The Republicans who run American government today have defied the normal laws of political gravity. They have ruled with the slimmest of majorities and yet have transformed the nation’s governing priorities. They have strayed dramatically from the moderate middle of public opinion and yet have faced little public backlash. Again and again, they have sided with the affluent and ideologically extreme while paying little heed to the broad majority of Americans. And much more often than not, they have come out on top. This book shows why—and why this troubling state of affairs can and must be changed.Written in a highly accessible style by two professional political scientists, Off Center tells the story of a deliberative process restricted and distorted by party chieftains, of unresponsive power brokers subverting the popular will, and of legislation written by and for powerful interests and deliberately designed to mute popular discontent. In the best tradition of engaged social science, Off Center is a powerful and informed critique that points the way toward a stronger foundation for American democracy.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
One of the mysteries of contemporary American politics is how, in the wake of triangulating Democrats, a small base of conservative Republicans has steered the country so far to the right. In this book, two political science professors from Yale and Berkeley examine ascendant far-right Republicans and offer a sobering analysis of their strategies, many of which, the authors argue, have weakened the ordinary voter's power to "ensure that American politics remains on center." Closely-argued and very readable, the book never sinks under the weight of its details; the authors use an ironic list of rules like "Don't Just Do Something, Stand There" to give chapter and verse on how the ultra-right "hide their radicalism in a thicket of policy detail" and use poll-driven language to sex-up initiatives lacking popular support. There are excellent passages on the "fiscal chicanery" of recent tax cuts and several damning vignettes of the maneuvers behind corporate energy subsidies, Medicare privatization and the Bush administration's complicity in relaxing environmental and work safety regulations. The authors compare "The New Power Brokers" who guide this revolution (Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Grover Norquist and Tom DeLay) to the Medici, but they emerge from these pages like little Machiavellis: ignoring dissent, threatening to fund the conservative rivals of moderate Republicans and quietly undermining alternative power bases. The authors believe this deep-pocketed elite will control the Republican party for some time to come. If that is true, this book should become required reading for anyone interested in the triumph of the neocons or worried about where they are leading America.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Hacker and Pierson shrewdly assess the new structures of political power in our country and the success of conservative Republicans in mobilizing resources and framing political choices. This book is innovative, it’s important, and it will open many eyes. It is the book Karl Rove would wish he had written–if he were on the other side.”—E. J. Dionne, Jr., author of Stand Up, Fight Back and Why Americans Hate Politics
(E. J. Dionne, Jr. )"Hacker and Pierson have produced the most penetrating study of contemporary American politics since Thomas and Mary Edsall's Chain Reaction. (And that was over fourteen years ago....) Every political journalist in America needs to read and heed this brilliant book."—Eric Alterman, author of When Presidents Lie and What Liberal Media?
(Eric Alterman )"Off-Center proves two points beyond reasonable dispute. The first is that the current paralysis and polarization of the American political system is not some split-the-difference, everyone's-to-blame phenomenon. Instead, its worst aspects are direct results of Republican extremist tactics over the last decade. The second is that the consequences are bad for nearly everyone in the country, except for the very richest people and corporations. The book makes an important case convincingly."—James Fallows, author of Breaking the News
"Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson announce something that everyone will—and should—pay attention to. They have done something in this book that political scientists rarely do: they dissect the broad meaning of current political dynamics. By applying political science concepts to current events in very accessible ways, they help lay readers to get the big picture of contemporary American politics."—Richard Valelly, Swarthmore College
(Richard Valelly )"Outdated political science clichés go flying like bad guys in a Kung Fu movie in this revelatory new book. American politics is supposed to be prone to stalemate. Extremists are supposed to be relegated to the dustbin of history. So how come policies so radically at odds with what the American people say they want have been locked in for the next generation? Hacker and Pierson brilliantly nail the case: the Republicans have rigged the system. Off Center provides the missing piece from What's the Matter with Kansas?: how they committed the crime, and where they hid the bodies. Pundits: read it and heed it."—Rick Perlstein, author of Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
(Rick Perlstein )"Off Center offers a penetrating and provocative commentary on the current state of party politics in the United States. Hacker and Pierson lend their considerable analytical gifts to one of the most important developments of our time—the emergence of a militantly conservative Republican Party that shapes the political agenda, controls the major governing institutions, and is poised to recast the welfare state in its own image. Not everyone will agree with the arguments of this book, yet no serious student of American politics will dare ignore the profound questions it raises about vitality of American democracy."—Sidney M. Milkis, White Burkett Miller Professor of Politics, University of Virginia
(Sidney M. Milkis )"Off Center is an important and provocative new book. It will capture imaginations and inspire argument both in academic circles and among the educated public. This book will be widely read—and vociferously debated—in colleges and universities and in the media. I think this is a home run.”—Theda Skocpol, Harvard University
(Theda Skocpol )“The young authors are progressives. . . .public intellectuals with expert research skills. . . .their pithy, well-written book is certainly worth reading.”
