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Passion and emotion run deep in politics, but researchers have only recently begun to study how they influence our political thinking. Contending that the long-standing neglect of such feelings has left unfortunate gaps in the understanding of political behavior, this book provides a comprehensive overview of current research on emotion in politics and where it is likely to lead. In sixteen chapters, thirty scholars approach this topic from an array of angles that address four major themes. The first section outlines the philosophical and neuroscientific foundations of emotion in politics, while the second focuses on how emotions function within and among individuals. The final two sections branch out to explore how politics work at the societal level and suggest the next steps in modeling, research, and political activity itself.

The United States boasts scores of organizations that offer crucial representation for groups that are marginalized in national politics, from women to racial minorities to the poor. This systematic study of these organizations explores the challenges and opportunities they face in the new millennium, as waning legal discrimination coincides with increasing political and economic inequalities within the populations they represent. Drawing on data from a survey of 286 organizations and interviews with forty officials, the author finds that groups too often prioritize the interests of their most advantaged members: male rather than female racial minorities, for example, or affluent rather than poor women. But she also finds that many organizations try to remedy this inequity, and concludes by distilling their best practices into a set of principles that she calls affirmative advocacy—a form of representation that aims to overcome the entrenched but often subtle biases against people at the intersection of more than one marginalized group.

Who determines the fuel standards for our cars? What about whether Plan B, the morning-after pill, is sold at the local pharmacy? Many people assume such important and controversial policy decisions originate in the halls of Congress. But the choreographed actions of Congress and the president account for only a small portion of the laws created in the United States. Most law is actually created by administrative rules issued by federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services, where unelected bureaucrats with policy goals and preferences respond to the incentives created by a complex, procedure-bound rulemaking process. With Bending the Rules, Potter shows that rulemaking is an intensely political activity in its own right. Because rulemaking occurs in a separation of powers system, bureaucrats are not free to implement their preferred policies unimpeded: the president, Congress, and the courts can all get involved in the process, often at the bidding of interest groups. However, rather than capitulating to demands, bureaucrats routinely employ “procedural politicking,” using their deep knowledge of the process to strategically insulate their proposals from political scrutiny and interference. Tracing the rulemaking process from when an agency first begins working on a rule to when it completes that regulatory action, Potter shows how bureaucrats use procedures to resist interference from Congress, the President, and the courts at each stage of the process. This exercise reveals that unelected bureaucrats wield considerable influence over the direction of public policy in the United States.

This book argues that the congressional agenda includes many issues about which liberals and conservatives generally agree. Even over these matters, though, senators from the Democratic Party and Republican Party tend to fight with each other. What explains this discord? This book contends that many partisan battles are rooted in competition for power rather than disagreement over the rightful role of government. This is the first book to systematically distinguish Senate disputes centering on ideological questions from the large proportion of them that do not, and it foregrounds the role of power struggle in partisan conflict. Presidential leadership, for example, inherently polarizes legislators who can influence public opinion of the president and his party by how they handle his agenda. Senators also exploit good government measures and floor debate to embarrass opponents and burnish their own party's image — even when the issues involved are broadly supported or low-stakes. Moreover, the book suggests that the congressional agenda itself amplifies conflict by increasingly focusing on issues that reliably differentiate the parties. With the new president pledging to stem the tide of partisan polarization, this book provides a timely taxonomy of exactly what stands in his way.

Although recent research has demonstrated that public policy responds disproportionately to the preferences of affluent Americans, much less is known about the preferences of the truly wealthy – billionaires whose massive fortunes enable them to contribute millions of dollars to politics on an annual basis. Systematic knowledge of the preferences of this elite group is vitally important if we want to test the hypothesis that money tends to produce influence. Obtaining such knowledge has long proved challenging, however, because the ultra-wealthy are very difficult to study: their small numbers make it impossible to distill their preferences from even the largest existing public opinion surveys. And surveying them directly is impossible due to their very busy schedules and very private lives. This book addresses this problem using what can be called a web-scraping and public records approach, gathering and analyzing publicly available information about the wealthiest 100 Americans. It uses a novel, systematic online search process that identified nearly all public stances taken by these billionaires on an important economic and social issues over an approximately 10 year period. It also uses a comprehensive dataset of their financial contributions to political causes in order to examine their political actions, as well as several illuminating case studies to examine their behavior in greater depth. We find that these billionaires engage in stealth politics: they are exceptionally politically active, but strategically hide their political activities when their views differ from those of average citizens.

