MPSA members are continually advancing scholarship across all subfields of political science. The books highlighted here have been published by MPSA members within the past year.

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Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Northwestern University

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: June 2025
ISBN (Open Access): 9780226841205


Our national conversation about the border has taken a religious turn. When televangelists declare, “Heaven has a wall,” activists shout back, “Jesus was a refugee.” For Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, the standoff makes explicit a longstanding truth: borders are religious as well as political objects. In this book, Hurd argues that Americans share a bipartisan border religion, complete with an array of beliefs and practices, including a reverence for national security, a liturgy for immigration, and an eschatological foreign policy. Through an analysis of the many ways the United States creates, enforces, and ignores borders at home and abroad, Hurd offers a bold new perspective on the ties that bind American religion, politics, and public life.

Power to the Partners: Organizational Coalitions in Social Justice Advocacy

Maraam A. Dwidar, Georgetown University

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: June 2025
ISBN: 9780226840383


Why do some coalitions triumph while others fall short? In Power to the Partners, Maraam A. Dwidar documents the vital role of social and economic justice organizations in American politics and explores the process by which they strategically build partnerships to advance more effective and equitable advocacy. Using original data tracking the collaboration patterns of more than twenty thousand nationally active advocacy organizations, Dwidar evaluates the micro- and macro-level conditions surrounding these groups’ successful efforts to collectively shape public policy.

Power to the Partners reveals that while organizational advocates for social and economic justice are at a disadvantage in the American lobbying landscape—financially, tactically, and politically—coalition work can help ameliorate these disparities. By building and sustaining coalitions with structures and memberships that facilitate clarity, learning, and diverse perspectives, these advocates can successfully—and uniquely—make their mark on American public policy. Dwidar’s work offers critical insights for scholars and practitioners alike, from groundbreaking academic findings to evidence-based lessons for political organizers.

Elitism versus Populism: Experiments on the Dual Threat to American Democracy

Curtis Bram, University of Texas-Dallas

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: June 2025
ISBN: 9781009546942


Critics of populism and advocates of elitist democracy often place greater confidence in political elites than in the general public. However, this trust may be misplaced. In five experiments with local politicians, state legislators, and members of the public, Curtis Bram finds a similar willingness across all groups to entrench their party’s power when given the opportunity – a self-serving majoritarianism that transcends partisan lines. This tendency is strongest among committed ideologues, politicians running in highly competitive districts, and those who perceive opponents as especially threatening. Local elected officials even appear more focused on securing their party’s next presidential victory than on opposing bans against their political rivals. These findings challenge the conventional mass/elite dichotomy, revealing little differences in undemocratic attitudes. Safeguarding democracy likely requires shifting focus from those individual attitudes to strengthening institutional restraints against majority abuses.

Strategic Responsiveness: How Congress Confronts Presidential Power

Scott H. Ainsworth, University of Georgia; Brian M. Harward, Allegheny College; and Kenneth W. Moffett, Fors Marsh LLC

Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication Date: May 2025
ISBN: 9780472057412


Because the constitutional separation of powers often leads to delay or obstruction rather than coordinated policymaking, U.S. presidents are increasingly acting unilaterally to move policy. With the issuance of executive orders, signing statements, and policy memoranda, unilateralism has become a defining feature of the American presidency. Can Congress effectively use checks and balances to counter presidential unilateralism?

Strategic Responsiveness takes a theoretically developed and empirically oriented approach— situated within legal and historical contexts—to explore the system of separated powers. The authors find that Congress is not as weak as many perceive it to be and show how members of Congress often anticipate individualized policy loss and choose to respond. These policy struggles shape the constitutional order as surely as broad, statutory constraints might. While the aggrandizement of the presidency and the usurpation of congressional control are not countered, ordinary policy losses are. For members and senators, presidential overreach is fine as long as the policy wins continue, but policy losses may motivate members to reassert congressional prerogatives in policymaking through increased oversight. Strategic Responsiveness reveals how profoundly important policy-level disputes are in the politics of maintaining a particular constitutional order.

The Politics of Skin Tone: African American Experiences, Identity, and Attitudes

Nicole D. Yadon, The Ohio State University

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: May 2025
ISBN: 9780226840352


Research shows that skin tone is associated with significant differences in life experiences. On average, African Americans with darker skin earn lower wages, suffer worse health outcomes, and endure more negative criminal justice experiences than lighter-skinned African Americans. Nicole D. Yadon conceptualizes skin tone as one facet of the multidimensional construct of race that powerfully influences racialized experiences which, in turn, can influence political identities and attitudes.

Drawing on evidence from one hundred in-depth interviews, multiple surveys, and a survey experiment, The Politics of Skin Tone investigates the political associations of skin tone. Yadon finds that skin tone correlates with political attitudes, particularly on issues where color-based disparities are especially pronounced such as criminal justice. Moreover, a sizable number of African Americans adopt a skin tone-based identity. In an era of shifting racial boundaries and growing color-based discrimination, The Politics of Skin Tone examines the implications for both scholars and policymakers.