(John J. Dilulio Jr., Chronicle of Higher Education )"[This] book offers one of the more original and thought-provoking takes on American politics in recent years."
(Eyal Press Nation )"An important new book."—Paul Krugman, New York Times
(Paul Krugman New York Times )"Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argue convincingly. . . . The book's detail, specificity, and comprehensiveness make it a vital contribution."—Christopher Hayes, Washington Monthly
(Christopher Hayes Washington Monthly )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
210 of 228 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have written a distinctly unusual book. Political scientists don't often write books that take sides in political arguments, and when they do, they usually don't do any better at it than common or garden pundits. It's hard to combine the attention to detail and to careful argument that academics are supposed to have with a passionate concern for the results of the fight. Off Center pulls off both. On the one hand, it is very clearly the work of people who have thought carefully and hard about how politics works. There's a depth of analysis here that's completely absent from the common or garden partisan bestseller-wannabe. But on the other, it doesn't pull its punches. Hacker and Pierson have no compunctions in arguing that the current Republican hegemony is dangerous, and needs to be rolled back. (rest of review below fold)
They start by examining the conventional wisdom that American politics has strong centripetal forces, so that political parties have strong incentives towards moderation. According to both centrist pundits and many political scientists, parties that don't cater for the moderate voter should get booted out of office. This political commonplace doesn't appear to be true any more, to the extent that it ever was. The Republicans have been transformed over the last twenty years from a loosely organized coalition in which moderates appeared to have the upper hand, to a party that is astonishingly well disciplined by the standards of American political history and dominated by right-wing radicals. How has this happened?
Hacker and Pierson immediately discard two common explanations, neither of which is supported by the facts. First, there is no evidence that Americans are more conservative on social issues than they used to be; indeed some evidence suggests that they are now a little more centrist. Nor does it appear that mobilization of "morals voters" was the key to Republican success in the last Presidential election - detailed analysis suggests that state-level efforts to put gay marriage on the ballot helped Kerry, not Bush. Second, there is no evidence of a general process of `polarization' in which both the left and the right are rapidly seceding to the extremes, leaving moderate voters with few palatable choices. The evidence suggests the contrary - while Democrats have become only somewhat more left wing, as Southern Democrats have either disappeared or defected to the Republicans, the Republican party has shifted radically to the right. Positions that were in the mainstream of the Republican party of the 1970s and 1980s are anathema today.
So why hasn't the Republican party been punished by voters for its radicalism? As I understand it, Hacker and Pierson's explanation has three main components. First, information. Voters are often poorly informed about politics, and are vulnerable to "tailored disinformation," which distorts public perceptions. Second, institutions. The Republican Party has been able to use its dominance of Senate, House and Presidency to set the agenda and to sideline opposition. Finally, networks. "New Power Brokers" like Tom DeLay have been able to assemble networks that bring together politicians, think-tankers, funders and lobbyists, creating a coherent agenda across separate institutions, rewarding and protecting loyalists while brutally punishing those who go off-message.
By bringing these together, Hacker and Pierson can explain how the Republican party has succeeded in bringing through radical policy shifts that go against public preferences. Their analysis of the 2001 tax cuts, the Bush energy plan, and the Medicare drugs bill shows how highly objectionable policies can be crafted to fleece the public without raising much in the way of public opposition. In the case of the tax cuts, assiduous propaganda disguised the fiscal impact of the cuts and made them look less biased towards the rich than they in fact were. Republican leaders made sure that they were sent to the floor for voting without opportunity for proper debate or for consideration of alternatives. "Sunsets," "phase-ins" and "time-bombs" were deployed to make the measures temporarily more palatable and to disguise their true costs and long term consequences. "Backlash insurance" provided protection to Republicans who signed onto the agenda.
Nor do Hacker and Pierson confine their argument to the legislative process. Executive action (and non-action) too is important, as witnessed by their account of the systematic gutting of the EPA's and OSHA's ability to enforce regulations.
