Well Read The 2016 presidential campaign has raised important questions about the American political system. To provide insights on those topics, here are books that Willamette professors recommend or use in their classes.
The Making of the President 1960 By Ted White
Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government by Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels
Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should Know by Herbert Asher
Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections by Richard L. Hasen
This classic, Pulitzer Prizewinning account of the presidential campaign clash between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is credited with creating modern political journalism. Merging journalism and narrative storytelling, the book captures the historic nature of the campaign, which featured the first televised debates, the larger-than-life personalities of the two candidates and the inner workings of the political process. Going behind the scenes, White followed the political action from the primaries through to the election to provide insights that are still relevant 56 years later. As The New York Times reviewer wrote, “No book … has caught the heartbeat of a campaign as strikingly.”
In this scholarly work, two political science academics offer a dark view of politics, taking aim at what they call the “folk theory” of democracy — that “[D]emocracy begins with the voters … [and] what the majority wants becomes government policy.” The authors argue that such a theory rests on participation by informed voters. Instead, most people are too busy with their everyday lives to be sufficiently informed about political issues in today’s complicated world. As a result, they vote primarily according to their social identities, partisan loyalties or late-breaking natural or economic disasters. The “realist” solution the authors propose is to revamp democratic politics by focusing on identity groups and political parties, rather than the preferences of individual voters.
“We want to hear from you!” “ Your opinion matters!” “Tell us what you think!” With their insistent requests to know our opinions on subjects that range from trivial to critical, public opinion polls are a ubiquitous element of modern life, especially at election time. As many online surveys are either poorly designed or misused by interest groups, Herbert Asher has updated his classic guide to “help people become wiser consumers of public opinion polls.” He offers information on the types of polls, their analysis and interpretation, their pros and cons and their role in American democracy. As he warns, “The increasingly difficult challenge for citizens will be to sort out the good from the bad and to avoid being misled and manipulated by the polls.”
Included among all the things that money can’t buy are American political elections. So says Richard L. Hasen, who writes that “the relationship between money and politics in the United States is more complicated than mere vote buying.” He adds, “Without any politician taking a single bribe, wealth has an increasingly disproportionate influence on our politics.” As he examines the problems of campaign financing, Hasen considers the role of the First Amendment, the Supreme Court and the Citizens United ruling. Arguing that money in elections reduces political equity, he proposes democratizing election funding by providing voters with publicly funded campaign finance vouchers to support their favored candidates, parties and interest groups.
Recommended by Norman Williams, Ken and Claudia Peterson Professor of Law
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FALL 2016
Used in class by Melissa Michaux, associate professor of politics
Used in class by Kelley Strawn, associate professor of sociology
Used in class by Richard Ellis, Hatfield Professor of Politics