|
Also Recommended
|
|
|
A Very Short Introduction
L. Sandy Maisel
£7.99
|
|
|
|
|
A Very Short Introduction
Charles O. Jones
£7.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ayn Rand and the American Right
Jennifer Burns
£11.99
|
|
|
|
|
The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson
288 pages
|
234x156mm
978-0-19-983263-7
|
Hardback
|
22 March 2012
|
|
|
|
|
- The first book to present a three-dimensional picture of the Tea Party: what its members believe, what they do, and how their activities are changing American politics
- Combines an exploration of the ideas that motivate the Tea Party with the colorful story of its operations as a grassroots movement
- Includes the vivid testimony of Tea Partiers, drawn from hundreds of original interviews.
Shortly after the Democrats' resounding victory in 2008, many prognosticators envisioned an enduring Democratic majority. As conventional wisdom had it, the Republican Party would be hamstrung by its far right wing, particularly in the wake of the financial crisis and the failures of the Bush presidency. Republicans, so the thinking went, would need to rediscover the center and cater to it. However, this is not what happened. Shortly after Obama took office and proposed bold new legislation that expanded the scope of federal power, a grassroots conservative movement spread like wildfire through the prairies: the Tea Party
Movement.
In this sharp analysis of the Tea Party, Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson combine finely grained portraits of local Tea Party chapters with a big-picture analysis of the larger movement's rise and likely fate. After explaining the movement's demographic makeup as well as the organization and operation of local chapters, Skocpol and Williamson explore their belief system. Drawing from extensive interviews with Massachusetts and Virginia chapters, they found that while Tea Partiers profess to hate government, they are generally supportive of programs that working people pay into like Social Security and Medicare. They reserve their hostility for programs that fund the 'undeserving,' which puts the movement squarely in line with the long tradition of
postwar American conservatism. Perhaps most interestingly, they have found that the movement resents illegal immigration more than any other social or economic phenomenon—even in places like Massachusetts, which is not a gateway for undocumented aliens.
The authors take their story through the 2010 Congressional elections and assess what the Tea Party's strength means for both the Republican Party and the Conservative movement in the future. Much of what the Tea Party supports cuts against other Republican commitments, like the elites' commitment to cutting social security and expanding free trade, so the movement's successes will generate new fissures. Also, the ongoing attempt by the national Republican Party to co-opt the movement will probably lead to
contradictions and conflict. That said, they are a powerful new social movement in American politics—more powerful than most foresaw when they initially burst on the scene—and they will play an important role in conservatism for the foreseeable future.Readership: Readers of TIME, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other major periodicals. Students and scholars of U.S. Politics and Political Science.
|
|
|
Theda Skocpol, Professor of Government and Sociology, Harvard University, and Vanessa Williamson, Ph.D. Student, Harvard University Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and past president of the American Political Science Association.
Vanessa Williamson is a Ph.D. student in Government at Harvard University, who has done in-depth ethnographic and interview research on Tea Party activists.
|
|
|
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: "I Want My Country Back!"
1. Behind the Costumes and Signs: Who are the Tea Partiers?
2. What They Believe: The Ideas and Passions of Tea Partiers
3. Mobilized Grassroots and Roving Billionaires: The Panoply of Tea Party Organizations
4. Getting the Word Out: The Media as Cheerleader and Megaphone
5. How the Tea Party Boosts the GOP and Prods It Rightward
6. The Tea Party and American Democracy
|
|
|
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
|