Congressional Expectations of Presidential Self-Restraint

Jack B. Greenberg, Yale University and John A. Dearborn, Vanderbilt University
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Series: Cambridge Elements in American Politics
Publication Date: May 2025
ISBN: 9781009568951


This book explores how Congress has designed laws reliant on an assumption of presidential self-restraint, an expectation that presidents would respect statutory goals by declining to use their formal powers in ways that were legally permissible but contrary to stated congressional intent. Examining several laws addressing political appointments since the 1970s – statutes involving the FBI Director, Office of Personnel Management Director, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of National Intelligence, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator, Inspectors General, Senior Executive Service, Social Security Administration Commissioner, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director – the authors demonstrate lawmakers’ reliance on presidential self-restraint in statutory design and identify a variety of institutional tools used to signal those expectations. Furthermore, the authors identify a developmental dilemma: the combined rise of polarization, presidentialism, and constitutional formalism threatens to leave Congress more dependent on presidential self-restraint, even as that norm’s reliability is increasingly questionable.

Historical Dictionary of the Donald Trump Administration

Michael J. Pomante II, Claremont Graduate University and Austin Trantham, Saint Leo University
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication Date: April 2025
ISBN: 9781538157275


Historical Dictionary of the Donald Trump Administration covers the events relevant to Donald Trump and his life. It is a factual and a non-partisan evaluation of their relevance to the first Trump presidency, addressing critical events and people shaping the Donald Trump presidency. Secondarily, the work introduces the reader to the terminology used in studying presidential politics in the United States. This books stives to give readers a suitable foundation of the most recent issues within the Trump Administration, contributing to a better understanding of today’s political climate.

Historical Dictionary of the Donald Trump Administration contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 250 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the terms, individuals, and events related to the president. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Trump administration.

See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People

David E. Campbell, University of Notre Dame and Christina Wolbrecht, University of Notre Dame
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: April 2025
ISBN: 9780226839516


From Kamala Harris to Nikki Haley, women in public life are widely expected to inspire young people, especially girls, to follow in their footsteps. See Jane Run provides the definitive analysis of women politicians as role models. With wide-ranging data and attention to gender, race, and party, David E. Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht find that women in politics help convince young people, regardless of gender, that women are capable of political leadership. For young women, women role models enhance faith in democracy and inspire political engagement, including running for office themselves. As role models, women politicians help ensure a more inclusive democracy.

The Terrorism News Beat: Professionalism, Profit, and the Press

Aaron M. Hoffman, Simon Fraser University
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication Date: March 2025
ISBN: 9780472057306


Critics of terrorism news coverage often describe it as a sensationalized and intimidating area of reporting. However, this characterization offers a misleading guide to the coverage of terrorist threats and attacks, counterterrorism, and community responses to terrorism that appears in U.S. newspapers. Counterterrorism—not terrorist threats or attacks—is the most reported-on subject in newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Rather than focusing on accounts of terrorist attacks, militarized counterterrorism, or counterterrorism failures, journalists more often cover counterterrorism successes, criminal justice, and diplomatic or community responses to terrorism.

The Terrorism News Beat engages thinking about terrorism and the news media from the fields of political science, communication, criminology, economics, and sociology using multimethod research involving more than 2,500 newspaper articles published between 1997 and 2018. Chapters analyze the terrorism news beat’s subject matter, language, and coverage of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Olympic Park bombing, 9/11 attacks, DC Sniper case, and Dallas Police shooting. When it comes to language use, Hoffman finds that, rather than giving into the temptation to convey the news in lurid detail, journalists are minimalists. The language used to depict events on the terrorism beat is typically moderate and extreme words like “torture” appear only as necessary. The Terrorism News Beat shows that contrary to claims of sensationalism, the tone of terrorism coverage becomes even more sober during terrorism crises than it is during non-crisis periods and meets journalistic standards for quality.

Ranked Choice Voting

James W. Endersby, University of Missouri and Michael J. Towle, Mount St. Mary’s University
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: March 2025
ISBN: 9780197798928


Ranked choice voting (RCV) is an electoral and political reform sweeping across North America, already adopted in a variety of places, including New York City, the state of Maine, and cities and towns in Minnesota, California, and Utah. In localities using RCV, voters don’t cast just a single vote for one candidate, but rank candidates according to preference: first choice, second choice, third, and so forth. To be elected, a candidate must win a majority–not a plurality–of votes. Though touted by proponents as way to enhance voter satisfaction with elections, promote trust in government, and increase voter turnout, the implementation of RCV is not without its challenges.

In Ranked Choice Voting, James W. Endersby and Michael J. Towle provide a comprehensive and balanced analysis of RCV systems, drawing from examples across the United States to evaluate how they function. Using a wealth of data from observed elections outcomes to election theory, from political history to interviews with advocates and election administrators, the authors detail the history, strengths, and weaknesses of RCV and preferential voting more generally. Broad-ranging, even-handed, and evidence-based, this authoritative overview of an increasingly popular format for democratic elections in the US will appeal to anyone interested in electoral reform and American democracy more generally.

California Politics is Local: Voting Behavior and Special Districts

Brett L. Savage, San Diego Miramar College and Jacob Sutherland, University of California-Irvine
Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: March 2025
ISBN: 9781032944401


In California Politics Is Local, Brett L. Savage and Jacob Sutherland argue that California politics should be viewed through a local lens due to the unique nature of the principal–agent relationship present in local governments around the state. Local governments make up the most common form of government in the United States and are responsible for a wide variety of public goods, services, and policies that affect their community members’ lives daily. This is especially true in California, which is home to 58 counties, 482 cities, 1,037 school districts, and nearly 2,000 independent special districts. However, many questions remain regarding California local politics, especially when it comes to the principal–agent relationship between local representatives and community members.

