, Fiorina is skeptical that the reforms proposed in Drutman’s Save American Democracy Act could be adopted, and would have as positive an impact as Drutman believes in the unlikely event that they are adopted.

His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life, Jonathan Alter
Reviewed by Thomas J. Balcerski

Immigration and the American Ethos, Morris Levy
Reviewed by Viviana Rivera-Burgos

Hope and Scorn: Eggheads, Experts, and Elites in American Politics, Michael J. Brown
Reviewed by Angus Burgin

Volume 136 - Number 3 - Fall 2021

How to Stop Jihadist Foreign Fighters
Daniel Byman argues that the threat volunteers for al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other jihadist groups pose is potentially grave, but that effective policy can profoundly reduce the danger. He argues that governments can disrupt the recruitment and travel of foreign fighters, hinder their time in war zones, and improve policing and intelligence gathering when they return.
   

Secularity and Non-Religion in American Politics: A Review Essay
Mark Alan Smith reviews the recently published book Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics, by David E. Campbell, Geoffrey C. Layman, and John C. Green. Smith highlights the book’s value in distinguishing secularity from non-religion, along with the insights gained from the authors’ empirical analyses. Smith concludes that the conceptual framework in Secular Surge can usefully guide future research on religion and politics.

Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, Suzanne Mettler
Reviewed by Nolan McCarty

A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Russell Muirhead
Reviewed by Brigitte L. Nacos

Cookbook Politics, Kennan Ferguson
Reviewed by John Ferejohn

Volume 136 - Number 2 - Summer 2021

How to Win a “Long Game”: The Voting Rights Act, the Republican Party, and the Politics of Counter-Enforcement
Adrienne Jones and ANDREW POLSKY examine how the Republican Party engaged in counter-enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, notably during the Reagan and Bush 43 administrations, in an effort to maximize the voting strength of pro-Republican voting constituencies. They argue that sustained counter-enforcement efforts lead to sharp policy oscillations when parties alternate in power and that if a party pursues the long game of persistent counter-enforcement, it may find itself with the opportunity to achieve lasting results.

Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party, Julian E. Zelizer
Reviewed by Emily Baer

America’s Inequality Trap, Nathan J. Kelly
Reviewed by Matthew J. Lacombe

Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America, Gilda R. Daniels
Reviewed by Melanie J. Springer

Volume 136 - Number 1 - Spring 2021

The Presidential and Congressional Elections of 2020: A National Referendum on the Trump Presidency
Gary C. Jacobson discusses the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. He argues that the elections were above all a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency, which provoked extreme levels of party loyalty, partisan polarization, and partisan animosity in the electorate, as well as the highest voter turnout in more than a century.

Policy or Pique? Trump and the Turn to Great Power Competition
Deborah Welch Larson analyzes Donald Trump’s policy toward China and Russia and the return of great power competition. She argues that Trump’s personalization of foreign policy undermined his trade war with China, and efforts to improve relations with Russia and that the Joe Biden administration will continue to compete but seek cooperation in areas of shared interests.

U.S. Geopolitics and Nuclear Deterrence in the Era of Great Power Competitions
Peter Rudolf argues that in the new era of great power competitions the United States is faced with the question of whether to seek some form of geopolitical accommodation based on de facto spheres of influence and buffer zones or to push ahead with strategic rivalries overshadowed by the risk of a military conflict with a nuclear dimension.

How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy, Thomas E. Patterson
Reviewed by Andrew Hacker

Entrenchment: Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies, Paul Starr
Reviewed by James A. Morone

Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality, Ian S. Lustick
Reviewed by DOV WAXMAN

Volume 135 - Number 4 - Winter 2020-21

The Emergence of a Latino Political Ethnicity: 1990 to the Era of Trump
Alan Yang examines how ordinary U.S. Latinos of different national origin ancestries have become an increasingly cohesive panethnic political group since the time of the 1990 Latino National Political Survey. He argues that this trend towards increasing convergence across national origin has been both reinforced and disrupted on questions related to politically relevant sentiments and perceptions two years into the Trump presidency.

Is the Republican Party Destroying Itself? (And Why It Needs to Reclaim Its Conservative Ideals), Downfall: The Demise of a President and His Party, Thomas E. Patterson
Reviewed by Gary Wasserman

Dangerously Divided: How Race and Class Shape Winning and Losing in American Politics, Zoltan L. Hajnal
Reviewed by Natalie Masuoka

Vengeful Citizens, Violent States: A Theory of War and Revenge, Rachel Stein
Reviewed by Peter Liberman