James Madison Rules America examines congressional party legislative and electoral strategy in the context of our constitutional separation of powers. In a departure from recent books that have described Congress as "the broken branch" or the "Second Civil War," William Connelly argues that partisanship, polarization and the permanent campaign are an inevitable part of congressional politics. The strategic conundrum confronting both parties in the House of Representatives - whether to be part of the "government" or part of the "opposition" - provides evidence of how concretely James Madison's Constitution governs the behavior of politicians to this day. Drawing on a two-hundred year debate within American political thought among the Federalists, Anti-Federalists, Alexis de Tocqueville and Woodrow Wilson, James Madison Rules America is as topical as current debates over partisan polarization and the permanent campaign, while being grounded in two enduring and important schools of thought within political science: pluralism and party government.
- ISBN10 0742599655
- ISBN13 9780742599659
- Publish Date 16 June 2010 (first published 1 January 2010)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Rowman & Littlefield
- Imprint Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 350
- Language English