By leveraging a variety of recent case studies about the contestation of civil rights and public goods and utilizing several novel datasets, Savage and Sutherland present a comprehensive understanding of California local politics as it stands in the twenty-first century. Specifically, they provide one of the first studies dedicated to examining the opinions and perceptions held by special district representatives about the nature of their roles as community representatives, and they expand upon theories of participation at the local level pertaining to issue and office salience for different demographic and political groups. California Politics Is Local brings a fresh perspective to students and scholars of urban affairs, political institutions, civic engagement, and public policy in the Golden State.

Storefront Campaigning

Joshua P. Darr, Syracuse University and Sean Whyard, Louisiana State University
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: November 2024
ISBN: 9781009443357


Since Barack Obama’s historic and unprecedented field operations in 2008 and 2012, campaigns have centralized their voter contact operations within field offices: storefronts rented in strategically chosen communities. That model was upended in 2020: Joe Biden won the election without any offices (due to COVID-19), while Donald Trump’s campaign opened over 300. Using two decades of data on office locations and interviews with campaign staffers, we show how the strategic placement and electoral impact of local field offices changed over the past twenty years, including differences in partisan strategy and effectiveness. We find that offices are somewhat more effective for Democrats than Republicans, but Democratic field operations are declining while Republicans’ are increasing. We conclude by assessing whether future campaigns will invest in offices again – or if the rebirth of storefront campaigning is over and the future of political campaigning is purely digital.

Living Off the Government? Race, Gender, and the Politics of Welfare

Anne M. Whitesell, Miami University

Publisher: New York University Press
Publication Date: November 2024
ISBN: 9781479828586


Who deserves public assistance from the government? This age-old question has been revived by policymakers, pundits, and activists following the massive economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anne Whitesell takes up this timely debate, showing us how our welfare system, in its current state, fails the people it is designed to serve. From debates over stimulus check eligibility to the uncertain future of unemployment benefits, Living Off the Government? tackles it all.

Examining welfare rules across eight different states, as well as 19,000 state and local interest groups, Whitesell shows how we determine who is—and who isn’t—deserving of government assistance. She explores racial and gender stereotypes surrounding welfare recipients, particularly Black women and mothers; how different groups take advantage of these harmful stereotypes to push their own political agendas; and how the interests and needs of welfare recipients are inadequately represented as a result. Living Off the Government? highlights how harmful stereotypes about the race, gender, and class of welfare recipients filter into our highly polarized political arena to shape public policy. Whitesell calls out a system that she believes serves special interests and not the interests of low-income Americans.

Pragmatic Vision: Obama and the Enactment of the Affordable Care Act

Meena Bose, Hofstra University

Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Publication Date: October 2024
ISBN: 9780700637447


On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, providing every American with the opportunity to have guaranteed health care coverage. The Affordable Care Act—frequently referred to as Obamacare—is almost synonymous with Obama’s presidential legacy and reflects a series of key decisions that he made beginning before he took office. As Meena Bose shows, it was Obama’s particular brand of pragmatic politics that ultimately shaped the passage of the Affordable Care Act and made a lasting mark on health care reform in the United States.

Pragmatic Vision examines eight of Obama’s decisions that resulted in the landmark enactment of health care reform, starting with his commitment to health care reform in the 2008 presidential campaign and concluding with his decision to allow for flexibility with its implementation, following technical hurdles and Supreme Court rulings. Bose shows that Obama’s steadfast commitment to the issue was crucial to its passing, especially after the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Obama’s direct engagement built key political support for the legislation and was aided by the senior White House staff and Democratic leaders in Congress who skillfully navigated the bill to passage just fourteen months after Obama took office. The story of Obama’s leadership in enacting the Affordable Care Act is a tale of today’s partisan divide and the polarization of Congress. The legislation passed on a party-line vote and continued to divide politicians long after its passage. Nevertheless, despite repeated efforts by Republicans to repeal the law, it is more popular today than ever and seems destined to remain in force until the next stage of reform. Pragmatic Vision is an authoritative guide to this singular achievement of the Obama administration.

False Front: The Failed Promise of Presidential Power in a Polarized Age

Kenneth Lowande, University of Michigan

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: October 2024
ISBN: 9780226837253


Border walls, school bathrooms, student loans, gun control, diversity, abortion, climate change—today, nothing seems out of reach for the president’s pen. But after all the press releases, ceremonies, and speeches, shockingly little gets done. The American presidency promises to solve America’s problems, but presidents’ unilateral solutions are often weak, even empty.

Kenneth Lowande argues this is no accident. The US political system is not set up to allow presidents to solve major policy problems, yet it lays these problems at their doorstep, and there is no other elected official better positioned to attract attention by appearing to govern. Like any politician, presidents are strategic actors who seek symbolic wins. They pursue executive actions, even when they know that these will fail, because doing so allows them to put on a compelling show for key constituencies. But these empty presidential actions are not without their costs: they divert energy from effective government—and, over time, undermine public trust. Drawing on thousands of executive actions, news coverage, interviews, and presidential archives, False Front shows that the real root of presidential power is in what presidents can get away with not doing.

