Geographic, National, and Racial Communities

Cara J. Wong

Based on analysis of three types of communities and eight national surveys, this book examines how ordinary Americans imagine their communities and how that definition subsequently shapes their views on governmental redistributive policies.

Presidential Leadership in US Lawmaking, 1953–2004

Matthew N. Beckmann

The central question of presidents’ legislative leadership is not a question of resolve; it is a question of strategy: by what means can presidents build winning coalitions for their agenda?

Joseph E. Luders

This book focuses on the targets of protests and affected bystanders, their interests, and their responses to explain the success and failure of social movements to bring about change in American society.

Edited by Ian Shapiro, Susan C. Stokes, Elisabeth Jean Wood, Alexander S. Kirshner

Relations between the democratic ideal and the everyday practice of political representation have never been well defined and remain the subject of vigorous debates. Here, an eminent group of scholars move forward those debates on a number of fronts.

James W. McGuire

McGuire finds that the public provision of basic health care and other inexpensive social services has reduced mortality rapidly even in tough economic circumstances, and that political democracy has contributed to the provision and utilization of such social services.

Spanish America in Comparative Perspective

James Mahoney

This comparative-historical analysis of Spanish America explores why certain kinds of societies are subject to certain kinds of colonialism and why these forms of colonialism give rise to countries with differing levels of economic prosperity and social well-being.

Herbert Kitschelt, Kirk A. Hawkins, Juan Pablo Luna, Guillermo Rosas, Elizabeth J. Zechmeister

This book provides a novel theoretical argument to account for differences in the degree to which political party systems in the region were programmatically structured at the end of the twentieth century.

Nicaragua and Argentina Compared

Leslie E. Anderson

Drawing on extensive field work in Nicaragua and Argentina, as well as public opinion and elite data, Anderson explores the contribution of social capital to the process of democratization and the limits of that contribution.

Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe

Monika Nalepa

Using cases from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, this book explores pacted transitions to democracy, in which outgoing autocrats strike deals with dissidents.

Modernization in Hard Times

Silja Häusermann

This book challenges existing theories of welfare state change by analyzing pension reforms in France, Germany, and Switzerland between 1970 and 2004.