Two Political Sciences Or One? Liberal Arts Political Science As A Disciplinary Partner

This essay sketches the ways that the practices of political science at top R1 institutions and at leading liberal arts colleges differ. But one also can see the two practices as partners in a common enterprise of making political science rigorous, relevant, and clear. This article outlines such a collaboration

Review Of Capitol Men: The Epic Story Of Reconstruction Through The Lives Of The First Black Congressmen By P. Dray

With complete narrative control Dray also locates the public history of Reconstruction\u27s openness to both black and white male political ambition against the counterpoint of white conspiracy and violence that, like termites, ate away at the foundation of the new era. [...] Dray does a fine job of carrying the stories past the Compromise of 1877, treating the Exodusters, the post-Reconstruction black congressmen, such as George H. White of North Carolina, and the final days of the men whose lives he chronicles

How Suffrage Politics Made—And Makes—America

Most Americans believe that the franchise has steadily and gradually expanded since the Founding. In fact “suffrage politics” has been far more complex and disjointed. This contribution develops a party-centered approach that identifies several types of enfranchisement and disenfranchisement, as well as suffrage regimes–that is, bundles of institutions and election law that are meant to buttress allocations of voting rights. This party-centered approach allows one to grasp that America’s struggles over the right to vote are, in cross-national perspective, not just unusual but highly unusual, and have been a central force in American political development