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Speaking of cabinet appointments hed made as governor, presidential candidate Mitt Romney famously spoke of having whole binders full of women to consider. The line was much mocked; and yet, Kaitlin Sidorsky suggests, it raises a point long overlooked in discussions of the gender gap in politics: many more women are appointed, rather than elected, to political office. Analyzing an original survey of political appointments at all levels of state government, All Roads Lead to Power offers an expanded, more nuanced view of women in politics. This book also questions the manner in which political ambition, particularly among women, is typically studied and understood.In a deep comparative analysis of appointed and elected state positions, All Roads Lead to Power highlights how the differences between being appointed or elected explain why so many more women serve in appointed offices. These women, Sidorsky finds, are not always victims of a much-cited lack of self-confidence or ambition, or of a biased political sphere. More often, they make a conscious decision to enter politics through what they believe is a far less partisan and negative entry point. Furthermore, Sidorskys research reveals that many women end up in political appointmentsat all levelsnot because they are ambitious to hold public office, but because the work connects with their personal lives or careers.With its groundbreaking research and insights into the ambitions, recruitment, and motivations of appointed officials, Sidorskys work broadens our conception of political representation and alters our understanding of how and why women pursue and achieve political power.

In recent decades Washington has seen an alarming rise in the number of revolving door lobbyistspoliticians and officials cashing in on their government experience to become influence peddlers on K Street. These lobbyists, popular wisdom suggests, sell access to the highest bidder. Revolving Door Lobbying tells a different, more nuanced story. As an insider interviewed in the book observes, where the general public has the impression that lobbyists actually get things done, I would say 90 percent of what lobbyists do is prevent harm to their client from the government.Drawing on extensive new data on lobbyists biographies and interviews with dozens of experts, authors Timothy M. LaPira and Herschel F. Thomas establish the facts of the revolving door phenomenonfacts that suggest that, contrary to widespread assumptions about insider access, special interests hire these lobbyists as political insurance against an increasingly dysfunctional, unpredictable government. With their insider experience, revolving door lobbyists offer insight into the political process, irrespective of their connections to current policymakers. What they provide to their clients is useful and marketable political risk-reduction. Exploring this claim, LaPira and Thomas present a systematic analysis of who revolving door lobbyists are, how they differ from other lobbyists, what interests they represent, and how they seek to influence public policy. The first book to marshal comprehensive evidence of revolving door lobbying, LaPira and Thomas revise the notion that lobbyists are inherently and institutionally corrupt. Rather, the authors draw a complex and sobering picture of the revolving door as a consequence of the eroding capacity of government to solve the public's problems.

In this volume, the author discusses the widely-discussed, but poorly-understood phenomenon of presidential ""lightning rods"" - administration officials who, either through intent or circumstances, divert criticism and deflect blame away from their president.

Provides an overview of American federal Inspectors General and analyzes their development and capacity to contribute to new forms of democratic legitimacy.

Specialization and coordination have presented governments with a conundrum: specialized programme might be best for delivering one service to the public, but combining such programmes for all public services inevitably produces redundancies and inefficiencies. In this book, Guy Peters brings his expertise to bear on the problem of administrative and policy coordination.

Reappraises the tumultuous history of educational progress in Chicago, revealing that the persistent lack of improvement is due not to the extent but rather the type of reform. This book chronicles how Chicago's corporate actors led, abetted, or restrained nearly every attempt to transform the city's school system.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been hailed as a triumph for civil rights and as a catalyst for the election of minorities to public office in both the Deep South and the urban North. This text examines its effect on local governance over forty years in Dallas.

"Empowering the White House" examines how Richard Nixon entered the Oval Office in 1969 and managed to change it in a way that augmented the power of presidency and continues to influence into the 21st century how his successors have governed.

Offering a case study of how the American political system operated during the 1990s and of the criminal factors underpinning the political process, this book aims to expand our understanding of a particular constitutional crisis and a dynamic that still prevails in congressional politics.

This text encourages civil servants to reflect on specific constitutional principles and events and learn to apply them to the decisions they make. It includes 20 articles which seek to legitimate public service by grounding its ethics in constitutional practice.

Professional organizations that advocate on behalf of environmental issues have become a permanent part of the American political landscape, representing 11 million members, and with 3.5 billion dollars in assets., Christopher Bosso considers how organizations that once contested the Establishment have become an establishment of their own.

Many of the basic issues of political science have been addressed by pluralist theory, which focuses on the competing interests of a democratic polity, their organization, and their influence on policy. Andrew McFarland shows that this approach still provides a promising foundation for understanding the American political process.

