Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the 1970s, the United States experienced a vast expansion in national policy making. During this period, the federal government extended its scope into policy arenas previously left to civil society or state and local governments. With The Great Broadening, Bryan D. Jones, Sean M. Theriault, and Michelle Whyman examine in detail the causes, internal dynamics, and consequences of this extended burst of activity. They argue that the broadening of government responsibilities into new policy areas such as health care, civil rights, and gender issues and the increasing depth of existing government programs explain many of the changes in America politics since the 1970s. Increasing government attention to particular issues was motivated by activist groups. In turn, the beneficiaries of the government policies that resulted became supporters of the government’s activity, leading to the broad acceptance of its role. This broadening and deepening of government, however, produced a reaction as groups critical of its activities organized to resist and roll back its growth.

Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the 1970s, the United States experienced a vast expansion in national policy making. During this period, the federal government extended its scope into policy arenas previously left to civil society or state and local governments. With The Great Broadening, Bryan D. Jones, Sean M. Theriault, and Michelle Whyman examine in detail the causes, internal dynamics, and consequences of this extended burst of activity. They argue that the broadening of government responsibilities into new policy areas such as health care, civil rights, and gender issues and the increasing depth of existing government programs explain many of the changes in America politics since the 1970s. Increasing government attention to particular issues was motivated by activist groups. In turn, the beneficiaries of the government policies that resulted became supporters of the government’s activity, leading to the broad acceptance of its role. This broadening and deepening of government, however, produced a reaction as groups critical of its activities organized to resist and roll back its growth.

This is a study of the losers in three major episodes in American political history and shows how their ideas ended up, at least partially, winning, in the long run. The authors consider the campaign of the anti-Federalists against the adoption of the Constitution; the failed presidency of Andrew Johnson; and the defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964, as political losses that later heavily influenced American politics later. Sometimes the losers, because they articulate a vision of American government that resonates with some part of America, later contribute to a new political order. This is not an effort to explain winning or losing in American politics. Rather, it is intended to offer a new understanding of American political development as the product of a kind of dialectic between different political visions that have opposing ideas, particularly about the size and role of the federal government and about whether America is exclusively a liberal regime or one in which illiberal ideas on topics such as race, play an important role.

In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced Obamacare or supported Donald Trump as you are to hear about issues affecting the state or local community. This is because American political behavior has become substantially more nationalized. American voters are far more engaged with and knowledgeable about what’s happening in Washington, DC, than in similar messages whether they are in the South, the Northeast, or the Midwest. Gone are the days when all politics was local. With The Increasingly United States, Daniel J. Hopkins explores this trend and its implications for the American political system. The change is significant in part because it works against a key rationale of America’s federalist system, which was built on the assumption that citizens would be more strongly attached to their states and localities. It also has profound implications for how voters are represented. If voters are well informed about state politics, for example, the governor has an incentive to deliver what voters—or at least a pivotal segment of them—want. But if voters are likely to back the same party in gubernatorial as in presidential elections irrespective of the governor’s actions in office, governors may instead come to see their ambitions as tethered more closely to their status in the national party.

Building on a deep theoretical foundation and drawing on numerous examples, we examine how policies spread across the American states. We argue that for good policies to spread while bad policies are pushed aside, states must learn from one another. The three ingredients for this positive outcome are observable experiments, time to learn, and favorable incentives and expertise among policymakers. Although these ingredients are sometimes plentiful, we also note causes for concern, such as when policies are complex or incompatible with current practices, when policymakers give in to underlying political biases, or when political institutions lack the capacity for cultivating expertise. Under such conditions, states may rely on competition, imitation, and coercion, rather than learning, which can allow bad policies, rather than good ones, to spread. We conclude with lessons for reformers and policymakers and an assessment of our overall argument based on state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This collection of 19 papers celebrates the coming of age of the field of politeness studies, now in its 30th year. It begins with an investigation of the meaning of politeness, especially linguistic politeness, and presents a short history of the field of linguistic politeness studies, showing how such studies go beyond the boundaries of conventional linguistic work, incorporating, as they do, non-language insights. The emphasis of the volume is on non-Western languages and the ways linguistic politeness is achieved with them. Many, if not most, studies have focused on Western languages, but the languages highlighted here show new and different aspects of the phenomena.The purpose of linguistic politeness is to aid in successful communication throughout the world, and this volume offers a balance of geographical distribution not found elsewhere, including Japanese, Thai, and Chinese, as well as Greek, Swedish and Spanish. It covers such theoretical topics as face, wakimae, social levels, gender-related differences in language usage, directness and indirectness, and intercultural perspectives.