America’s First Wartime Election: James Madison, DeWitt Clinton, and the War of 1812

Donald A. Zinman, Grand Valley State University

Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Publication Date: October 2024
ISBN: 9780700637799


America’s First Wartime Election focuses on an overlooked moment in political history. The War of 1812 has generated a significant amount of attention, overshadowing the election that took place in the early stages of the conflict. As the United States and Great Britain clashed on the battlefield, President James Madison was challenged by DeWitt Clinton, the nephew of George Clinton, who was the simultaneous mayor of New York City and the lieutenant governor of his state. Clinton held a base of Democratic-Republican support in New York where many in his party opposed the war. Many New Yorkers also resented Virginia’s domination of the presidency going back to George Washington’s tenure. Other Democratic-Republicans supported the war but faulted Madison for his poor preparations and early battlefield setbacks. United in their opposition to the war, Federalists joined forces with Clinton, but the alliance was tardy, disorganized, and awkward.

The story of this election is also a tale of weak political parties. The Federalist party had steadily lost strength since the election of Jefferson in 1800, and the Democratic-Republican party was still a young, disjointed, and fractious coalition. In order to sustain the party that he had helped to start, Madison was under pressure not only to secure his reelection but also to successfully conduct the war. While Madison had vulnerabilities, given America’s poor preparation for the war, the fusionist ticket supporting Clinton was poorly positioned to challenge the incumbent president. Political parties in general were still in their infancy, thus complicating efforts to build a coherent alternative to Madison. For a fusion ticket to succeed in elections, strong political parties are necessary, which was not the case in 1812. Red-hot passions over the divisive War of 1812 overlapped with a presidential election that became a referendum on the conflict itself. Momentum is important in politics—a principle that was just as important over 200 years ago as it is today. Written for scholars, students, and the public alike, Donald A. Zinman’s accessible study of this important but often ignored election is another illuminating entry in the University Press of Kansas’s longstanding American Presidential Elections series.

Democracy’s Destruction? Changing Perceptions of the Supreme Court, the Presidency, and the Senate after the 2020 Election

James L. Gibson, Washington University in St. Louis
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Publication Date: September 2024
ISBN: 978-0-87154-865-8


On January 6, 2021, an angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. This assault on America’s democratic system was orchestrated by then President Donald Trump, abetted by his political party, and supported by a vocal minority of the American people. Did denial of the election results and the subsequent insurrection inflict damage on American political institutions? While most pundits and many scholars say yes, they have offered little rigorous evidence for this assertion. In Democracy’s Destruction? political scientist James L. Gibson uses surveys from representative samples of the American population to provide a more informed answer to the question.

Focusing on the U.S. Supreme Court, the presidency, and the U.S. Senate, Gibson reveals that how people assessed the election, the insurrection, and even the second Trump impeachment has little connection to their willingness to view American political institutions as legitimate. Instead, legitimacy is grounded in more general commitments to democratic values and support for the rule of law. On most issues of institutional legitimacy, those who denied the election results and supported the insurrection were not more likely to be alienated from political institutions and to consider them illegitimate. Democracy’s Destruction? offers rigorous analysis of the effect of the Trump insurrection on the state of U.S. democracy today. While cautioning that Trump and many Republicans may be devising schemes to subvert the next presidential election more effectively, the book attests to the remarkable endurance of American political institutions.

Polarized By Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics

Matt Grossman, Michigan State University and David A. Hopkins, Boston College

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: September 2024
ISBN: 9781316512012


Over the past several decades, American society has experienced fundamental changes – from shifting relations between social groups and evolving language and behavior norms to the increasing value of a college degree. These transformations have polarized the nation’s political climate and ignited a perpetual culture war. In a sequel to their award-winning collaboration Asymmetric Politics, Grossmann and Hopkins draw on an extensive variety of evidence to explore how these changes have affected both major parties. They show that the Democrats have become the home of highly-educated citizens with progressive social views who prefer credentialed experts to make policy decisions, while Republicans have become the populist champions of white voters without college degrees who increasingly distrust teachers, scientists, journalists, universities, non-profit organizations, and even corporations. The result of this new “diploma divide” between the parties is an increasingly complex world in which everything is about politics – and politics is about everything.

Civic Death in Contemporary Turkey: Mass Surveillance and the Authoritarian State

Seçkin Sertdemir, University of Turku 

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: January 2025
ISBN: 9781009524612


What does it mean for a government to declare its citizens ‘dead’ while they still live? Following the failed 2016 coup, the Turkish AKP government implemented sweeping powers against some 152,000 of its citizens. These Kanun hükmünde kararnameli (’emergency decreed’) were dismissed from their positions and banned for life from public service. With their citizenship rights revoked, Seçkin Sertdemir argues these individuals were rendered into a state of ‘civic death’. This study considers how these authoritarian securitisation methods took shape, shedding light on the lived experiences of targeted people. Bringing together approaches from political philosophy, social anthropology, and sociology, Sertdemir outlines the approaches and justifications used by the Turkish government to dismiss opponents, increase surveillance, and brand citizens as ‘terrorists’. At the same time, extensive archival research and in-depth interviews bring focus to the impact of these measures on the lives of women, and the disabled and LGBTQ+ communities.

