CWRU Faculty Authors

"Well-written and richly detailed, Ohio Politics offers interesting and informative anecdotes and a valuable study for the specialist as well as the non-specialist in search of a reference tool. . . . This fine volume will captivate readers of diverse interests and, indeed, contribute to enlightened government in the Buckeye State." -- Northwest Ohio Quarterly "This is the first comprehensive survey of the states' major political events since 1944."-- Echoes, Ohio Historical Society "A fascinating story of executive power and party politics in the Buckeye State." --CHOICE When first published in 1994, Ohio Politics was defined as the first comprehensive survey of the state's post-World War II politics. A collaborative effort by a team of journalists and political scientists, this collection examines the major political events in Ohio since 1944 and provides insight into the state's key personalities, institutions, and processes. This revised and updated edition continues the survey from 1994 through the Taft years and the 2006 gubernatorial elections. Contributing authors explore the state's recent political history and the diverse and often highly contentious political struggles in the years since 1944 and analyze in depth the state's legislative, executive, and judicial branches, as well as their leaders. Additionally, contributors explore interest groups, elections, political parties, the news media, Ohio's representation in Congress, and state politics in historical perspective. In this revised edition, Ohio Politics serves as the study of Ohio's rich and lively political history.

During the 1990s, the Republican party surged to majority status in the South after two decades of struggling unevenly to become established in the formerly one-party Democratic section of the country. In this comprehensive, up-to-date study, seasoned observers tell the fascinating story of the GOP's remarkable advance at the regional level and in each of the eleven states of the former Confederacy, effectively capturing the current partisan dynamics at work throughout Dixie. In Southern Politics in the 1990s eleven teams of political scientists and journalists--all of them long-time observers of the political scene in their own states--offer individual chapters that closely examine partisan and electoral developments in each southern state. Alexander P. Lamis frames the state discussions with introductory and concluding chapters that highlight the evolution of the two-party South and the political transformation the region as a whole underwent during the decade of the 1990s. Together, the authors show that the amazing Republican spurt was fueled by many factors, including the ongoing entrenchment of the partisan competition begun three decades earlier; the national Republican sweep of 1994 that affected all regions of the country equally; and the successful efforts of Republicans to paint the Democrats as hopelessly mired in a corrupt political system and themselves as untainted reformers who represent the future. However, as the separate state chapters illustrate, the pace of change differed from state to state. For example, South Carolina was an early Dixie leader in the GOP's growth in the 1990s, but Arkansas caught the wave only in the middle of the decade. Offering in-depth political analysis on both the state and the regional level, Southern Politics in the 1990s reveals that the 1990s revolution in southern politics gave the country, for the first time since the 1850s, a truly national party system. The book will prove essential to anyone interested in southern politics at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

As late as 1960, political life in the Southern states was dominated by a Democratic party seeking to preserve white supremacy. When national Democrats abandoned the Southern cause and vigorously advocated equal rights for blacks, the solidly Democratic South crumbled and gave way to the two-party system that remains in place today. In this expanded edition, Lamis explains how this transformation occurred, offering a state-by-state analysis as well as overview chapters that chart regional and national trends; new chapters discuss the 1984 and 1986 elections, and the prospects for 1988 and beyond.