The book's detailed discussion of how the Republicans have been able to pull all this off is valuable in itself. Readers who have paid attention to Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall over the last couple of years will already know much of the story, although not all of it. Hacker and Pierson uncover some interesting and important new facts. But where the book shines is in providing the analytic chops to draw it together into a coherent whole. Off Center does this in two ways. First, it provides a taxonomy of the different tactics that right wing radicals in the Republican party have used. Second, and more importantly, it shows how distortion of information, manipulation of institutions and careful application of network resources work to reinforce each other. Without understanding all of these - and the interaction between them - you can't understand the quite remarkable success of the Republican party over the last few years.
This form of analysis is shown to best analysis in the chapter on the New Power Brokers and the networks that they have built to support the Republican agenda. As Hacker and Pierson say, in an argument that's worth quoting at length:
Most political analysts have missed the scope of this crucial development because they have failed to fully appreciate the increasingly networked character of the modern conservative movement. The GOP coalition is not simply the sum of its parts. Looking only at Congress, or only at lobbyists, will not reveal the full picture. Instead, the power of the leadership, and of others at the top of the new Republican hierarchy results in large part from their increased role in linking these realms. Looking only at Congress, or only at lobbyists, will not reveal the full picture. Top Republican leaders are, quite literally, brokers. And their power is multiplicative, not additive. The more they can control the behavior of legislators, the more they can control the behavior of lobbyists. And the more they can control the behavior of lobbyists, the more they can control the behavior of legislators. Each link in this complex chain of power holds together because the leaders - and only the leaders - can deliver.
This insight - and the chapter develops it considerably further than this quote would suggest - is key to understanding the role played by actors such as Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. Many reporters and commentators have had difficulty in identifying what exactly it was that DeLay and Abramoff have done, and why it's so problematic. They've only really latched onto the DeLay and Abramoff stories as they've started to look like conventional cases of corruption. But the problem is far more deep-rooted than politicians and lobbyists who may be skimming the profits. It's a complicated network of exchange relationships which is legal, at least in part, but which acts to short-circuit the basic safeguards that are supposed to ensure that politicians represent voters' interests. Unless you understand the complicated connections between fundraising, lobby-organization and policymaking, and the ways that key actors weave all three of these activities together, it's impossible to understand what's going on. Hacker and Pierson draw the map that you need to draw these connections.
I highly recommend the book - but I do have some cavils. Although the book was written before the collapse of Bush's Social Security initiative, it would have been interesting to see some detailed analysis of where the Republicans have failed as well as where they have succeeded (there is a little in there, but it gets short shrift).
More seriously, there's an unresolved tension in the book. The main argument of the book suggests at several points that Republican policies are part of a more or less coherent long term plan. But Hacker and Pierson also provide us with some evidence which suggests that the dominance of the Republican party is leading to incoherent policy and an overwhelming focus on the short term. This tension rises to the surface in Hacker and Pierson's analysis of the "Starve the Beast ... later" strategy. Hacker and Pierson depict the ballooning of spending under Bush as a calculated move, "a high stakes gamble [which] Republicans expect to win" down the road, when the bill comes due and popular programs have to be radically pared down or eliminated to pay for it.
But there's an alternative explanation which would talk to short term gain as well as long term planning. As Pierson emphasizes in earlier work, most politicians tend to have short time horizons - many of them don't care very much about policy train wrecks ten or twenty years down the line. They probably won't have to deal with the problem; someone else will be in office by then. This suggests that the burgeoning of spending is less a long term strategy than a relatively unstable and ad-hoc compromise between the anti-tax jihadists and politicians in Congress who are more interested in goodies for their donors and constituents (in that order) in the short term than in the problems that the longer term will bring. Read more ›
They start by examining the conventional wisdom that American politics has strong centripetal forces, so that political parties have strong incentives towards moderation. According to both centrist pundits and many political scientists, parties that don't cater for the moderate voter should get booted out of office. This political commonplace doesn't appear to be true any more, to the extent that it ever was. The Republicans have been transformed over the last twenty years from a loosely organized coalition in which moderates appeared to have the upper hand, to a party that is astonishingly well disciplined by the standards of American political history and dominated by right-wing radicals. How has this happened?
