Politicians and pundits alike have complained that the divided governments of the last decades have led to legislative gridlock. Not so, argues Keith Krehbiel, who advances the provocative theory that divided government actually has little effect on legislative productivity. Gridlock is in fact the order of the day, occurring even when the same party controls the legislative and executive branches. Meticulously researched and anchored to real politics, Krehbiel argues that the pivotal vote on a piece of legislation is not the one that gives a bill a simple majority, but the vote that allows its supporters to override a possible presidential veto or to put a halt to a filibuster. This theory of pivots also explains why, when bills are passed, winning coalitions usually are bipartisan and supermajority sized. Offering an incisive account of when gridlock is overcome and showing that political parties are less important in legislative-executive politics than previously thought, Pivotal Politics remakes our understanding of American lawmaking.

Politicians and pundits alike have complained that the divided governments of the last decades have led to legislative gridlock. Not so, argues Keith Krehbiel, who advances the provocative theory that divided government actually has little effect on legislative productivity. Gridlock is in fact the order of the day, occurring even when the same party controls the legislative and executive branches. Meticulously researched and anchored to real politics, Krehbiel argues that the pivotal vote on a piece of legislation is not the one that gives a bill a simple majority, but the vote that allows its supporters to override a possible presidential veto or to put a halt to a filibuster. This theory of pivots also explains why, when bills are passed, winning coalitions usually are bipartisan and supermajority sized. Offering an incisive account of when gridlock is overcome and showing that political parties are less important in legislative-executive politics than previously thought, Pivotal Politics remakes our understanding of American lawmaking.

This investigation of Kierkegaard as a political thinker with regard to the Danish context, and to his place in the history of political thought, deals with the more direct discussion of politics in Kierkegaard, and the ways in which political ideas are embedded in his literary, aesthetic, ethical, philosophical ,and religious thought.

"When all too many so-called experts see things as they wish they were, Charles Wolf analyze facts to provide genuine insights into the past, present and future. This makes him an invaluable source for anyone who seeks to understand economic, political and security issues and trends."--Karen Elliott House, Wall Street JournalWolf's most probing essays, spanning several subjects appears here.

The Economic Pivot in a Political Context, by Charles Wolf, Jr., explains how iron curtains have been replaced by porous ones in the post-cold war era. New countries, multilateral organizations, regional and subregional groups, multinational corporations, international business alliances, and financial networks have made the global arena ever more complex. As seen in the cases of Haiti, Iraq, and Chechnya, rapid change and a less predictable atmosphere generate an ever-present threat of volatility. Openness to global, continuous flows of information, trade, capital, technology, and people continues to blur our borders. Simultaneously, a postmodern preoccupation with domestic, social, political, and economic affairs is taking shape