Volume 137 - Number 2 - Summer 2022
The President and the Supreme Court: The Effect of the Prospect of Non-Implementation on Government Success in the Court GORDON D. BALLINGRUD examines judicial decision-making under conditions of political pressure given through ideological hostility from other federal institutions. He finds that in case outcomes and majority opinion writing, the Court’s behavior changes when other institutions are ideologically distant from the Court’s center.
Volume 137 - Number 2 - Summer 2022
Judging Inequality: State Supreme Courts and the Inequality Crisis James L. Gibson and MICHAEL J. NELSON examine the role of state high courts in producing, maintaining, or ameliorating political, legal, economic, and social inequality over the period from 1990 to 2015.
Volume 137 - Number 1 - Spring 2022
China and Grand Strategy: Does the Empire Have a Plan? A Review Essay Andrew Scobell reviews Rush Doshi’s book The Long Game . Scobell contends that while significantly advancing the study of China’s grand strategy, the volume tends to exaggerate Beijing’s capacity to plan, coordinate, and attain long term goals.
Volume 137 - Number 1 - Spring 2022
The Conservative Bias in America’s Local Governments Raymond J. La Raja use new population-level data to examine the ideologies of municipal residents relative to those of elected officials in their communities. They find that the average ideology of local officials is markedly more conservative than that of the average resident and that local officials are especially distant from non-white constituents.
Volume 137 - Number 1 - Spring 2022
Political Marginalization of Youth in Nigeria and the Use of Social Media to Pursue Inclusivity: A Study of #NotTooYoungToRun KAYODE KOLAWOLE ELUWOLE , ABDULGAFFAR OLAWALE ARIKEWUYO discuss how new media technologies are leading the way for new forms of political inclusion campaigns and political activity among youths in Nigeria. They examine the impact of the #NotTooYoungToRun (NTYTR) campaign in Nigeria.
Volume 137 - Number 2 - Summer 2022
Review Essay: Pity the Poor Autocrat: Vladimir Putin, Russia's “Weak Strongman” 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
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.