The Ideational Approach to Populism, Volume II: Consequences and Mitigation

Edited by: Angelos Chryssogelos, London Metropolitan University; Eliza Tanner Hawkins, Brigham Young University; Kirk A. Hawkins, Brigham Young University; Levente Littvay, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences; and Nina Wiesehomeier, IE University

Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: November 2024
ISBN: 9781032788883


This book provides a series of specific predictions about the distinct impact of populist ideas. In this sequel to the first volume, the ideational approach to populism is extended, providing a robust theoretical framework for understanding populism’s consequences and for identifying policies that mitigate its most negative effects. It reaffirms that ideas matter, arguing that an ideational definition of populism leads to more accurate, and sometimes surprising predictions about the impact of populism at multiple levels of analysis. The chapters of this edited volume explore the effect of populist ideas in each of four areas: consequences for state-level institutions, voters, and international relations; and mitigation. The ideational approach encourages us instead to invest in more systematic engagement with populists and pay better attention to our communication skills. It will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, international relations, social psychology, and political communication.

Why Presidents Fail: Political Parties and Government Survival in Latin America

Christopher A. Martínez, University of Concepción (Chile)

Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication Date: August 2024
ISBN: 9781503632868


Democracy and political parties go hand in hand. Strong parties are fundamental for advancing, stabilizing, and improving democratic governance. But how exactly do political parties relate to, and contribute to, the survival of presidential administrations? Since 1979, over twenty Latin American chief executives had been forced out of office, without a democratic breakdown—a phenomenon known as “presidential failure.” Why Presidents Fail offers a nuanced assessment of how political parties influence how and when executives weather political crises and unrest.

Christopher A. Martínez takes a close look at how different factors come into play to explain why some presidents complete their terms in office without incident, others barely make it to the end after stumbling upon crisis after crisis, and some are forced out or impeached before their term is finished. Drawing on a novel theoretical approach, an original database on presidential scandals and anti-government demonstrations, regression (survival analysis) models, country case studies, and interviews with more than one hundred country specialists and top-level politicians, Why Presidents Fail provides an innovative, comprehensive assessment of how political parties influence presidential survival and contributes fresh ideas to the debates on the stability of presidential governments.

The Authoritarian Divide: Populism, Propaganda, and Polarization

Orçun Selçuk, Luther College

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Publication Date: July, 2024
ISBN: 9780268208073


In the context of the global decline of democracy, The Authoritarian Divide analyzes the tactics that populist leaders in Turkey, Venezuela, and Ecuador have used to polarize their countries. Political polarization is traditionally viewed as the result of competing left/right ideologies. In The Authoritarian Divide, Orçun Selçuk argues that, regardless of ideology, polarization is driven by dominant populist leaders who deliberately divide constituents by cultivating a dichotomy of inclusion and exclusion. This practice, known as affective leader polarization, stymies compromise and undermines the democratic process.

Drawing on multiple qualitative and quantitative methodologies for support, as well as content from propaganda media such as public speeches, Muhtar Meetings, Aló Presidente, and Enlace Ciudadano, Selçuk details and analyzes the tactics used by three well-known populist leaders to fuel affective leader polarization: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Selçuk’s work provides a rubric for a better understanding of—and potential defense against—the rise in polarizing populism across the globe.

Democratizing China’s Political Imaginaries

Christopher A. Martínez, University of Concepción (Chile)

Publisher: Springer Nature
Publication Date: June 2024
ISBN: 978-9819736690


This book offers a meticulous empirical examination of Chinese democracy and its myriad discourses. Delving into the intricate workings of Chinese democracy, the author explores how the Chinese Communist Party employs democratic principles, how intellectuals grapple with the concept, and how the populace perceives and engages with democracy. In transcending mere methodological nationalism, this narrative extends to the global stage, offering insights into democratic evolution beyond Western paradigms particularly with developing and post-colonial countries, offering a fresh perspective on the delicate balance between state capacity, social order, and the democratization process. While the trajectory of democracy in China remains uncertain, these empirically grounded analyses provide a pragmatic lens through which to contemplate the future of Chinese political dynamics.

Political Graffiti and Global Human Rights: Take Another Look

Philip Hopper, University of Northern Iowa and Evan Renfro, University of Northern Iowa

Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication Date: October, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66693-281-2


Political Graffiti and Global Human Rights: Take Another Look examines the role of political graffiti in the public spaces of Northern Ireland and occupied Palestine, highlighting the ways in which oppressed communities utilize this form of expression to convey resistance, foster community support, preserve the memory of armed struggle, and assert their presence. By drawing a comparative analysis between Northern Ireland and Palestine, Philip Hopper and Evan Renfro argue that while the peace process has made progress in Northern Ireland, it has not been successful in Palestine. They assert that the disparities in political graffiti between the two regions are not solely attributable to geographical, historical, and political differences, but also to the varying degrees of success in resolving long-standing conflicts and the communities’ ability to remember or forget past atrocities.

In addition to exploring the themes, symbols, inspirations, and artists behind wall art, this book delves into the evolution of the meaning of political graffiti over time, and critically examines the notion of who holds the privilege of creating politically themed art deemed to be in “good taste.”

