Process, Participation, and Power in State Legislatures
Based on a leading scholar's firsthand observations of legislatures as well as extensive interviews with legislators, legislative staff, and lobbyists, this important work describes and analyzes the contemporary state of legislatures and the legislative process in the fifty states. It explores the principal elements of legislatures, including the processes by which legislation is enacted, the impact of the media, political competition and partisanship, lobbyists and lobbying, the challenge of ethics, the role of leadership, and the linkage between legislators and their constituencies.Thematically, Alan Rosenthal argues that despite the popular perception that legislatures are autocratic, arbitrary, isolated, unresponsive, and up for sale, legislatures are, in fact, extraordinarily democratic and becoming more so. He concludes, furthermore, that the dangers to representative democracy today are substantial. The Decline of Representative Democracy builds on the growing literature in state politics and state legislatures. It also relies on the author's participant-observer research, interviews conducted especially for this book, and his years in the field. Many illustrative examples help to clarify the theoretical points made throughout the book, which in turn provide provocative sources of debate for students of the legislative process.
"My worst day as governor was better than my best day as a United States senator." -Former Governor Tim Carper (D-DE, 1993-2001) Governors-both in, and now out of, office-see the job as the best in politics. Why is that? Drawing on a survey of former governors, personal interviews, as well as gubernatorial memoirs and biographies, Rosenthal shows students how and why governors succeed as policy leaders and makes a case as to why some governors are better at leveraging the institutional advantages of the office.
The book, which has drawn praise for its inviting and accessible style, thoroughly examines the lobbying scene: the settings in which lobbying takes place, the types and styles of lobbyists, the broad range of approaches and techniques used by lobbyists, and the role and influence of lobbying in our system of representative democracy. A favorite among professors and students alike, The Third House is a great choice as a supplement for courses on state politics or interest groups.
State legislators have often been in the shadow of their national counterparts, but they drive the processes of democracy. Rosenthal brings together a lifetime of research and experience on state legislative politics into one eminently readable volume-a dynamic, inside view of the people involved, the politics that prevail, and the interest groups and lobbyists who advocate their causes. Building on earlier work with new data and recent interviews and observations, Rosenthal looks at the way representation works, Americans' critical view of their legislatures, the role of legislative leaders, the dynamics of executive-legislative relationships, as well as norms and ethics. Both a complement and contrast to the policymaking process on Capitol Hill, Engines of Democracy proves that no one gives insight into state legislators and their work the way Alan Rosenthal can.
Elie Wiesel is an internationally known author, human rights advocate, and lecturer. Night, his first book (1956 in Yiddish, 1958 in French, 1960 in English; a new English translation appeared in 2006), has become a classic memoir of a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. The seventeen essays of this volume in the MLA series Approaches to Teaching ......
What makes for a "good" legislature? In Heavy Lifting, Alan Rosenthal traveled to five states, interviewing and shadowing legislators to find out the answer. Through this engaging narrative, the author first establishes the most important aspects of American state legislatures--what they are and how they do their jobs--and then graduates to the book's central thesis: Rosenthal argues that, on the whole, the American legislature must be evaluated on the basis of its processes, not its products. He breaks down the legislative process into three principal functions: representing, lawmaking, and balancing the executive, and covers each in turn in the remainder of the book.
Despite all the arguing from politicians, special interests, and political parties, Americans basically agree on the most important political issues. If only our legislators would stop fighting over obtuse policy details and really listen to what ordinary Americans want, representatives on Capitol Hill and in the statehouses would actually get something done, right? Wrong. Americans perceive consensus when in reality there is none. The fact of the matter is Americans not only disagree on the most significant challenges facing the country, but also conflict on what to do about them. On issue after issue-crime, Social Security, homosexual rights, military intervention, abortion-the American public is deeply divided over the proper course of action. Yet our system is not flawed by this division; democracy is necessarily complex and contentious. In truth, without these messy and chaotic features of governance, our system would not be working as the Founders envisioned. In lucid and lively prose, the authors lay out criteria with which to assess our representative system. By showing students what democracy entails in practice-the in's and out's of legislators actually doing their jobs-they will come to see that uncertainty, competing interests, confusion, bargaining, compromise, and conflict are central to the proper functioning of our democracy.
A chorus of voices that both challenges and reaffirms the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, this title asks urgent questions - about the politics of psychoanalytic knowledge, and about how the profession is situated and operates in our culture.
In this text, the moral, ethical, aesthetic and communicative problems of documentary film-making are explored through knowledge and experience in the field, studio, editing room, theatre and television. This revised edition increases the discussion of video, adds a new chapter on fundraising and international marketing, provides more writing ......
