Overview

A novel and powerful explanation of the social roots of American politics and the powerful forces in the background.The usual approach to political conflict is to look at policy battles inside government, then trace them back to political parties and organized interests. Yet, in The Social Roots of American Politics, Regina L. Wagner and Byron E. Shafer begin at the opposite end of the causal chain by looking at the social roots of American political conflict, how these roots produce differing policy preferences in the general public, and how those preferences get transmitted into American government. Drawing from over a half-century of public surveys of American voters, they demonstrate that class, race, religion, and gender provide the roots of these conflicts across the four primary domains of policy conflict: social welfare, civil rights, foreign affairs, and cultural values. They also factor in how regional differences affect partisan attachment, focusing on the South in particular. By turning the focus to deep-rooted social cleavages, this book provides a novel and powerful explanation of the basic forces that shape the contours of conflict in American politics.

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9780197650844

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Reviews

Using comprehensive data, this work is an original analysis that anchors U.S. policy-making into social cleavages and party allegiances across many decades. * David Mayhew, Sterling Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Yale University * What Divides Us? Americans disagree on public policy, develop partisan attachments, and fracture by race, religion, class, region, and gender. But it is not a simple story of steady polarization or one identity trumping all of the others. The Social Roots of American Politics paints the big picture of American social and political change since 1950, fitting all of our differences together in a sweeping history and data-packed analysis. In the process, it guides readers toward the most important trends and the enduring divisions that structure American political competition. * Matt Grossman, Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University * Shafer and Wagner provide a high-altitude look at electoral change in the United States over the past three-quarters of a century. While some authors will quibble with details, the book provides a welcome complement to more focused studies of particular aspects of the broader picture. Additionally, Shafer's and Wagner's analytical approach reminds us that understanding largescale political change over long time periods requires attention to sociology as well as politics. * Morris P. Fiorina, Stanford University *

Using comprehensive data, this work is an original analysis that anchors U.S. policy-making into social cleavages and party allegiances across many decades. * David Mayhew, Sterling Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Yale University * What Divides Us? Americans disagree on public policy, develop partisan attachments, and fracture by race, religion, class, region, and gender. But it is not a simple story of steady polarization or one identity trumping all of the others. The Social Roots of American Politics paints the big picture of American social and political change since 1950, fitting all of our differences together in a sweeping history and data-packed analysis. In the process, it guides readers toward the most important trends and the enduring divisions that structure American political competition. * Matt Grossman, Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University * Shafer and Wagner provide a high-altitude look at electoral change in the United States over the past three-quarters of a century. While some authors will quibble with details, the book provides a welcome complement to more focused studies of particular aspects of the broader picture. Additionally, Shafer's and Wagner's analytical approach reminds us that understanding largescale political change over long time periods requires attention to sociology as well as politics. * Morris P. Fiorina, Stanford University *

Author Information

Regina L. Wagner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama and coauthor, with Byron Shafer, of The Long War over Party Structure (2019). Byron E. Shafer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin and the author of many books, including The American Political Pattern (2016).

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