Campaign finance reformers, politicians, and academics have been arguing for decades that democracy is imperiled by a threat that permeates all of politics: money. Money in politics, these elites tell us, is to blame for a wide array of ills in American society that threaten democracy: moneyed interests buying elections, rampant corruption, and declining trust in government. The elites are wrong, yet the American public believes them. This book is about why that matters. David Primo and Jeffrey Milyo use original survey data to show that the public is misinformed about money in politics, its support for free speech is often driven by partisan or ideological considerations, and it “sees” corruption in the everyday activities of politicians. Moreover, the public is skeptical that campaign finance reform will fix American democracy, and its support for specific reforms is often driven by misinformation about the role of money in campaigns. Having established what the public thinks about money in politics, Primo and Milyo next use survey data spanning thirty years to show that state-level campaign finance reforms have no meaningful effect on trust and confidence in government, contrary to the claims of reformers but consistent with public skepticism about reform. Given that the US Supreme Court’s justification for upholding the constitutionality of campaign finance laws rests on public attitudes toward government—specifically, limiting “the appearance of corruption”—Primo and Milyo’s results call into question 40 years of campaign finance jurisprudence.

When we think about what constitutes being a good citizen, routine activities such as voting, letter writing, and paying attention to the news spring to mind. But this book argues that these activities are only a small part of democratic citizenship—a standard of citizenship that requires creative thinking, talking, and acting. For it, the author met with labor, church, business, and sports organizations and proposed to them four fictive scenarios: what if your senator is involved in a scandal, or your police department is engaged in racial profiling, or a local factory violates pollution laws, or your nearby airport is slated for expansion? The conversations these challenges inspire, he shows, require imagination. And what people can imagine doing in response to those scenarios depends on what's possible, what's important, what's right, and what's feasible. By talking with one another, an engaged citizenry draws from a repertoire of personal and institutional resources to understand and reimagine responses to situations as they arise. Building on such political discussions, the book shows how a rich culture of association and democratic discourse provides the infrastructure for a healthy democracy.

Countless observers, from the Framers to modern day academics, examine the government's capacity to enact new legislation. Congress in Reverse is the first book to focus on repeals as an important and distinct legislative action. It examines two primary questions. First, are law creation and law repeal are governed by the same dynamics? As a technical matter, the constitutional and institutional constraints are the same, so perhaps a repeal is “just another law.” Despite this, Ragusa and Birkhead show that repeals face a unique set of constraints and are therefore harder to pass than any other type of legislation, including amendments, reauthorizations, and new laws. Further, the data reveal that productive congresses do not automatically repeal a large volume of statutes and that the usual determinants of law creation are poor predictors of repeal occurrence. Second, which of the leading theories of lawmaking—problem solving, parties, or preferences—best explain when and why repeals occur? Although all three help make sense of repeals, Ragusa and Birkhead develop an explicit theory that focuses on the majority party’s cohesiveness its recent experience out of power. Ultimately, the data show that repeals are most likely to succeed when the majority is ideologically cohesive and recently won power after a long time in the minority. In this respect, while most lawmaking follows exogenous policy problems and takes place on a bipartisan basis, when Congress tries to undo landmark legislation—such as the Affordable Care Act—it tends to do so for partisan reasons.

