Mass Conservatism


Book Description

The Conservatives have been the most successful party in British politics since the arrival of a mass electorate following the Reform Acts of 1885 and 1918. Although identified with the elite, the Conservatives have consistently been able to mobilize a mass popular support. This has involved more than just a narrow defence of privilege and property, or negative anti-socialism. The essays in this volume explore the relationship between the Conservative Party and the mass of the British people from the 1880s to the Thatcher and Major era. Several focus on the party's sources of support and the ways in which it has sought to broaden these through shifts in policies, presentation and organization. A second theme of the book is the response the Conservatives have found amongst the masses. Studies in this area consider the Tory appeal to particular groups in British society, both regionally and socially. Whereas histories of the Conservative Party have dealt with these issues in general terms, the essays in this volume draw upon fresh research of primary sources, and break new ground in an area that has been neglected for many years.




Prison Break


Book Description

American conservatism rose hand-in-hand with the growth of mass incarceration. For decades, conservatives deployed "tough on crime" rhetoric to attack liberals as out-of-touch elitists who coddled criminals while the nation spiraled toward disorder. As a result, conservatives have been the motive force in building our vast prison system. Indeed, expanding the number of Americans under lock and key was long a point of pride for politicians on the right - even as the U.S. prison population eclipsed international records. Over the last few years, conservatives in Washington, D.C. and in bright-red states like Georgia and Texas, have reversed course, and are now leading the charge to curb prison growth. In Prison Break, David Dagan and Steve Teles explain how this striking turn of events occurred, how it will affect mass incarceration, and what it teaches us about achieving policy breakthroughs in our polarized age. Combining insights from law, sociology, and political science, Teles and Dagan will offer the first comprehensive account of this major political shift. In a challenge to the conventional wisdom, they argue that the fiscal pressures brought on by recession are only a small part of the explanation for the conservatives' shift, over-shadowed by Republicans' increasing anti-statism, the waning efficacy of "tough on crime" politics and the increasing engagement of evangelicals. These forces set the stage for a small cadre of conservative leaders to reframe criminal justice in terms of redeeming wayward souls and rolling back government. These developments have created the potential to significantly reduce mass incarceration, but only if reformers on both the right and the left play their cards right. As Dagan and Teles stress, there is also a broader lesson in this story about the conditions for cross-party cooperation in our polarized age. Partisan identity, they argue, generally precedes position-taking, and policy breakthroughs are unlikely to come by "reaching across the aisle," promoting "compromise," or appealing to "expert opinion." Instead, change happens when political movements redefine their own orthodoxies for their own reasons. As Dagan and Teles show, outsiders can assist in this process - and they played a crucial role in the case of criminal justice - but they cannot manufacture it. This book will not only reshape our understanding of conservatism and American penal policy, but also force us to reconsider the drivers of policy innovation in the context of American politics.




Mass Conservatism


Book Description

The papers that comprise this volume reveal how people are intent on preserving not only their wealth but culture too. The individual contributions identify the key arguments used to coax voters, whose natural sympathies might gravitate to the left, to vote for the Conservative Party en masse.




Weapons of Mass Distortion


Book Description

A founder and president of the Media Research Center, a top media watchdog organization, analyzes the prevalence of today's liberal media bias, identifying the ways in which major news outlets distort the news and manipulate the national agenda, and predicting a downfall in liberal media power. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.







American Conservatism


Book Description

“A must-own title.” —National Review Online American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive reference volume to cover what is surely the most influential political and intellectual movement of the past half century. More than fifteen years in the making—and more than half a million words in length—this informative and entertaining encyclopedia contains substantive entries on those persons, events, organizations, and concepts of major importance to postwar American conservatism. Its contributors include iconic patriarchs of the conservative and libertarian movements, celebrated scholars, well-known authors, and influential movement activists and leaders. Ranging from “abortion” to “Zoll, Donald Atwell,” and written from viewpoints as various as those which have informed the postwar conservative movement itself, the encyclopedia’s more than 600 entries will orient readers of all kinds to the people and ideas that have given shape to contemporary American conservatism. This long-awaited volume is not to be missed.




Progressiveness and Conservatism


Book Description

No detailed description available for "Progressiveness and Conservatism".




The Other School Reformers


Book Description

The idea that American education has been steered by progressivism is accepted as fact by liberals and conservatives alike. Adam Laats shows that this belief is wrong. Calling to center stage conservatives who shaped America’s classrooms, he shows that in the long march of American public education, progressive reform has been a beleaguered dream.




Dynamic Democracy


Book Description

A new perspective on policy responsiveness in American government. Scholars of American politics have long been skeptical of ordinary citizens’ capacity to influence, let alone control, their governments. Drawing on over eight decades of state-level evidence on public opinion, elections, and policymaking, Devin Caughey and Christopher Warshaw pose a powerful challenge to this pessimistic view. Their research reveals that although American democracy cannot be taken for granted, state policymaking is far more responsive to citizens’ demands than skeptics claim. Although governments respond sluggishly in the short term, over the long term, electoral incentives induce state parties and politicians—and ultimately policymaking—to adapt to voters’ preferences The authors take an empirical and theoretical approach that allows them to assess democracy as a dynamic process. Their evidence across states and over time gives them new leverage to assess relevant outcomes and trends, including the evolution of mass partisanship, mass ideology, and the relationship between partisanship and ideology since the mid-twentieth century; the nationalization of state-level politics; the mechanisms through which voters hold incumbents accountable; the performance of moderate candidates relative to extreme candidates; and the quality of state-level democracy today relative to state-level democracy in other periods.




The Brief and Turbulent Life of Modernising Conservatism


Book Description

The Brief and Turbulent Life of Modernising Conservatism is an examination of government tensions and frustrations during a time of economic and social flux. It concentrates on the development of domestic industrial policy in the Conservative Party between 1945 and 1964, with particular emphasis on Harold Macmillan’s and Sir Alec Douglas-Home’s administrations. Between the general elections of 1959 and 1964, the Conservative Government effected a series of striking and dangerously controversial policy transformations in response to its recognition of Britain’s relative economic decline. These adjustments were both practical and strategic. The administration’s aim was extraordinarily ambitious. It sought to fashion a recognisably modern and dynamic, yet socially stable, nation that could retain its place in the international élite. Thereby, the Party hoped to ensure its own continuation in power. The author considers policy innovations that included an ill-starred attempt to join the European Community, the development of macro-economic planning, and the abolition of resale price maintenance–an exploit which roused the Tory Party to unusual heights of passion. The book does not simply regurgitate an orthodox high political narrative. Instead, it investigates topics of interest to modern historians and political scientists alike. It will be of value to anyone interested in questions of modern political ideology, social and economic change, the nature of popular political support, or the constraints on state power in the post-war world.




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