Understanding War and Peace, 2nd Edition

Edited by Dan Reiter, Emory University

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: July 2023
ISBN: 9781009125031


Written for undergraduate students studying the politics of conflict and cooperation, Understanding War and Peace considers the roots of global conflicts and the various means used to resolve them. Edited by Dan Reiter with contributing authors who are all leading scholars in the field, it balances approachable, engaging writing with a conceptually rigorous overview of the most important ideas in conflict studies. Focusing on concepts, policy, and historical applications, the text minimizes literature reviews and technical jargon to engagingly present all major topics in international conflict, including nuclear weapons, peacekeeping, terrorism, gender, alliances, nuclear weapons, environment and conflict, civil wars, public opinion. Enriching the textbook pedagogy, each chapter concludes with a summary of a published quantitative study to introduce students with no prior quantitative training to quantitative analysis. Online resources for instructors include an instructor manual, a test bank and contemporary case studies for each chapter topic regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

Leverage and Cooperation in the US World Order: The Shrewd Sheriff

Giacomo Chiozza, American University of Sarjah-United Arab Emirates

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: July 2023
ISBN: 9780674271913


Since the end of World War II, the United States has maintained a unique system of partnerships and alliances, known as the US world order. Within this order, it has sought both compliance from, and consensus with, its partners. Sometimes it has achieved both, sometimes one but not the other, and sometimes neither. What accounts for this variation in hegemonic leadership? Giacomo Chiozza suggests that the answer depends on the domestic political institutions that structure US relations with the incumbent leaders in the partner nations. Domestic political institutions that foster political successors and allow for regular and flexible channels of leadership turnover make it easier for the US to sustain friendly relations. However, unexpectedly, institutions that allow for regular and flexible channels of leadership turnover also create domestic political incentives that foster the attainment of better governance and more respect of human rights.

Sustaining America’s Strategic Advantage

Edited by Joel R. Hillison, U.S. Army War College; Jerad I. Harper, U.S. Army War College; and Christopher J. Bolan, U.S. Army War College

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing – Praeger Security International
Publication Date: February 2023
ISBN: 9781440879920


Written for foreign policy practitioners, scholars, and students, this book offers critical insights into the modern landscape of international politics and warfare and explains how the United States can sustain its strategic advantages in the 21st century and beyond. From the level of grand strategy to more intricate security issues, this book explores how the United States can sustain its strategic military and political advantages around the world. Developing and implementing effective national policies; fostering strong diplomatic and geopolitical ties with allies in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East; and managing an effective defense enterprise are key, according to the authors, to competing on a shifting international security landscape. Advancing the literature on grand strategy and outlining emerging critical issues in security, this book offers an overarching framework for strategy; an analysis of crucial security-related topics, such as cyber warfare; and informed opinions on components of competitive success, such as irregular warfare and partner building. Written by well-respected scholars, security professionals, and foreign policy practitioners, this book goes beyond focusing on hard power to consider how the U.S. can leverage its education institutions and a worldwide network of allies and partners to sustain its strategic advantage now and in the future.

Reputation Analytics: Public Opinion for Companies

Daniel Diermeier, Vanderbilt University

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: March 2023
ISBN: 9780226029627


Public opinion is a core factor of any organization’s success—and sometimes its failings. Whether through crisis, mismanagement, or sudden shifts in public sensibility, an organization can run afoul in the span of a Tweet.

In Reputation Analytics, Daniel Diermeier offers the first rigorous analytical framework for understanding and managing corporate reputation and public perception. Drawing on his expertise as a political scientist and management scholar, Diermeier incorporates lessons from game theory, psychology, and text analytics to create a methodology that has immediate application in both scholarship and practice.

Social Inquiry and Bayesian Influence: Rethinking Qualitative Research

Tasha Fairfield, London School of Economics and Political Science & Andrew E. Charman, University of California, Berkeley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: August, 2022
ISBN: 978-1108433358


Fairfield and Charman provide a modern, rigorous and intuitive methodology for case-study research to help social scientists and analysts make better inferences from qualitative evidence. The book develops concrete guidelines for conducting inference to best explanation given incomplete information; no previous exposure to Bayesian analysis or specialized mathematical skills are needed. Topics covered include constructing rival hypotheses that are neither too simple nor overly complex, assessing the inferential weight of evidence, counteracting cognitive biases, selecting cases, and iterating between theory development, data collection, and analysis. Extensive worked examples apply Bayesian guidelines, showcasing both exemplars of intuitive Bayesian reasoning and departures from Bayesian principles in published case studies drawn from process-tracing, comparative, and multimethod research. Beyond improving inference and analytic transparency, an overarching goal of this book is to revalue qualitative research and place it on more equal footing with respect to quantitative and experimental traditions by illustrating that Bayesianism provides a universally applicable inferential framework.

Hamiltonia: A State and Local Government Simulation

Kaitlin N. Sidorsky, Ramapo College of New Jersey and Kelly B. Smith, Stetson University

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Publication Date: September 2024
ISBN: 978-1-5381-9249-8


Students in state and local politics courses frequently have low levels of prior knowledge about the topic and even lower levels of engagement. Hamiltonia: A State and Local Government Simulation promotes experiential and active learning by boosting engagement and making the content memorable and meaningful. By putting themselves in the driver’s seat of creating state and local government institutions, students understand how variations in the rules of the game drastically affect the outcome in state politics and the policy areas they care about, like education, criminal justice, health care, and the environment.

