Why Washington Won't Work
Title | Why Washington Won't Work PDF eBook |
Author | Marc J. Hetherington |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 278 |
Release | 2015-09-14 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 022629935X |
Polarization is at an all-time high in the United States. But contrary to popular belief, Americans are polarized not so much in their policy preferences as in their feelings toward their political opponents: To an unprecedented degree, Republicans and Democrats simply do not like one another. No surprise that these deeply held negative feelings are central to the recent (also unprecedented) plunge in congressional productivity. The past three Congresses have gotten less done than any since scholars began measuring congressional productivity. In Why Washington Won’t Work, Marc J. Hetherington and Thomas J. Rudolph argue that a contemporary crisis of trust—people whose party is out of power have almost no trust in a government run by the other side—has deadlocked Congress. On most issues, party leaders can convince their own party to support their positions. In order to pass legislation, however, they must also create consensus by persuading some portion of the opposing party to trust in their vision for the future. Without trust, consensus fails to develop and compromise does not occur. Up until recently, such trust could still usually be found among the opposition, but not anymore. Political trust, the authors show, is far from a stable characteristic. It’s actually highly variable and contingent on a variety of factors, including whether one’s party is in control, which part of the government one is dealing with, and which policies or events are most salient at the moment. Political trust increases, for example, when the public is concerned with foreign policy—as in times of war—and it decreases in periods of weak economic performance. Hetherington and Rudolph do offer some suggestions about steps politicians and the public might take to increase political trust. Ultimately, however, they conclude that it is unlikely levels of political trust will significantly increase unless foreign concerns come to dominate and the economy is consistently strong.
Democracy and Trust
Title | Democracy and Trust PDF eBook |
Author | Mark E. Warren |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 386 |
Release | 1999-10-28 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 9780521646871 |
Explores the implications for democracy of declining trust in government and between individuals.
Why People Don’t Trust Government
Title | Why People Don’t Trust Government PDF eBook |
Author | Joseph S. Nye |
Publisher | Harvard University Press |
Pages | 354 |
Release | 1997-10-05 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 9780674940574 |
Confidence in American government has been declining for three decades. Leading Harvard scholars here explore the roots of this mistrust by examining the government's current scope, its actual performance, citizens' perceptions of its performance, and explanations that have been offered for the decline of trust.
Trust and Rule
Title | Trust and Rule PDF eBook |
Author | Charles Tilly |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 224 |
Release | 2005-07-25 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 9781139460132 |
Rightly fearing that unscrupulous rulers would break them up, seize their resources, or submit them to damaging forms of intervention, strong networks of trust such as kinship groups, clandestine religious sects, and trade diasporas have historically insulated themselves from political control by a variety of strategies. Drawing on a vast range of comparisons over time and space, Trust and Rule, first published in 2005, asks and answers how and with what consequences members of trust networks have evaded, compromised with, or even sought connections with political regimes. Since different forms of integration between trust networks produce authoritarian, theocratic, and democratic regimes, the book provides an essential background to the explanation of democratization and de-democratization.
Handbook on Political Trust
Title | Handbook on Political Trust PDF eBook |
Author | Sonja Zmerli |
Publisher | Edward Elgar Publishing |
Pages | 561 |
Release | 2017-01-27 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1782545115 |
Political trust – in government, parliament, or political parties – has taken centre stage in political science for more than half a century, reflecting ongoing concerns with the legitimacy and functioning of representative democracy. To provide scholars, students and policy makers with a tool to navigate through the complexity of causes and consequences of political trust, this Handbook offers an excellent overview of the conceptual, theoretical, methodological and empirical state of the art, complemented by accounts of regional particularities, and authored by international experts in this field.
Trust, but Verify
Title | Trust, but Verify PDF eBook |
Author | Martin Klimke |
Publisher | Stanford University Press |
Pages | 328 |
Release | 2016-11-01 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1503600130 |
Trust, but Verify uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The contributors to this volume look at how the "emotional" side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.
Can Governments Earn Our Trust?
Title | Can Governments Earn Our Trust? PDF eBook |
Author | Donald F. Kettl |
Publisher | John Wiley & Sons |
Pages | 144 |
Release | 2017-08-07 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1509522492 |
Some analysts have called distrust the biggest governmental crisis of our time. It is unquestionably a huge problem, undermining confidence in our elected institutions, shrinking social capital, slowing innovation, and raising existential questions for democratic government itself. What’s behind the rising distrust in democracies around the world and can we do anything about it? In this lively and thought-provoking essay, Donald F. Kettl, a leading scholar of public policy and management, investigates the deep historical roots of distrust in government, exploring its effects on the social contract between citizens and their elected representatives. Most importantly, the book examines the strategies that present-day governments can follow to earn back our trust, so that the officials we elect can govern more effectively on our behalf.