Dissertations into books? and Editors' correction.

James Madison contributed much to political science and to the artand science of governing democratic regimes. A major contributionwas his recognition of the multiple threats facing the newlyestablished Confederation (see, e.g., Dougherty 2001). Madison waswilling to invest heavily in converting these threats into newopportunities. In his “Preface to Debates in the Convention” ([1984]1840, 19), Madison reflected on the causes for alarm.James Madison Award lecture presented at theAmerican Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting,Washington, D.C., September 1, 2005. The author is appreciativeof support from the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation,and the National Science Foundation and useful comments by BillBlomquist, Eric Coleman, Sue Crawford, Joshua P. Hill, MarcoJanssen, Robert Keohane, Mike McGinnis, Lesa B. Morrison, AmyPoteete, Mike Schoon, David Schwab, and Kenneth Shepsle on aninitial draft of this paper. As always, I deeply appreciatePatty Lezotte's careful editing.

It was my good fortune to have known John Gaus and to have attended alecture course and participated in a seminar that he offered in1949. His Alabama lectures entitled Reflections on PublicAdministration, published in 1947, included such titlesas “The Ecology of Government” and “Politics and Administration.”His concluding chapter, written after the initial presentations, wasentitled “A Theory of the Process of Government.” Gaus was broadlyengaged in reflections about the place of public administration insystems of governance and the constitution of order in humansocieties.The author isappreciative of detailed comments by Paul Aligica, BarbaraAllen, Krister Andersson, Robert Bish, Sheldon Gellar, StephanKuhnert, Michael McGinnis, Elinor Ostrom, Andrew Revelle,Filippo Sabetti, Amos Sawyer, Sujai Shivakumar, MarkSproule-Jones, and Lihua Yang.

There was and continues to be nothing easy about being poor in theBig Easy, or anywhere else in America for that matter. The callousor incompetent handling of the evacuation of the poor from NewOrleans smacked of Marie Antoinette's concern for the hungry ofParis, and underscored both the existence and consequence of incomeinequality in America.

A large body of research has documented comparative levels ofinequality among nations and also the substantial change ininequality across and within nations. Political scientists,sociologists, and economists have used these databases to make anumber of claims about changes in inequality and theirinterrelations with economic and political life, patterns ofredistribution, social institutions, and social and individualwellbeing more generally.

American society has witnessed an extraordinary widening of economicinequality in the period since World War II that is unmatched amongadvanced industrialized countries. In 2003, the most affluent fifthreceived 47.6% of family income, the middle class (the third andfourth fifths) earned 15.5% and 23.3%, respectively, while thebottom two quintiles each received less than 10%. (Twenty-onepercent of family income went to the top 5%.) In other words, therichest 20% obtained nearly half of the country's income. Thatincome (and wealth) is unevenly distributed is neither new nornecessarily disturbing. What is remarkable is the large andunmistakable increase in the concentration ofincome at the top (Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto 2005).

On June 7th, 2004 the American Political ScienceAssociation (APSA) issued a Media Advisory announcing, “LeadingPolitical Scientists Warn of Threat to American Democracy in RareNonpartisan Statement” (APSA Press Release 2004). The subtitlereiterated this alarmist tone: “New Study will Report EconomicDisparities Deny Many Americans A Political Voice; Money BuysAccess; Gains in Civil Rights Threatened as Well.” Note, we arespeaking of “threats”(to democracy) that are “profound.” Furthermore, “research shows adevastating erosion of political equality inAmerica” (italics added). Have these distinguished professorspossibly discovered a conspiracy to cancel elections, repeal theFirst Amendment, or otherwise impose a racist plutocracy? Areretired generals and multinational CEOs about to launch acoup d'état?

Many Americans were shocked and shamed by the televised images of NewOrleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Scenes of physicaldevastation were juxtaposed with even more disturbing scenes ofhuman devastation. Thousands of residents, mostly Black and poor,seemed to be trapped in a Hobbesian state of nature, abandoned bygovernment and civilized society. An untold number starved to death;for days their corpses floated in the streets.