This new text and simulation provide a full grounding in the basics of state and local government while also giving students an opportunity to apply what they have learned by building their own fictional fifty-first state from the ground up. Students will write a state constitution that gives shape to the institutions and rules, then engage directly with what they built – participating in an election, addressing pressing policy issues, and experiencing the challenges and opportunities of state-level political leaders. Hamiltonia brings political science concepts alive, provides the context for students to more fully understand state and local politics and feel more empowered to influence politics and policy where they live.

Simulations in the Political Science Classroom: Games without Frontiers

Edited by Mark Harvey, University of Saint Mary; James Fielder, Colorado State University; and Ryan Gibb, Baker University

Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: August, 2022
ISBN: 9780367699765


This book is premised on the assumption that games and simulations provide welcome alternatives and supplements to traditional lectures and class discussions—especially in political science classrooms, where real-world circumstances provide ideal applications of theory and policy prescriptions. Implementing such an active learning program, however, is sometimes daunting to overburdened professors and teaching assistants. This book addresses the challenges of using games and simulations in the political science classroom, both online and in person. Each chapter offers a game or simulation that politics teachers can use to teach course concepts and explains ways to execute it effectively. In addition, the authors in this volume make a proactive case for games and simulations. Each chapter offers research to evaluate the effectiveness of the activity and pedagogical design best practices. Thus, the book not only serves as a game design resource, but also offers demonstrable support for using games and simulations in the political science classroom. Aimed at teachers at all levels, from high school through college, the book may be especially appealing to graduate students entering teaching for the first time and open to new teaching and learning approaches.

When Politics Becomes Personal: The Effect of Partisan Identity on Anti-Democratic Behavior

Alexa Bankert, University of Georgia

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: January 2024
ISBN: 9781009052290


Can we be good partisans without demonizing our political opponents? Using insights from political science and social psychology, this book argues for the distinction between positive and negative partisanship. As such, strong support for a political party does not have to be accompanied by the vilification of the opposing party and its members. Utilizing data from five different countries, Bankert demonstrates that positive and negative partisanship are independent concepts with distinct consequences for political behavior, including citizens’ political participation and their commitment to democratic norms and values. The book concludes with the hopeful message that partisanship is an essential pillar of representative and liberal democracy.

Inspired Citizens: How Our Political Role Models Shape American Politics

Jennie Sweet-Cushman, Chatham University

Publisher: Temple University Press
Publication Date: November, 2023
ISBN: 9781439923498


Political role models are people that voters form a connection with, and who provoke them to think differently about and engage with politics. Inspired Citizens examines the impact role models have in American politics through the lens of political psychology. Jennie Sweet-Cushman investigates how citizens, especially marginalized ones, can be influenced by the presence of political role models. She asks critical questions, such as whether role models increase political participation and strengthen American democracy, and whether role models encourage candidate emergence.

Sweet-Cushman develops the Inspired Citizenship Theory to show that political role models can have motivating effects on one’s political citizenship and may, in some case, insulate those who have been traditionally marginalized in American politics. Moreover, she asserts that citizens who have political role models possess very different political behaviors and attitudes than those who do not.

Divided: Open-Mindedness and Dogmatism in a Polarized World

Edited by Victor Ottati, Loyola University Chicago and Chadly Stern, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication Date: July 2023
ISBN: 9780197655467


This volume aims to increase the understanding of open-mindedness and dogmatism, illuminate the nature and causes of polarization, and provide clues regarding how one might attempt to reduce pernicious forms of polarization.
Bringing together a diverse group of leading psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and communication scholars who investigate dogmatism and open-mindedness within social and political contexts, Divided: Open-Mindedness and Dogmatism in a Polarized World covers a wide range of topics including key definitions of dogmatism and open-mindedness, the emergence of affective polarization, how open-mindedness relates to attitude formation and change, the correspondence between intellectual humility and open-mindedness, and how social norms and situations shape open-minded cognition. Authors consider both the beneficial and more problematic features of open-mindedness, dogmatism, and polarization. Collectively, this volume provides a format that enables readers to learn about creative approaches to understanding dogmatism and open-mindedness and, potentially, to generate innovative solutions that reduce polarization and increase constructive social compromise in the future.

Constitutionalizing the Private Sphere: A Comparative Inquiry

Christina R. Bambrick, University of Notre Dame

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: February 2025
ISBN: 9781009293730


Do private actors have constitutional duties? While traditionally only government actors are responsible for upholding constitutional rights, courts and constitution-makers increasingly do assign constitutional duties to private actors as well. Therefore, a landlord may have constitutional duties to their tenants, and a sports club may even have duties to its fans. This book argues that this phenomenon of applying rights ‘horizontally’ can be understood through the lens of republican political theory. Themes echoing such concepts as the common good and civic duty from republican thought recur in discourses surrounding horizontal application. Bambrick traces republican themes in debates from the United States, India, Germany, South Africa, and the European Union. While these contexts have vastly different histories and aspirations, constitutional actors in each place have considered the horizontal application of rights and, in doing so, have made republican arguments.