Compact, timely, well-researched, and balanced, this institutional history of Social Security's seventy years shows how the past still influences ongoing reform debates, helping the reader both to understand and evaluate the current partisan arguments on both sides.

In this study of clergy and politics, five social scientists tell how and why the technological orthodoxy and modernism that divides American Protestants into two camps increasingly correlates with today's political climate.

Recalling Tocqueville's exhortation for the French to ""look to America"" for a better understanding of their own government, this book reveals how much can be learned about American constitutionalism from a close study of French governance.

While environmental advocacy groups have become bigger in recent years, so have the corporate interests that compete with them for the attention of public and politicians. This study looks at environmental advocacy that focuses on contemporary lobbying, electioneering and agenda setting.

Politicians are polarized. Public opinion is volatile. Government is gridlocked. Or so journalists and pundits constantly report. But where are we, really, in modern American politics, and how did we get there? Those are the questions that Byron E. Shafer aims to answer in The American Political Pattern. Looking at the state of American politics at diverse points over the past eighty years, the book draws a picture, broad in scope yet precise in detail, of our political system in the modern era. It is a picture of stretches of political stability, but also, even more, of political change, one that goes a long way toward explaining how shifting factors alter the content of public policy and the character of American politicking.Shafer divides the modern world into four distinct periods: the High New Deal (19321938), the Late New Deal (19391968), the Era of Divided Government (19691992), and the Era of Partisan Volatility (19932016). Each period is characterized by a different arrangement of the same key factors: party balance, ideological polarization, issue conflict, and the policy-making process that goes with them.The American Political Pattern shows how these factors are in turn shaped by permanent aspects of the US Constitution, most especially the separation of powers and federalism, while their alignment is simultaneously influenced by the external demands for governmental action that arise in each period, including those derived from economic currents, major wars, and social movements. Analyzing these periods, Shafer sets the terms for understanding the structure and dynamics of politics in our own turbulent time. Placing the current political world in its historical and evolutionary framework, while illuminating major influences on American politics over time, his book explains where this modern world came from, why it endures, and how it might change yet again.

This work looks at the controversial social programme ""Aid to Families with Dependent Children"" (AFDC). It includes an examination of the role of the courts in AFDC, the rise of welfare waivers, and the failure of the Clinton welfare plan. The book also discusses how AFDC will fare in the future.

By considering key issues important to a more effective understanding and use of regulation in the future, this book makes a vital case for restoring debate about regulation's rightful role within the republic and offers hope that a better understanding of that role can help lift us out of the crisis.

As an avenue for progressive politics in a nation still skeptical of change, community organizing faces significant challenges. This book assesses that activity within the context of political, cultural, social, and economic changes in cities - from World War II onwards - to show how community-based organizations have responded.

Drawing on a sample of ten cities, Elaine Sharp explains how municipalities respond to sex business, abortion clinics, legalized gambling, gay rights and drug use. Analyzing the relative importance of subculture, economics, and institutional arrangements in the disputes, she offers an understanding of how cities respond differently to these issues.

Why do most neighbourhoods in the United States continue to be racially divided? In this work, author Mara Sidney offers a fresh explanation for the persistent colour lines in America's cities by showing how weak national policy has silenced and splintered grassroots activists.

With the collapse of national health care reform efforts in the early 1990s, states emerged as a focal point for new policy and administrative developments in US health care. This work provides an overview of key issues facing states as they have responded to this challenge.

This work tells the story of how cultural politics and economic greed transformed the New York's physical and social environment with an ongoing multibillion-dollar redevelopment programme, changing the district from a symbol of urban decay to one of urban renaissance.

This text examines the factors that shape, reinforce or undermine reform efforts in urban education. It proposes that the barrier to reform can only be overcome by understanding how schools fit into the broader political contexts of their cities.

This text examines the factors that shape, reinforce or undermine reform efforts in urban education. It proposes that the barrier to reform can only be overcome by understanding how schools fit into the broader political contexts of their cities.

This study provides a history of presidential reorganization in the 20th century, from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton. The author highlights the century-long efforts of presidents to consolidate and expand their roles and powers within American government.

This text examines the origins, legitimacy and limitations of public administration from the perspective of the American Founders' thought. It shows that these men advocated an energetic public administration as an essential component of government.

This analysis of urban neighbourhoods in the United States from 1960 to 1995 presents 15 original essays by scholars of urban planning and development. Together they show how urban neighbourhoods can and must be preserved as economic, cultural and political centres.

This study of how the American Congress communicates shows that although at any one time there are relatively few in Congress undertaking extensive searches for information, the collective base of information generated by all searches is unexpectedly comprehensive. Practical examples are included.