Byron E. Shafer

Richard Johnston

Class, Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South

End of Southern Exceptionalism

This is the story of a revolution without fanfare, a hidden struggle for party reform that produced a new era in national politics. From this struggle emerged the greatest deliberately planned and centrally imposed change in the mechanics of delegate selection, and hence presidential nomination, in all of American history. The success of this revolution heralded the arrival of new political coalitions that would alter the very character of presidential politics, from campaign organization to grass-roots participation. The battle for reform raged within the Democratic party from 1968 to 1972, although it would quickly affect the Republican party as well. It was intense, intricate—and nearly invisible. Yet its chronicle is essential background for political practitioners, professional commentators, and interested citizens alike. And it is the basis for understanding the subsequent course of national politics and the current shape of presidential politics. Quiet Revolution provides the first definitive account of this struggle for reform, an account that is at once modern political history and an illuminating analysis of contemporary American politics. Based on candid interviews with numerous key participants and on extensive archival material, this compelling narrative offers the fascination of political maneuvers closely observed, the drama of momentous events unfolding, and the challenge of a new politics newly interpreted.

Struggle for the Democratic Party & Shaping of Post-Reform Politi

Quiet Revolution

Where did the Era of Divided Government come from? What sustains split partisan control of the institutions of American national government year after year? Why can it shift so easily from Democratic or Republican presidencies, coupled with Republican or Democratic Congresses? How can the vast array of issues and personalities that have surfaced in American politics over the last forty years fit so neatly within-indeed, reinforce-the sustaining political pattern of our time? These big questions constitute the puzzle of modern American politics. The old answer—a majority and a minority party, plus dominant and recessive public issues—will not work in the Era of Divided Government. Byron Shafer, a political scientist who is regarded as one of the most comprehensive and original thinkers on American politics, provides a convincing new answer that has three major elements. These elements in combination, not "divided government" as a catch phrase, are the real story of politics in our time. The first element is comprised of two great sets of public preferences that manifest themselves at the ballot box as two majorities. The old cluster of economic and welfare issues has not so much been displaced as simply joined by a second cluster of cultural and national concerns. The second element can be seen in the behavior of political parties and party activists, whose own preferences don't match those of the general public. That public remains reliably left of the active Republican Party on economic and welfare issues and reliably right of the active Democratic Party on cultural and national concerns. The third crucial element is found in an institutional arrangement—the distinctively American matrix of governmental institutions, which converts those first two elements into a framework for policymaking, year in and year out. In the first half of the book, Shafer examines how dominant features of the Reagan, first Bush, Clinton, and second Bush administrations reflect the interplay of these three elements. Recent policy conflicts and institutional combatants, in Shafer's analysis, illuminate this new pattern of American politics. In the second half, he ranges across time and nations to put these modern elements and their composite pattern into a much larger historical and institutional framework. In this light, modern American politics appears not so much as new and different, but as a distinctive recombination of familiar elements of a political style, a political process, and a political conflict that has been running for a much, much longer time.

The Two Majorities and the Puzzle of Modern American Politics

Anthony J. Badger

Leading scholars provide a comprehensive history of two centuries of U.S. politics. Contributions from a who's who of political historians.

Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775-2000

Contesting Democracy

Electoral realignment, referring originally to a major shift in party preferences within the general public, has been one of the most successful theories in modern social science. Since V. O. Key introduced the theory in his seminal articles in the 1950s, it has been the reigning explanation for patterns of electoral behavior in American history. As a concept, realignment has stimulated considerable scholarly output and permeated journalists’ interpretations of recent elections. Perhaps inevitably, it has also stimulated a great deal of debate. The End of Realignment provides a forum for differing viewpoints in this debate. In these unusually well-integrated, original essays, six distinguished political scientists and historians question whether the theory of realignment can explain electoral developments both of the post-1968 period and of earlier political eras. The essays alternately challenge and defend realignment. Some argue that the central notion, while historically useful, no longer explains contemporary electoral behavior. Others argue that the notion is based on comparatively recent history and has been misused to carve American history into grand political eras. Many in both camps agree that depending heavily on realignment to explain electoral politics obscures other influences at work in elections. Contributors are Byron E. Shafer, Joel H. Silbey, Everett Carl Ladd, Samuel T. McSeveney, Walter Dean Burnham, and Harold F. Bass, Jr. The provocative essay by volume editor Shafer offers an alternative explanation for the pattern of electoral outcomes that have characterized American politics since the late 1960s. Bass’s guide to the literature informing this debate and his comprehensive bibliography of literature on realignment and its alternatives contribute to making this an indispensable volume for anyone studying American electoral history. “A book that provides, as Shafer’s does, a skillfully constructed challenge to the reigning orthodoxy, and alternative explanation for electoral patterns since 1968, and an informed defense of realignment is a volume of unusual importance.”—John F. Bibby, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee “Of the various writers under review, Byron E. Shafer in his essay ‘The Notion of an Electoral Order,’ included in The End of Realignment?, comes closest to providing an explanation of the liberal dilemma: the failure of liberal Democrats to regain the presidency.”—Thomas Byrne Edsall, The New York Review of Books “[A] gem of a book, a must for every political scientist and student of the American party system.”—Choice

Interpreting American Electoral Eras

The End of Realignment?

Seven analysts and professors of political science provide an examination of each of the countries comprising the "Group of Seven," with a focus on the period from the end of WWII to the end of the Cold War. Introductory and concluding essays provide some synthesis. No bibliography. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Orders and Eras in Comparative Perspective

Postwar Politics in the G-7

Regina L. Wagner

Discusses the structure of political parties in order to help understand modern American politics.

Byron E. Shafer

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