Representative Democracy

Ballard C. Campbell

Published by Harvard University Press 2013

Representative Democracy

Public Policy and Midwestern Legislatures in the Late Nineteenth Century

Ballard C. Campbell

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674732049

Overview
Contents

About this book

The rise of an immensely powerful federal government in the twentieth century has tended to obscure the importance of state and local government in American history. Yet government at these lesser levels had the most direct and continuous effect on the lives of ordinary citizens. Through an analysis of late-nineteenth-century state legislatures in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, Ballard Campbell has written what one expert has called "the best book on legislative politics, past or present." The period he examines was one of rapid change and great challenge. Urbanization, industrialization, and increasing national integration forced innumerable difficult and important decisions on state legislators. Campbell is sensitive to these stresses on law-making, and skillfully analyzes the interplay between personal and constituent factors that affected lawmakers.

The author differentiates clearly between local and general aspects of state policymaking, giving full consideration to its more subjective and idiosyncratic elements. His comparison of partisan, economic, urban, ethnocultural, and regional influences on legislative behavior will serve as a model for all future studies.

By closely examining the substantive dimension of the governmental process and its relation to mass politics, Representative Democracy advances "the new political history." Campbell's discussion of legislative composition and procedure, the content and context of contested issues, and responses to these issues challenges numerous stereotypes about American state legislatures.

Frontmatter Accessible Download PDF	i
PREFACE Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	v
CONTENTS Accessible Download PDF	ix
TABLES Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	x
1. INTRODUCTION Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	1
2. Electing Representatives Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	9
3. The Lawmakers and Lawmaking Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	31
4. The Contested Issues Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	54
5. Party Voting Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	79
6. Legislating Community Mores Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	98
7. Ethnicity and Dimensions of Legislative Voting Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	122
8. Economic Policy Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	150
9. The Issues of Government and the Roots of Partisanship Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	175
10. Legislative Democracy in the Late Nineteenth Century Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	194
Appendix on Sources and Methods Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	205
Notes Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	219
Index Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	257

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Edition: Reprint 2013
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 260
Illustrations
- Tables: 24
- Other: 24 tables
Keywords: Legislative bodies -- Middle West -- Voting -- History.; Middle West -- Politics and government.; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / General; POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / Legislative Branch; HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI)

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674732049

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1980
ISBN: 9780674732032