Political Science

The Polarized Public takes an in-depth look at the seemingly irreconcilable divide between Republicans and Democrats and argues that bi-partisanship remains elusive, not because of politicians in the capitol, but because of the American public and their fixation on party membership and loyalty. How did this intense polarization develop? How has it influenced the current political climate? How will it evolve and affect the upcoming presidential and congressional elections? Alan Abramowitz addresses all of these questions among others in this new, eye-opening addition to The Great Questions in Politics series.

In recent years American politics has seemingly become much more partisan, more zero-sum, more vicious, and less able to confront the real problems our nation faces. What has happened? In The Second Civil War , respected political commentator Ronald Brownstein diagnoses the electoral, demographic, and institutional forces that have wreaked such change over the American political landscape, pulling politics into the margins and leaving precious little common ground for compromise. The Second Civil War is not a book for Democrats or Republicans but for all Americans who are disturbed by our current political dysfunction and hungry for ways to understand it-and move beyond it.

Tanenhaus' capsule history of American conservatism begins with a nostalgic review of the movement's intellectual forefathers-Edmund Burke to William F. Buckley-and culminates in an analysis of the George W. Bush administration, when the ideas-driven conservatism of the postwar era was surpased by a generation of ideological lockstep and governance. He ably renders dry political battles of the past as high intellectual drama.

When is political compromise acceptable--and when is it fundamentally rotten, something we should never accept, come what may? What if a rotten compromise is politically necessary? Compromise is a great political virtue, especially for the sake of peace. But, as Avishai Margalit argues, there are moral limits to acceptable compromise even for peace. But just what are those limits? At what point does peace secured with compromise become unjust? Focusing attention on vitally important questions that have received surprisingly little attention, Margalit argues that we should be concerned not only with what makes a just war, but also with what kind of compromise allows for a just peace. Examining a wide range of examples, including the Munich Agreement, the Yalta Conference, and Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, Margalit provides a searching examination of the nature of political compromise in its various forms. Combining philosophy, politics, and history, and written in a vivid and accessible style, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises is full of surprising new insights about war, peace, justice, and sectarianism.

Analyzing the movement's deep-seated origins in questions that the country has sought too long to ignore, some of the greatest economic minds and most incisive cultural commentators - from Paul Krugman, Robin Wells, Michael Lewis, Robert Reich, Amy Goodman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Gillian Tett, Scott Turow, Bethany McLean, Brandon Adams, and Tyler Cowen to prominent labor leaders and young, cutting-edge economists and financial writers whose work is not yet widely known - capture the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon in all its ragged glory, giving readers an on-the-scene feel for the movement as it unfolds while exploring the heady growth of the protests, considering the lasting changes wrought, and recommending reform. A guide to the occupation, THE OCCUPY HANDBOOK is a talked-about source for understanding why 1% of the people in America take almost a quarter of the nation's income and the long-term effects of a protest movement that even the objects of its attack can find little fault with.

"Part intellectual history, part a study of contemporary politics, Nancy Rosenblum's exciting, original book poses an energetic challenge to both political theory and to citizens disaffected by democracy today. For those who think democracy would be better without strong political parties, Rosenblum seeks to show that parties and partisanship are central to meaningful political commitment."--Richard H. Pildes, New York University School of Law

" Riveting and highly original, On the Side of the Angels argues with great gusto as well as deep learning that both parties and partisanship are wrongly despised today as fragmenting the desirable holism of the body politic. No other book so comprehensively interprets the account of parties and partisanship given by major political philosophers while offering a contemporary normative argument that parties and partisanship serve the political good."--Kathleen M. Sullivan, Stanford Law School

"Wenz maps out twelve political philosophies - ranging from theocracy and free-market conservatism to feminism and cosmopolitanism - on which Americans draw when taking political positions. He then turns his focus to some of America’s most controversial issues and, through in-depth discussions of fourteen of them, shows how ideologically diverse coalitions can emerge. These hot-button issues include extending life by artificial means (as in the Terri Schiavo case), the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, affirmative action, abortion, same-sex marriage, health care, immigration, and globalization.

Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another—from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to Major League Baseball—imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.

How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes upends well-worn ideological and partisan categories to offer a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top, leaving a new American elite more prone to failure and corruption and more out of touch with the people they govern.