Volume 137 - Number 2 - Summer 2022
Review Essay: Pity the Poor Autocrat: Vladimir Putin, Russia's “Weak Strongman”
KATHRYN STONER assesses Timothy Frye’s Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia within the context of an emergent comparative political science literature on rising authoritarianism and democratic recession.
Volume 137 - Number 1 - Spring 2022
How Can Presidents and the Executive Branch Preserve and Protect American Democracy? A Review Essay
Meena Bose reviews Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive by Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King. She finds that their study of the “dueling concepts,” or “phantoms,” of the “deep state” and “unitary executive” in American politics presents a trenchant assessment of the challenges of presidential governance today. She questions whether their recommendations for stronger party leadership and more collaborative decision making will address the problems that are so thoughtfully presented in this profound analysis of the American political system.
Volume 136 - Number 4 - Winter 2021-22
Ages of Organization: The Emergence of National Interest Groups in American History
THOMAS T. HOLYOKE traces and analyzes the rise of interest groups in American history. He finds that growing economic activity the late 19th and early 20th centuries lead to the emergence of a robust group community, often in the form of trade associations mobilized to defend industries and professions against government regulation. He argues that this growth in the reach of government power also led to the emergence of citizen advocacy groups calling for even greater use of state power to promote social and economic reforms.
Volume 136 - Number 4 - Winter 2021-22
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.
Volume 137 - Number 2 - Summer 2022
Review Essay: Making America Great Again? Individualism, Community, and Enlightened Self-Interest in the United States
Michael X. Delli Carpini reviews Robert Putnam’s The Upswing . He finds Putnam’s argument—that American democracy requires a balance between individualism and communitarianism—and his evidence that this balance produced positive effects through the first 60 years of the twentieth century, insightful and convincing, but raises concerns that this “data driven narrative” silos issues of race and gender, overstates the negative consequences of the political and cultural movements of the 1960s, and downplays the importance of political struggle and power in both the “upswings” and the downswings” that Putnam documents.
Volume 136 - Number 4 - Winter 2021-22
After Trump: Enemies, Partisans, and Recovery
Christopher J. Fettweis discusses what political polarization in the United States has in common with the relationship between the Cold War superpowers. He argues that in both cases the “enemy image” warps perception of the other side and prevents meaningful reconciliation. Applying insight from international relations to U.S. domestic politics, he discusses the pernicious effects of the enemy image and how to overcome it.
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.
Volume 136 - Number 4 - Winter 2021-22
The Psychological Roots of Public Opinion toward a Militant Group: The Case of Pakistani Lashkar-e-Tayyaba
Karl Kaltenthaler and C. Christine Fair explore the sources of public sympathy in Pakistan for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. They argue that the most common and widely distributed factor influencing individual sympathy with a militant group is the expectation that the militant group will bestow a sense of personal significance on that individual.
Volume 136 - Number 3 - Fall 2021
Gender and Support for Democracy in the United States and Canada
Mark Setzler and Alixandra B. Yanus examine gender gaps in support for democracy in the United States and Canada. They find that in both countries, women are modestly less supportive of democracy and key political liberties than men, but the factors that best predict support vary little by gender. They argue that women’s access to material benefits and satisfaction with political institutions have relatively little effect on support for democracy; these attitudes are best explained by civic capital and the belief that rights are protected by government.
Volume 136 - Number 3 - Fall 2021
On the Ordinary People’s Enemies: How Politicians in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands Communicate Populist Boundaries via Twitter and the Effects on Party Preferences
Michael Hameleers looks at how populist discourse is constructed in different regions that offer different opportunity structures for the “us versus them” frame to be effective. He concludes that established politicians are not likely to use populist ideas on Twitter and that populist ideas only make an impact on vote choice for relatively deprived citizens.