Hacker and Pierson immediately discard two common explanations, neither of which is supported by the facts. First, there is no evidence that Americans are more conservative on social issues than they used to be; indeed some evidence suggests that they are now a little more centrist. Nor does it appear that mobilization of "morals voters" was the key to Republican success in the last Presidential election - detailed analysis suggests that state-level efforts to put gay marriage on the ballot helped Kerry, not Bush. Second, there is no evidence of a general process of `polarization' in which both the left and the right are rapidly seceding to the extremes, leaving moderate voters with few palatable choices. The evidence suggests the contrary - while Democrats have become only somewhat more left wing, as Southern Democrats have either disappeared or defected to the Republicans, the Republican party has shifted radically to the right. Positions that were in the mainstream of the Republican party of the 1970s and 1980s are anathema today.
So why hasn't the Republican party been punished by voters for its radicalism? As I understand it, Hacker and Pierson's explanation has three main components. First, information. Voters are often poorly informed about politics, and are vulnerable to "tailored disinformation," which distorts public perceptions. Second, institutions. The Republican Party has been able to use its dominance of Senate, House and Presidency to set the agenda and to sideline opposition. Finally, networks. "New Power Brokers" like Tom DeLay have been able to assemble networks that bring together politicians, think-tankers, funders and lobbyists, creating a coherent agenda across separate institutions, rewarding and protecting loyalists while brutally punishing those who go off-message.
By bringing these together, Hacker and Pierson can explain how the Republican party has succeeded in bringing through radical policy shifts that go against public preferences. Their analysis of the 2001 tax cuts, the Bush energy plan, and the Medicare drugs bill shows how highly objectionable policies can be crafted to fleece the public without raising much in the way of public opposition. In the case of the tax cuts, assiduous propaganda disguised the fiscal impact of the cuts and made them look less biased towards the rich than they in fact were. Republican leaders made sure that they were sent to the floor for voting without opportunity for proper debate or for consideration of alternatives. "Sunsets," "phase-ins" and "time-bombs" were deployed to make the measures temporarily more palatable and to disguise their true costs and long term consequences. "Backlash insurance" provided protection to Republicans who signed onto the agenda.
Nor do Hacker and Pierson confine their argument to the legislative process. Executive action (and non-action) too is important, as witnessed by their account of the systematic gutting of the EPA's and OSHA's ability to enforce regulations.
The book's detailed discussion of how the Republicans have been able to pull all this off is valuable in itself. Readers who have paid attention to Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall over the last couple of years will already know much of the story, although not all of it. Hacker and Pierson uncover some interesting and important new facts. But where the book shines is in providing the analytic chops to draw it together into a coherent whole. Off Center does this in two ways. First, it provides a taxonomy of the different tactics that right wing radicals in the Republican party have used. Second, and more importantly, it shows how distortion of information, manipulation of institutions and careful application of network resources work to reinforce each other. Without understanding all of these - and the interaction between them - you can't understand the quite remarkable success of the Republican party over the last few years.
This form of analysis is shown to best analysis in the chapter on the New Power Brokers and the networks that they have built to support the Republican agenda. As Hacker and Pierson say, in an argument that's worth quoting at length:
Most political analysts have missed the scope of this crucial development because they have failed to fully appreciate the increasingly networked character of the modern conservative movement. The GOP coalition is not simply the sum of its parts. Looking only at Congress, or only at lobbyists, will not reveal the full picture. Instead, the power of the leadership, and of others at the top of the new Republican hierarchy results in large part from their increased role in linking these realms. Looking only at Congress, or only at lobbyists, will not reveal the full picture. Top Republican leaders are, quite literally, brokers. And their power is multiplicative, not additive. The more they can control the behavior of legislators, the more they can control the behavior of lobbyists. And the more they can control the behavior of lobbyists, the more they can control the behavior of legislators. Each link in this complex chain of power holds together because the leaders - and only the leaders - can deliver.
This insight - and the chapter develops it considerably further than this quote would suggest - is key to understanding the role played by actors such as Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. Many reporters and commentators have had difficulty in identifying what exactly it was that DeLay and Abramoff have done, and why it's so problematic. They've only really latched onto the DeLay and Abramoff stories as they've started to look like conventional cases of corruption. But the problem is far more deep-rooted than politicians and lobbyists who may be skimming the profits. It's a complicated network of exchange relationships which is legal, at least in part, but which acts to short-circuit the basic safeguards that are supposed to ensure that politicians represent voters' interests. Unless you understand the complicated connections between fundraising, lobby-organization and policymaking, and the ways that key actors weave all three of these activities together, it's impossible to understand what's going on. Hacker and Pierson draw the map that you need to draw these connections.
