Governing in a Polarized Age: Elections, Parties, and Political Representation in America

Description

Many political observers have expressed doubts as to whether America's leaders are up to the task of addressing major policy challenges. Yet much of the critical commentary lacks grounding in the systematic analysis of the core institutions of the American political system including elections, representation, and the law-making process. Governing in a Polarized Age brings together more than a dozen leading scholars to provide an in-depth examination of representation and legislative performance. Drawing upon the seminal work of David Mayhew as a point of departure, these essays explore the dynamics of incumbency advantage in today's polarized Congress, asking whether the focus on individual re-election that was the hallmark of Mayhew's ground-breaking book, Congress: The Electoral Connection, remains useful for understanding today's Congress. The essays link the study of elections with close analysis of changes in party organization and with a series of systematic assessments of the quality of legislative performance.

Alan S. Gerber is Divisional Director for the Social Sciences and Dilley Professor of Political Science at Yale University, Connecticut. Co-author of an award-winning textbook on experimental methods, his work has appeared in the leading journals in political science and has received various awards, including the Heinz Eulau Award for the best article in the American Political Science Review. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2009) and the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (2013). Eric Schickler is Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Disjointed Pluralism, which won the Richard F. Fenno, Jr Prize for the best book on legislative politics in 2002. He is the co-author of Partisan Hearts and Minds, which was published in 2002, and Filibuster, which was published in 2006 and won the Fenno Prize.

'Overall, Governing in a Polarized Age is focused on representation and the impact of a member's credit claiming, advertising, and position taking on Congress (specifically) and the executive branch (generally).' Jacob R. Straus, Congress and the Presidency