Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age argues that late nineteenth-century US fiction grapples with and helps to conceptualize the disagreeable feelings that are both a threat to citizens' agency and an inescapable part of the emotional life of democracy--then as now. In detailing the corruption and venality for which the period remains known, authors including Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Adams, and Helen Hunt Jackson evoked the depressing inefficacy of reform, the lunatic passions of the mob, and the revolting appetites of lobbyists and office seekers. Readers and critics of these Washington novels, historical romances, and satiric romans a clef have denounced these books' fiercely negative tone, seeing it as a sign of cynicism and elitism. Not Quite Hope argues, in contrast, that their distrust of politics is coupled with an intense investment in it: not quite apathy, but not quite hope. Chapters examine both common and idiosyncratic forms of political emotion, including 'crazy love', disgust, cynicism, 'election fatigue', and the myriad feelings of hatred and suspicion provoked by the figure of the hypocrite. In so doing, the book corrects critics' too-narrow focus on 'sympathy' as the American novel's model political emotion. We think of reform novels as fostering feeling for fellow citizens or for specific causes. This volume argues that Gilded Age fiction refocuses attention on the unstable emotions that continue to shape our relation to politics as such.

Jamieson and Cappella examine how the media cover political campaigns and significant legislation. They conclude that by focusing on the game rather than the substance the media are engendering cynicism amongst the general public.

The Republican Party is the vehicle of an ideological movement whereas the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups with concrete policy concerns. Democrats prefer a more moderate party leadership that makes compromises, whereas Republicans favor a more conservative party leadership that sticks to principles. Each party finds popular support for its approach because the American public simultaneously favors liberal positions on specific policy issues and conservative views on the broader role of government.

Now updated to include Trump's election and the rise of global populism, Corey Robin's 'The Reactionary Mind' traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution.

Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in elected office proved so persistent? Many researchers have asserted that the main shortfall happens at the candidacy stage--women and people of color are competitive candidates, but too few throw their hat into the ring. However, these studies are animated by two assumptions that tend to speak past each other. On the one hand, gender and politics scholars often suggest that women lack sufficient ambition to run for office relative to men. On the other hand, race and politics scholars have suggested that districts with majority white populations do not provide adequate resources or opportunities for minority candidates to succeed. These approaches tend to treat women and racial minorities as parallel social groups, and fail to account for the ways in which race and gender simultaneously shape candidacy. Nowhere to Run introduces the intersectional model of electoral opportunity, which argues that descriptive representation in elections is shaped by intersecting processes related to race and gender. Across states, realistic opportunities for potential candidates of color to get on state legislative ballots are sharply circumscribed by the distribution of white majority populations in most districts; and within the districts that are most widely viewed as winnable seats--majority minority districts--the perceived scarcity of viable electoral opportunities exacerbates factors that tend to push women of color farther from the candidate pipeline. These overlapping constraints result in an electoral landscape where women of color face constraints on electoral opportunity that are intersecting and multilayered. Drawing on an original dataset encompassing nearly every state legislative general election from 1996-2015, as well as interviews and surveys with candidates, donors, and other political elites from 42 states, Nowhere to Run tests this theory with a first of its kind study of Asian American and Latina/o candidacies, and the first simultaneous look at the relationship between changing populations and descriptive representation for African American, Asian American, Latina/o, and white women and men. The book sheds new light on how multiple dimensions of identity simultaneously shape pathways to candidacy and representation for all groups seeking a seat at the table in American politics.

Did digital media really "cause" the Arab Spring, or is it an important factor of the story behind what might become democracy's fourth wave? An unlikely network of citizens used digital media to start a cascade of social protest that ultimately toppled four of the world's most entrenched dictators. Howard and Hussain find that the complex causal recipe includes several economic, political and cultural factors, but that digital media is consistently one of the most important sufficient and necessary conditions for explaining both the fragility of regimes and the success of social movements. This book looks at not only the unexpected evolution of events during the Arab Spring, but the deeper history of creative digital activism throughout the region.

Since the start of the twenty-first century, the political mainstream has been shifting to the right. The liberal orthodoxy that took hold in the West as a reaction to the Second World War is breaking down. In Europe, populist political parties have pulled the mainstream in their direction; in America, a series of challenges to the Republican mainstream culminated in the 2016 election of Donald Trump. In Key Thinkers of the Radical Right, sixteen expert scholars explain sixteen thinkers, providing an introduction to their life and work, a guide to their thought, and an explanation of their work's reception. The chapters focus on thinkers who are widely read across the political right in both Europe and America, such as Julius Evola, Alain de Benoist, and Richard B. Spencer. Featuring classic, modern, and emerging thinkers, this selection provides a good representation of the intellectual right and avoids making political or value judgments. In an increasingly polarized political environment, Key Thinkers of the Radical Right offers a comprehensive and unbiased introduction to the thinkers who form the foundation of the radical right.