I highly recommend the book - but I do have some cavils. Although the book was written before the collapse of Bush's Social Security initiative, it would have been interesting to see some detailed analysis of where the Republicans have failed as well as where they have succeeded (there is a little in there, but it gets short shrift).
More seriously, there's an unresolved tension in the book. The main argument of the book suggests at several points that Republican policies are part of a more or less coherent long term plan. But Hacker and Pierson also provide us with some evidence which suggests that the dominance of the Republican party is leading to incoherent policy and an overwhelming focus on the short term. This tension rises to the surface in Hacker and Pierson's analysis of the "Starve the Beast ... later" strategy. Hacker and Pierson depict the ballooning of spending under Bush as a calculated move, "a high stakes gamble [which] Republicans expect to win" down the road, when the bill comes due and popular programs have to be radically pared down or eliminated to pay for it.
But there's an alternative explanation which would talk to short term gain as well as long term planning. As Pierson emphasizes in earlier work, most politicians tend to have short time horizons - many of them don't care very much about policy train wrecks ten or twenty years down the line. They probably won't have to deal with the problem; someone else will be in office by then. This suggests that the burgeoning of spending is less a long term strategy than a relatively unstable and ad-hoc compromise between the anti-tax jihadists and politicians in Congress who are more interested in goodies for their donors and constituents (in that order) in the short term than in the problems that the longer term will bring. Read more ›
70 of 78 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's highly readable book is a timely look at how extremists pulled the Republican Party to the right--and are now pulling the country along.
Even if it does not reflect a majority of Americans (who have more liberalized attitudes on abortion, contraception, and GLBT issues) the right learned that who is in control ultimately decides the agenda. Room in the 'big tent' for moderates in the mold of William Weld and Gerald Ford is rapidly shrinking today; the official party machinery does not recognize their positions on social issues as 'good policy'.
That shrinking environment produces an extreme polarization. Ironically as they accuse the Democratic party of being 'extremist left-wingers' the Republican Party moves ever-further to the right. Flying in the face of conventional electoral wisdom (which says the most voters are in the middle) this strategy has only become more pronounced in the past years.
The strategy is abetted by very careful media positioning. Using legislative leadership and media allies (ahem...Fox News) these extremists are able to convince a majority of the American public to 'trust us'. In other words, how a policy is sold becomes more important than that policy's actual effects upon the American people. We saw this both with President Bush's tax cuts package and the war on terror, both of which were originally adopted without significant visible public dissent 'We' are convinced that 'we' are included in the people to actually benefit from a bill---despite being in a much lower economic bracket.
I also appreciated their examination of the political role of agencies. How a bill is implemented can affect the public perception of enacted legislation and who is staffing an agency ultimately affects how policies are created and implemented to enact legislation. Both the White House and Republican congress are most likely to support people who share their unilateral view of the nation and world---'they' are the only ones with the 'correct' answers. If there is a problem, it is best to let 'other people' deal with it while you are moving onto another target.
Then there is the symbiotic view of the relationships between lobbyists and legislators, Republican Party leaders have figured out that the control of one facilitates the compliant nature of another.
However, I was honestly shocked by their research that social conservatives had not played a role in this shift because their conclusion trumps at least 30 years of evidence from many other political scientists.
Providing a thoughtful read, this book is highly recommended for personal and academic collections. Hacker and Pierson's engaging text encourages readers to think critically about American government, image, and power issues.
Even if it does not reflect a majority of Americans (who have more liberalized attitudes on abortion, contraception, and GLBT issues) the right learned that who is in control ultimately decides the agenda. Room in the 'big tent' for moderates in the mold of William Weld and Gerald Ford is rapidly shrinking today; the official party machinery does not recognize their positions on social issues as 'good policy'.
That shrinking environment produces an extreme polarization. Ironically as they accuse the Democratic party of being 'extremist left-wingers' the Republican Party moves ever-further to the right. Flying in the face of conventional electoral wisdom (which says the most voters are in the middle) this strategy has only become more pronounced in the past years.
The strategy is abetted by very careful media positioning. Using legislative leadership and media allies (ahem...Fox News) these extremists are able to convince a majority of the American public to 'trust us'. In other words, how a policy is sold becomes more important than that policy's actual effects upon the American people. We saw this both with President Bush's tax cuts package and the war on terror, both of which were originally adopted without significant visible public dissent 'We' are convinced that 'we' are included in the people to actually benefit from a bill---despite being in a much lower economic bracket.