Congress is overwhelmed. It has become so overwhelmed its constitutional status as a co-equal branch of government is at serious risk. In this volume, leading congressional scholars explore the causes and consequences of Congress’s decades-long neglect in itself. The first branch of government no longer has the capacity to govern as it once did. The volume explores the state of congressional capacity, or the human capital and other resources that Congress has available to perform its role in resolving public problems by legislating, budgeting, holding hearings, conducting oversight, and serving constituents. In so doing, it offers a new perspective to existing scholarship, which focuses only on partisan polarization as the source for legislative dysfunction. The chapters assess Congress’s declining capacity using a variety of analytic approaches and data sources. Several contributions report the first findings from the 2017 Congressional Capacity Survey, the largest and most comprehensive mixed-method study of congressional staff ever conducted. Some chapters investigate Congress’s political development to illuminate how capacity has changed throughout history in response to broader political forces. Others evaluate how Congress manages its legislative workload despite heightened polarization and the perpetual campaign. And, several scholars explore how Congress could reform itself. Taken together, the volume offers new ways for thinking about congressional capacity, and ample evidence to show that Congress is approaching, if it has not already reached, the nadir of its ability to solve problems on behalf of the American people.

In bicameral legislatures like Congress, the two chambers must reach agreement before a bill is enacted into law, a process that is often chaotic and contentious. In The Congressional End Game: Interchamber Bargaining and Compromise in Congress, Josh Ryan offers a coherent theory of how this process works and the types of policy outcomes produced. He shows that both conference committees and an alternative resolution venue, amendment trading, create policy that approximates the preferences of the more moderate chamber, though neither chamber receives exactly what it wants. Using comprehensive data on recent congressional legislation and an array of empirical tests, The Congressional Endgame explains how the chambers seek agreement, why failure at the resolution stage is so rare, and what types of legislation are likely to emerge from negotiations. The book finds that the characteristics of the winning coalition are critically important to which chamber "wins" after bargaining, with more moderate chambers receiving more of what they want. The results are especially relevant in the current age of party polarization and strong leadership, where divided party control of the House and Senate is common. These factors contribute to the public perception that the House and Senate are unable to compromise, and call into question the relevance and effectiveness of the bicameral system as designed by the Framers. Instead, The Congressional Endgame demonstrates interchamber negotiations serve their intended purpose well: they increase the odds of compromise while at the same time offering a powerful constraint on dramatic policy changes.

This book describes how conservative state-level officeholders, including governors, attorneys general, and secretaries of state, mounted a major challenge to the Obama Administration and federal power more generally. The opportunity for this challenge to federal power arose from the conjunction of several processes: marked growth in executive power at both the national and state level; shifts in administrative law doctrine friendly to state litigation; and high party polarization that yielded regularly divided national government but single party dominance of state governments. Conservative executive officials cooperated across states in litigation and through various administrative practices; they also adopted a notably uncooperative, conflictual stance in their relations with the Obama Administration. Through chapters examining multistate litigation, new uses of interstate compacts, and new elections administration practices, this book shows that state executive officeholders have used an innovative combination of means to successfully pursue a familiar set of conservative policy goals. A chapter on the small government experiment in Kansas shows that this activity is not a crudely anti-government stance, but rather a particular program of reform grounded in a sophisticated understanding of law and modern administrative institutions. The concluding chapter shows that the domestic agenda of the Trump Administration is substantially a continuation of this earlier state-level activity, and that liberal state officeholders have been quick to emulate new conservative strategies. The likely result is a rearranged, conflictual American federalism in which the states are more important and powerful than they have been since the Progressive Era.

