John Kenneth White

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency marked a conclusive end to the Reagan era, writes John Kenneth White in Barack Obama's America. Reagan symbolized a 1950s and 1960s America, largely white and suburban, with married couples and kids at home, who attended church more often than not. Obama's election marked a new era, the author writes. Whites will be a minority by 2042. Marriage is at an all-time low. Cohabitation has increased from a half-million couples in 1960 to more than 5 million in 2000 to even more this year. Gay marriages and civil unions are redefining what it means to be a family. And organized religions are suffering, even as Americans continue to think of themselves as a religious people. Obama's inauguration was a defining moment in the political destiny of this country, based largely on demographic shifts, as described in Barack Obama's America.

"The diversity of contributions--from historians, political scientists, sociologists, and a pollster--distinguish The American Dream in the 21st Century from many other books on the topic. The multi-disciplinary focus is especially useful, as chapters provide cultural interpretations of Americans' attitudes toward the American Dream through the lenses of race, gender, religion and ethics."--Arne L. Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once commented that "in times of great political change and rapid political transition it will generally be observed that political parties find it convenient to rebaptize themselves." Fifty years after the publication of E.E. Schattschneider's Party Government and forty-two years after the publication of Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System, distinguished scholars including Everett Carll Ladd, Wilson Carey McWilliams, John S. Jackson III, Sidney M. Milkis, and scholar-congressmen David E. Price (D-NC) and William M. Thomas (R-CA) reevaluate the long-standing assumptions that surround the "responsible parties" argument. In this collection of essays edited by John Kenneth White and Jerome M. Mileur, contributors voice their perspectives on the challenges confronting the party system of government in the United States. Elections in which the party system fails to frame issues satisfactorily and the rise of an American state without the helping hand of parties to run it have all contributed to a political crisis of confidence in party government. Indeed, White recently termed Ross Perot's candidacy a "wake-up call" for Democrats and Republicans. Still, while their analysis of current party government acknowledges problems, these authors favor a resurgence of the party system, arguing that political parties are the indispensable instruments of communication between our country's voters and their elected officials. For those political scientists, elected officials, and voters who share their wish, immersing these once grand institutions into the "born-again" waters of a Disraeli-type baptism remains the single most important challenge of the decade ahead.

With the passage of the Cold War, political parties in nearly every corner of the globe have undergone a vast upheaval. Political Parties and the Collapse of the Old Orders describes these changes using several countries as laboratories: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Israel, South Africa, and Russia. In this "new world order," the old political arrangements and old ways of doing things have disappeared. The altered states of political parties in the post-Cold War world pose a central question: what does change look like? The answers given here illuminate our understanding of why the world has changed and how political parties are attempting to cope with it.

"This collection addresses the importance of ideas, and ideas of importance, to American politics at the beginning of a new century. On the one hand, the contributors find a distressing absence of ideas in American politics and a parallel rise of the power of political identities, interests, and other detrimental influences. On the other hand, many of the ideas that are present are superficial and unproductive. The contributors debate the role of the major political parties in developing and promoting better ideas to reenergize American politics in the next century, and address the search for a workable public philosophy, party responsibility, party policy among Republicans and Democrats, and democratic citizenship."--BOOK JACKET.