I also appreciated their examination of the political role of agencies. How a bill is implemented can affect the public perception of enacted legislation and who is staffing an agency ultimately affects how policies are created and implemented to enact legislation. Both the White House and Republican congress are most likely to support people who share their unilateral view of the nation and world---'they' are the only ones with the 'correct' answers. If there is a problem, it is best to let 'other people' deal with it while you are moving onto another target.
Then there is the symbiotic view of the relationships between lobbyists and legislators, Republican Party leaders have figured out that the control of one facilitates the compliant nature of another.
However, I was honestly shocked by their research that social conservatives had not played a role in this shift because their conclusion trumps at least 30 years of evidence from many other political scientists.
Providing a thoughtful read, this book is highly recommended for personal and academic collections. Hacker and Pierson's engaging text encourages readers to think critically about American government, image, and power issues.
74 of 84 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
OFF CENTER is a wonderfully provocative yet deeply serious new book about the larger political forces behind today's headlines. Written by two of the nation's sharpest political scientists, it explains how the Republicans gained power--and what they are doing to try and keep it. This fast-paced book contains penetrating discussions of many crucial issues, including taxes, Social Security, and election reform. The authors' most disturbing claim--sure to spark debate among professors and politicians alike--is that the GOP has deliberately and skillfully weakened the normal mechanisms of electoral accountability in order to serve a privileged few. Whether one believes that the Republican majority is undermining American democracy or that it is saving it, this is a tremendously stimulating book that all informed Americans will want to read.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Really an overrated book.
As if Democrats, when in power, did/do/will not try to secure their majorities with gerrymanders, etc. Pulease.
Published on November 15, 2007 by Mike M
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but I can't unreservedly recommend...
...purchase...if you're unfamiliar with the mechanics of politics this book will enlighten you as to how it all works... Read more
Published on August 14, 2006 by R. Taylor
4.0 out of 5 stars
The True Science of Extremism
You can ignore some of the more vitriolic reviews of this political science treatise, ranting either for or against, just because it criticizes the Republicans. Read more
Published on June 24, 2006 by doomsdayer520
5.0 out of 5 stars
We Have to "Go For Broke" in 2008
This is a tremendous book. It joins The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World; The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics and Breach of Trust:... Read more
Published on May 1, 2006 by Robert David STEELE Vivas
5.0 out of 5 stars
the new party in power
Very informative. i don't necessarily agree with every point made, but it certainly makes you think about the whole picture and how are government is really being run, as opposed... Read more
Published on March 21, 2006 by E. Medina
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must read guide for protecting Democracy
Democracy has generally had a leveling effect that pushes most politicians to the center. Historically extremists in politics are squeezed out as their values and agendas diverge... Read more
Published on March 17, 2006 by E. David Swan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Top-notch analysis
I found this book to be quite an eye-opener. I've been one of the countless left wondering why 1) ordinary voters would choose to put people in office that are obviously inept at... Read more
Published on March 5, 2006 by MacDesigner
5.0 out of 5 stars
Off Center Sights Bullseye on Repubican Elites
An on-target anaylsis of a Republican elite power structure that is not accountable, not responsive, and certainly not transparent. Read more
Published on February 21, 2006 by R. A. Barricklow
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well Done!
A very well researched and reasoned explanation of the rightward tilt in American politics. Well written and refreshingly free of polemics. Read more
Published on February 16, 2006 by the phantom
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding!
Hacker and Pierson explain how Republicans rule with the slimmest of majorities, yet stray dramatically from the moderate center of public opinion to again and again side with the... Read more
Published on December 27, 2005 by Loyd E. Eskildson
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 75
books:
See all 75 books this book cites
7
books
cite this book:
See all 7 books citing this book
- Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture Series) by Theda Skocpol in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Roll Call: A Novel by Carol Dixon in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Presidential Power: Politics of Leadership from F.D.R.to Carter by Richard Elliott Neustadt in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Almanac of American Politics by Michael Barone in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Democratic Dilemma: Can Citizens Learn What They Need to Know? (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions) by Arthur Lupia in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 75 books this book cites
- 10 Steps To Repair American Democracy by Steven Hill in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success by Paul Waldman in Back Matter
- The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy by Christopher Howard in Back Matter
- Does American Democracy Still Work? (The Future of American Democracy Series) by Alan Wolfe in Back Matter
- Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea by George Lakoff in Back Matter
See all 7 books citing this book
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