New Books in American Politics

Lester K. Spence is the author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics (Punctum Books, 2016). Spence is associate professor of political science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

In Knocking the Hustle, Spence links the rising prominence of neoliberal ideas to the transformation of African American communities. The book, a combination of political history and policy analysis, argues that the Nixon and Reagan administrations advanced the neoliberal policy-making agenda and contributed to the associated rise in economic inequality, especially for African Americans. At the same time, African American communities and institutions are transformed by this neoliberal turn and its underlying, and surprising compatibility, with hustle.

In this podcast I talk with Mary Ziegler, Stearns Weaver Miller Professor of Law at Florida State University College of Law about her book, After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate (Harvard University Press, 2016).

Ziegler’s work revolves around Roe v. Wade and uses this landmark American abortion rights case to explore broad questions such as litigation as a vessel for social change and the role the court plays in democracy. To explore these questions, in addition to archival research Ziegler also did over one hundred oral histories. This method has allowed her to go beyond caricatures of people in the pro-life and anti-abortion camps and to delve deeply into their motivations and look at the angles they approached the abortion issue with great precision.

Roe is often seen as a cautionary tale for judicial intervention as described for example by both right leaning Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and left leaning Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg. Her research reveals, however, that much of the polarization that we’ve blamed on the Supreme Court had little to do with what the court said in Roe. She discusses how the bright line divide between the pro-life and pro-choice movements had not yet coalesced in the 1970s.

Some other topics we discuss are:

–Whether Roe prematurely ended debate about the meaning or scope of abortion rights

–The forces that brought together the political right and the pro-life movement

–Roe as a canvas onto which activists could project different strategic aims

Jefferson Cowie is the James G. Stahlman professor of history at Vanderbilt University. His book The Great Exception: The New Deal and the Limits of American Politics (Princeton University Press, 2016) interprets the New Deal as a massive but unstable experiment from the main of American political culture. Against arguments that the New Deal was the product of the American penchant for reform, Cowie asserts that it was a remarkable historical detour. The Great Depression and WWII were specific historical circumstances that wrought a short-lived effort for central government intervention in securing collective economic rights. Unions flourished, industrial workers gained job security and good wages, and the country enjoyed a relative amount of political cohesion. Multiple legislative measures and the growth of unions offered a countervailing power against corporate wealth accumulation and promised a bright economic future. Several enduring fissures in political culture would all but undo the New Deal after the 1970s. The long tensions over immigration, religious and racial hostility, the frailty of unions, and the ideology of Jeffersonian individualism remained and assured that the new interventionist role for the state would not last. By examining the birth of New Deal and its decline, Cowie locates a legacy of individual rights that stood against its long-term viability. As the central government has continued to expand under free market ideology, collective initiatives are being led at the local and state level by a cross-class neo-progressivism organizing labor and advocating for immigrants and other minorities. While the New Deal gave way to free market ideology, the future may lie in a new imaginary rising from below.

Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: Religion, Intellectuals and the Challenge of Human Liberation.

Daniel K. Williams is an associate professor of history at the University of West Georgia. His book, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers the origins of the pro-life movement not as reactionary and anti-feminist, but rather as a New Deal-inspired crusade for human rights and part of a progressive Catholic social agenda. Pro-lifers saw themselves as crusaders for the “right to life” appealing to natural law and the constitution of the United States. In the 1930s they stood against the utilitarian views of abortion liberalization promoted by secular doctors. After World War II Catholic doctors and lawyers were equating abortion with the holocaust and arguing for the fetus as protected by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. In the early 1960s, the debate over abortion moved to legislative and constitutional battles. Restrictive state laws began to crumble and post-Vatican Catholic opposition to abortion continued to erode among the laity. The decade ended with a restructuring of the movement as it gained allies among young progressives, anti-war activists, Protestants and evangelicals. Pro-life women, expressing a feminism of difference, became visible in the leadership ranks in what had been a virtually an all-male public campaign. The pro-life movement’s legislative victories were short term. Roe v. Wade and change in public opinion interrupted the ascendancy of the pro-life movement and its bipartisan identity to become part of a larger cultural battle. Williams offers an important contribution by highlighting the progressive origins of the pro-life movement before it became a conservative evangelical cause and an issue that continues to divide the nation.

Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is entitled The World Come of Age: Religion, Intellectuals and the Challenge of Human Liberation.

Steve Phillips is the author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (The New Press, 2016). Phillips is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Several weeks ago, Matt Lewis came on the podcast to assess the state-of-affairs for conservatives. This week, Steve Phillips offers his new book on how progressives might reposition their electoral coalition in the future. Drawing on demographic data and the changing electoral map, Phillips argues for a shift from focusing on white swing voters to a new coalition of African American, Latino, and progressive white voters.