The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism

Matthew McManus, University of Michigan

Publisher: Routledge
Publication Date: November 2024
ISBN: 9781032647234


Matt McManus presents a comprehensive guide to the liberal socialist tradition, stretching from Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine through John Stuart Mill to Irving Howe, John Rawls, and Charles Mills. Providing a comprehensive critical genealogy of liberal socialism from a sympathetic but critical standpoint, McManus traces its core to the Revolutionary period that catalyzed major divisions in liberal political theory, to the French Revolution that saw the emergence of writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine who argued that liberal principles could only be inadequately instantiated in a society with high levels of material and social inequality, to John Stuart Mill – the first major thinker who declared himself a liberal and a socialist and who made major contributions to both traditions through his efforts to synthesize and conciliate them. McManus argues for liberal socialism as a political theory which could truly secure equality and liberty for all. This is an essential book on the tradition of liberal socialism for students, researchers, and scholars of political science and humanities.

Leisure: Its Rise, Fall, and Potential Rebirth

Jacob T. Snyder, University of West Alabama

Publisher: SUNY Press
Publication Date: August, 2024
ISBN: 9781438498768


Leisure is a genealogy of the concept of leisure, from its peak in the classical age to its inversion and fall in modern liberalism. The goal of this genealogy is to analyze models of leisure and to inquire into the potential future shape of it. In that process, Jacob T. Snyder asks: what was leisure in its peak form in the classical age? In such a form, how was leisure understood to be connected to human flourishing? Then, what happened to leisure? What was the argument for work that won over the West? What must be rejected, or lost, about work if leisure is to be reanimated? In asking and answering these questions, Snyder argues that political reform, such as limiting work weeks, is insufficient to make us leisured. Leisure demands more, including a new understanding of what makes us happy and thriving creatures.

The Persistent Poverty of African Americans in the United States: The Impact of Public Policy

Daphne M. Cooper, North Carolina A&T State University

Publisher: Anthem Press
Publication Date: October 2024
ISBN: 9781839991882


The purpose of this book is to shed light on American politics and power that have disadvantaged African Americans through the implementation of public policies, causing them to remain poor and underprivileged in the United States. History demonstrates that African Americans have inherited gateless poverty exacerbated by: living without training and skills; living in slums without decent medical care; having the devastating heritage of the long years of slavery; and a century of oppression, hatred, and injustice. African Americans in the United States started off at a disadvantage; they were hobbled by chains for years and then abruptly liberated and brought to the starting line expecting to compete with everyone else. This book scrutinizes persistent poverty using a model of institutional policies that have been implemented to keep African Americans as a permanent underclass thus withholding any measure of true equality, which I foundationally understand as racial and economically unjust. This book produces evidence that public policies, programs, and institutional practices have impacted African Americans. Therefore, it is important to challenge the long-standing misdirected paradigm, which blames the individual for being poor instead of holding the government accountable for the structural failures within the governmental system.

Following in Footsteps or Marching Alone? How Institutional Differences Influence Renewable Energy Policy

Srinivas Parinandi, University of Colorado at Boulder

Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication Date: February, 2023
ISBN: 9780472055821


In recent years, the federal government’s increasing inability to address major societal challenges has arguably hampered America’s commitment to renewable energy initiatives. Individual U.S. states have stepped into this void and adopted their own policies, leading some to believe that the states can propel America’s renewable energy industry forward. However, we know little about how legislative and regulatory dynamics within America’s states might accelerate or hinder renewable energy policy creation.
In Following in Footsteps or Marching Alone?, Srinivas Parinandi explores how states have devised their own novel policies, and how the political workings of legislatures and public utilities commissions have impacted state renewable energy policy design. Through the meticulous study of nearly three decades of state-level renewable energy policy-making, he finds that their creation is primarily driven by legislatures, and that ideologically liberal legislatures largely push the envelope. The book suggests that having a predominantly state-driven renewable energy effort can lead to uneven and patchwork-based policy development outcomes, and a possible solution is to try to more successfully federalize these issues. Parinandi urges readers, scholars, and policy practitioners to consider whether a state-led effort is adequate enough to handle the task of building momentum for renewable energy in one of the world’s largest electricity markets.

Clean Air at What Cost? The Rise of Blunt Force Regulation in China

Denise Sienli van der Kamp, University of Oxford

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: January, 2023
ISBN: 9781009152648


China’s green transition is often perceived as a lesson in authoritarian efficiency. In just a few years, the state managed to improve air quality, contain dissent, and restructure local industry. Much of this was achieved through top-down, ‘blunt force’ solutions, such as forcibly shuttering or destroying polluting factories. This book argues that China’s blunt force regulation is actually a sign of weak state capacity and ineffective bureaucratic control. Integrating case studies with quantitative evidence, it shows how widespread industry shutdowns are used, not to scare polluters into respecting pollution standards, but to scare bureaucrats into respecting central orders. These measures have improved air quality in almost all Chinese cities, but at immense social and economic cost. This book delves into the negotiations, trade-offs, and day-to-day battles of local pollution enforcement to explain why governments employ such costly measures, and what this reveals about a state’s powers to govern society.