Why have conservatives fared so much better than progressives in recent decades, even though polls show no significant move to the right in public opinion? This book highlights one reason: that progressives often adopt impoverished modes of discourse, ceding the moral high ground to their conservative rivals. The book also shows that some progressive groups are pioneering more robust ways of talking about their issues and values, providing examples other progressives could emulate. Through case studies of grassroots movements—particularly the economic justice work carried on by congregation-based community organizing and the pursuit of human rights by local members of Amnesty International—the book shows how these groups develop distinctive ways of talking about politics and create characteristic stories, ceremonies, and practices. According to this book, the way people engage in politics matters just as much as the content of their ideas: when activists make the moral basis for their activism clear, engage issues with passion, and articulate a unified social vision, they challenge the recent ascendancy of conservative discourse. On the basis of these case studies, the book addresses currently debated topics such as individualism in America and whether strains of political thought strongly informed by religion and moral values are compatible with tolerance and liberty.

In addition to their obvious roles in American politics, race and gender also work in hidden ways to influence profoundly the way we think—and vote—about a vast array of issues that don't seem related to either category. As this book reveals, politicians and leaders often frame these seemingly unrelated issues in ways that prime audiences to respond not to the policy at hand but instead to the way its presentation resonates with their deeply held beliefs about race and gender. The book shows, for example, how official rhetoric about welfare and Social Security has tapped into white Americans' racial biases to shape their opinions on both issues over the past two decades. Similarly, the way politicians presented health care reform in the 1990s divided Americans along the lines of their attitudes toward gender. Combining cognitive and political psychology with innovative empirical research, the book illuminates the emotional underpinnings of politics in the United States.

How do threats of terrorism affect the opinions of citizens? Speculation abounds, but until now no one had marshaled hard evidence to explain the complexities of this relationship. Drawing on data from surveys and original experiments conducted in the United States and Mexico, this book shows how our strategies for coping with terrorist threats significantly influence our attitudes toward fellow citizens, political leaders, and foreign nations. It reveals, for example, that some people try to restore a sense of order and control through increased wariness of others — especially of those who exist outside the societal mainstream. Additionally, voters under threat tend to prize “strong leadership” more highly than partisan affiliation, making some politicians seem more charismatic than they otherwise would. The book argues that a wary public will sometimes continue to empower such leaders after they have been elected, giving them greater authority even at the expense of institutional checks and balances. Having demonstrated that a climate of terrorist threat also increases support for restrictive laws at home and engagement against terrorists abroad, the book concludes that our responses to such threats can put democracy at risk.

Borrowing has become the American way of life. We increasingly rely on consumer credit to purchase daily necessities and to weather unexpected emergencies. But borrowing to live is a double-edged sword: While access to credit can help people afford the American dream, borrowing also exposes them to high interest rates, fees, and mounting debt that can quickly turn into a financial nightmare. Despite this threat, policymakers haven’t put an end to predatory lending, borrowers haven’t taken political action to demand better financial protection, and consumer groups haven’t been able to change either trend—even after the 2008 global financial crisis. Democracy Declined argues that the failure to curb predatory lending through political participation is the product of a U.S. political economy of credit—a self-reinforcing cycle of policy development and subsequent policy feedback effects. Drawing on historical records, interviews, and original survey and experimental data, the book charts how federal policymakers embraced broad access to consumer credit to grow the national economy, motivating them to adopt consumer financial protections that safeguard that access. The resulting regulatory regime relies on information disclosures that teach borrowers to blame themselves and their banks for financial problems, minimizing people’s incentives to turn to politics to demand change. Compelled by the need to preserve credit access and without the countervailing force of voter mobilization, Democracy Declined explores how this feedback loop limits the prospects for meaningful consumer financial reform, threatening the economic security of American borrowers and the U.S. economy while exacerbating existing economic inequality.

Economic inequality is at a record high in the United States, but public demand for redistribution is not rising with it. This book shows that this paradox and other mysteries about class and American politics can be solved through a focus on social comparison. Powerful currents in American society compete to propel attention up or down—toward the rich or the poor—pulling politics along in the wake. Through an astute blend of experiments, surveys, and descriptions people offer in their own words, The Economic Other reveals that when less-advantaged Americans compare with the rich, they become more accurate about their own status and want more from government. But American society is structured to prevent upward comparison. In an increasingly divided, anxious nation, opportunities to interact with the country’s richest are shrinking, and people prefer to compare to those below to feel secure. Even when comparison with the rich does occur, many lose confidence in their power to effect change. Laying bare how social comparisons drive public opinion, this book is an essential look at the stubborn plight of inequality and the measures needed to solve it.

