Volume 126 - Number 2 - Summer 2011
Hispanic Public Opinion and Partisanship in America MARISA A. ABRAJANO AND R. MICHAEL ALVAREZ examine Hispanic public opinion and partisanship in the United States. They find variations in Hispanics' policy views based on their ethnic identity, time in the United States, and previous experiences.
Volume 126 - Number 1 - Spring 2011
The Republican Resurgence in 2010 Gary C. Jacobson analyzes the 2010 midterm election as a referendum on the Obama administration, driven fundamentally by the economy, but intensified by the deep animosity of the President's opponents, the Republicans' success in nationalizing the election, and the political failure of Obama's legislative successes.
Volume 126 - Number 1 - Spring 2011
The Domestic Politics of Irrational Intelligence Oversight AMY B. ZEGART examines the roots of weak congressional intelligence oversight and challenges the view that ineffectual oversight stems from executive branch secrecy. Instead, she finds that Congress has tied its own hands by failing to consolidate its budgetary power or to develop robust expertise in intelligence.
Volume 125 - Number 4 - Winter 2010-11
Conservatives and American Political Development Brian J. Glenn explores how conservatism has impacted the growth of the American state since the New Deal and also how the growth of the American state has influenced conservatism. He finds that in many instances, conservatives have moved beyond mere obstructionism and that a new form of modern conservatism has conceded the goals of liberalism.
Volume 125 - Number 3 - Fall 2010
Are Caucuses Bad for Democracy? Costas Panagopoulos discusses the behavior, demographic characteristics, and political preferences of caucus and primary voters in the 2008 presidential nominating contests. He finds that primary voters, as compared to caucus participants, are generally more representative of the electorate overall along most dimensions, although the differences observed tend to be substantively small.
Volume 125 - Number 3 - Fall 2010
A Modified National Primary:State Losers and Support for Changing thePresidential Nominating Process Caroline J. Tolbert , Amanda Keller , and Todd Donovan examine public opinion data on proposals to reform the presidential nominating process. They argue that one way to preserve a role for grassroots politics and the sequential process that is critical for candidate quality is to combine rotating state primaries and caucuses in a dozen small-population states with a national primary in which voters from all states would cast ballots.
Volume 125 - Number 2 - Summer 2010
Creating Better Heuristics for the Presidential Primary: The Citizen Assembly Heather K. Gerken and Douglas B. Rand propose creating citizen assemblies to vet presidential hopefuls in order to give low-information voters a useful heuristic for casting their votes. Their conceptual claim is that citizen assemblies should be of interest to the vast swaths of political science preoccupied with making representative democracy work. By shearing away the deliberative baggage that has long accompanied proposals like this one, the authors highlight the role that citizen assemblies can play in helping low-information voters make sensible choices.
Volume 125 - Number 2 - Summer 2010
The Primary Purpose of Presidential Primaries Dennis F. Thompson analyzes the capacity of presidential primaries to provide a test of the constitutional character of candidates. He argues that the primary process should be judged to be more or less democratic on the basis of the effective opportunities it gives voters to assess the democratic commitments of the candidates.
Volume 125 - Number 1 - Spring 2010
Can Welfare States Be Sustained in a Global Economy? Lessons from Scandinavia Eric S. Einhorn and John Logue argue that the European social model can be reformed without sacrificing its gains and that the Scandinavian states have already adapted their welfare state models to meet demographic, social, and economic challenges. They sketch the characteristics of the Scandinavian model, including its underpinnings in encompassing organizations of the less well off, the role of democratic corporatism in policymaking, and the importance of empiricism, social trust, and solidarity in the development of public policy.
Volume 124 - Number 4 - Winter 2009-10
Changes in Public Opinion and the American Welfare State Greg M. Shaw analyzes the relationship between American public opinion and several redistributive programs from the beginning of the 1990s to the present. He concludes that the recent political success of these programs has more to do with the workforce attachment of the recipients and the nature of the assistance—cash versus in-kind—than it does with means testing.