The podcast is hosted by Heath Brown, assistant professor of public policy at the City University of New York, John Jay College and The Graduate Center. You can follow him on Twitter @heathbrown

Erika Franklin Fowler, Michael M. Franz, and Travis N. Ridout are the co-authors of Political Advertising in the United States (Westview Press 2016). Fowler is assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, Franz is associate professor of government and legal studies at Bowdoin College, and Ridout is Thomas S. Foley Distinguished Professor of Government and Public Policy in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University.

The authors, co-directors of the Wesleyan Media Project, draw from the latest data to analyze how campaign finance laws have affected the sponsorship and content of political advertising and how the Internet has changed the distribution of ads. With detailed analysis of presidential and congressional campaign ads and discussion questions in each chapter, Political Advertising provides an ideal explainer for students, scholars and practitioners who want to understand the ins and outs of political advertising.

Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov are the authors of Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Klar is assistant professor of political science at the University of Arizona; Krupnikov is assistant professor of political science at Stony Brook University.

Independents voters number up into 40% range in some elections, but are largely misunderstood. Are they apathetic? Centrist? Or undecided voters? Klar and Krupnikov suggest something quite different. They argue that many independent voters are partisans in disguise, hiding partisan-leanings because of a perceived social stigma. Through a series of experiments and related studies, they show that the social desirability of independence prevents many from declaring a party affiliation, but also diminishes other forms of political participation.

Adam Seth Levine has written American Insecurity: Why Our Economic Fears Lead to Political Inaction (Princeton University Press, 2015). Levine teaches in the Department of Government at Cornell University.

If we have learned anything about American politics over the last several months, it is that there are a lot of people who are angry about the present and fearful about the future. American Insecurity demonstrates why it is difficult to channel these sentiments into political action. Using a series of lab and field experiments, we learn in American Insecurity that those who feel economically insecure may be de-mobilized if reminded about their insecurity. There are numerous implications of Levine’s findings for how we understand the psychology of insecurity and the ways interest groups might hone mobilization strategies.

Richard L. Hasen has written Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections (Yale University Press, 2016). Hasen is Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine.

In the midst of the most expensive presidential contest in U.S. history, is money buying access and influence? Are super PACs corrupting the democratic process? Or are eager supporter simply exercising their First Amendment rights? In Plutocrats United, Hasen argues that these may be the wrong questions and the long-standing debate between corruption and free speech – so long a part of constitutional discussions of the issues – is in need of an overhaul. Instead, he suggests that a renewed focus on political equality could reshape the way the country and the Supreme Court considered the role of money in politics. Hasen makes specific policy recommendations for what a new campaign finance regime might look like, and why this new approach would advance the democracy as well as the principle of political equality.

After World War II, the newly formed United Nations and what might be called a global community of nations that included the United States, worked to create a more extensive code of international law. The urge stemmed from the events of World War II, including the atrocities of the war that resulted in war crimes trials and tribunals afterward. The new effort included a move to implement new enforcement mechanisms and insure that the agreed upon international standards were upheld and violators punished. During this same period, the United States military significantly expanded its global presence. Throughout the Cold War and after, U.S. troops were stationed at bases in more countries than ever before, which each required Status of Forces Agreements laying out, among other things, jurisdiction over U.S. troops. This increased global presence also meant more American soldiers, and in some cases civilians accompanying the military for various reasons, were in the position to violate these international standards. Yet, despite a prominent role in spreading universal standards of international law, U.S. policymakers strongly resisted any compromise to U.S sovereignty in upholding these laws.

Patrick Hagopian, senior lecturer in History and American Studies at Lancaster University, has a new book, American Immunity: War Crime and the Limits of International Law (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013) that looks at the relationship between the United States and war crimes jurisdictional questions. He discusses how not only did U.S. policymakers refuse to allow Americans to be prosecuted by international tribunals, but also U.S. courts failed to uphold international standards of justice. Policymakers felt that territorial and practical limitations placed acts committed abroad beyond the jurisdiction of civilian courts, while the Supreme Court decided veterans and civilians could not be court-martialed. This left a jurisdictional gap that existed for much of the postwar period. Though the My Lai massacre brought the gap into particular focus, Congress still failed to close it. This new book explains jurisdictional issues and the failure of American policymakers to adequately remedy. In this episode, we discuss the legal problem, the book’s insights as to their cause, and some of the (often failed) attempts to close the gap.