America is in civic chaos, its politics rife with conspiracy theories and false information. Nationalism and authoritarianism are on the rise, while scientists, universities, and news organizations are viewed with increasing mistrust. Its citizens reject scientific evidence on climate change and vaccinations while embracing myths of impending apocalypse. And then there is Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who won the support of millions of conservative Christians despite having no moral or political convictions. What is going on? The answer can be found in the most important force shaping American politics today: human intuition. On one side are rationalists. They use science and reason to understand reality. On the other side are intuitionists. They rely on gut feelings and instincts as their guide to the world. Intuitionists believe in ghosts and End Times prophecies. They embrace conspiracy theories, disbelieve experts, and distrust the media. They are stridently nationalistic and deeply authoritarian in their outlook. And they are the most enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump. A generation ago, intuitionists were dispersed across the political spectrum, when most Americans believed in both God and science. Today, intuitionism is ideologically tilted toward the political right. Modern conservatism has become an Intuitionist movement, defined by conspiracy theories, strident nationalism, and hostility to basic civic norms. Enchanted America is a clarion call to rationalists of all political persuasions to reach beyond the minority and speak to intuitionists in a way they understand.

Direct democracy is alive and well in the United States. Citizens are increasingly using initiatives and referendums to take the law into their own hands, overriding their elected officials to set tax, expenditure, and social policies. This book provides an even-handed and historically based treatment of the subject. Drawing upon a century of evidence, the author argues against the popular belief that initiative measures are influenced by wealthy special interest groups that neglect the majority view. Examining demographic, political, and opinion data, he demonstrates how the initiative process brings about systematic changes in tax and expenditure policies of state and local governments that are generally supported by the citizens. The author concludes that, by and large, direct democracy in the form of the initiative process works for the benefit of the many rather than the few.

With world affairs so troubled, what kind of foreign policy should the United States pursue? This book looks for answers in a surprising place: among the American people. Drawing on a series of national surveys conducted between 1974 and 2004, the authors reveal that—contrary to conventional wisdom—Americans generally hold durable, coherent, and sensible opinions about foreign policy. Nonetheless, their opinions often stand in opposition to those of policymakers, usually because of different interests and values, rather than superior wisdom among the elite. The book argues that these gaps between leaders and the public are harmful, and that by using public opinion as a guideline, policymakers could craft a more effective, sustainable, and democratic foreign policy. The authors support this argument by painting a comprehensive portrait of the military, diplomatic, and economic foreign policies Americans favor. They show, for example, that protecting American jobs is just as important to the public as security from attack, a goal the current administration seems to pursue single-mindedly. And contrary to some officials' unilateral tendencies, the public consistently and overwhelmingly favors cooperative multilateral policy and participation in international treaties. Moreover, Americans' foreign policy opinions are seldom divided along the usual lines: majorities of virtually all social, ideological, and partisan groups seek a policy that pursues the goals of security and justice through cooperative means.

The widespread assumption in American politics that core social identities—such as religion, race, and ethnicity—shape politics but are, themselves, largely impervious to political influence. This book challenges this conventional wisdom by looking at religion, a social identity whose political relevance is routinely discussed in both academic and non-academic circles. The book demonstrates that individuals' partisan identities, which solidify in young adulthood, can influence religious decisions later in life. The findings refute the claim that America's current polarization is solely the product of religious sorting into the political parties, with seculars supporting the Democrats and the devout joining the Republican ranks. Instead, partisans also help produce this religious-political polarization, as Democrats select out of organized religion and Republicans select into it. The book sheds light on religion’s role in politics by highlighting politics' role in religion and offers an important step in understanding how politics influences group identification.