The APSA Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy's Report(2004), American Democracy in an Age of Inequality,concludes that progress toward realizing our ideals of democracy“may have stalled, and in some arenas reversed” as a result ofgrowing inequality. Political participation, whether through voting,or campaign contributions, or organizational activities, reflectsthe distribution of economic resources, and as resources come to bemore unequal, so is participation increasingly skewed toward thebetter-off. As a result, the Report goes on to argue, the issues andpositions of the affluent are heard by politicians, and loudervoices give the affluent greater influence. I agree with thisconclusion, so far as it goes. Disparities in voting, money, andorganization matter in the political process, and economicinequalities inevitably affect these disparities. None of this isnew, of course. While inequalities have increased during the pastthree decades, they have increased during earlier periods inAmerican history. This is normal politics in the United States,sometimes worse, sometimes better.

The members of the Task Force on Inequality and American Democracywere not of one mind about any of the subjects they took up—and thisis one reason, among many, that it was the most vibrant andstimulating professional collaboration I have had the privilege tobe part of. It would be presumptuous of me to speak for anyone butmyself in explaining and justifying the Task Force's work. And yet,there does seem to me at least one note of common explanationrequired up front. All the members of the Task Force, I am certain,saw their work as only the beginning of adiscussion within the discipline—and, indeed, more broadly—about therelationship between inequality and contemporary Americangovernance. Although we hoped to showcase and integrate the bestexisting research and theory, our main goal was to spark newquestions, new research, new thinking, and new debates. And judgingfrom this forum, as well as from the recent scholarship showcased inLarry Bartels's (2006) and Kay Schlozman's (2006) essays, wehave.

The American Political Science Association's (APSA) Task Force onInequality and American Democracy (2004) asserts that inequality ison the rise in the U.S., and democracy's future may be dim. Theseassertions are allegedly supported by empirical evidence.

In the assembled critiques, the report of the APSA Task Force onInequality and American Democracy is labeled simultaneously“dangerous quackery” and a “timid document.” Are we all reading thesame report? At least when it comes to Stephen Earl Bennett'scommentary (2006), probably not.

We agree with the Task Force on Inequality and American Democracythat not only the quality but the very legitimacy of Americandemocracy is threatened by persistent and rising inequalities ofpolitical power and influence. Class conflict is as old as democracyitself, and there is an intrinsic tension between the inequalitiesgenerated by free markets and the political equality that is at thecore of democracy. No institutional fixes or policy remedies willfully overcome this tension, and in some respects it may be a usefultension. But current institutional and policyarrangements—especially at the local level—are exacerbatinginequalities and political divisions in ways that are toxic fordemocracy.Because our discussionhere draws heavily on our book Democracy atRisk, we wish to fully acknowledge and thank eachof the book's co-authors, including Yvette Alex-Assensoh,Jeffrey M. Berry, Michael Brintnall, David E. Campbell, LuisRicardo Fraga, Archon Fung, William A. Galston, Margaret Levi,Meira Levinson, Keena Lipsitz, Richard G. Niemi, Robert D.Putnam, Wendy M. Rahn, Rob Reich, Robert R. Rodgers, ToddSwanstrom, and Katherine Cramer Walsh. Our co-authors in thateffort have contributed significantly to our understanding ofthe issues we discuss here, including by offering prose that wehave relied on and put to use in this article. While weacknowledge our deep debt to our colleagues, any errorsremaining are, of course, ours alone.

Within polling places, does the scarcity of voting machines causelonger lines and thereby dissuade some people from voting? Arevoting machines scarce in some areas because turnout would be low,irrespective of the availability of voting machines? In Ohio in theaftermath of the 2004 presidential election, the answers to thesequestions carried very real and significant political stakes.Consider the following from Franklin County, the second mostpopulous county in the state. In precincts where voting machineswere plentiful (i.e., where there were fewer registrants peravailable voting machine), turnout was especially high and JohnKerry's share of the presidential vote was low. In contrast, inareas of machine scarcity (i.e., precincts with many registrants peravailable voting machine), turnout was lower and Kerry's vote sharewas higher. These relationships are shown in Figures 1A and 1B.Given the strong association between machine availability and theKerry vote, if machine (un)availability was a cause of (low)turnout, then Kerry may very well have received fewer votes than hewould have had more machines been available or had the distributionof available machines been less skewed toward precincts that weremore supportive of George W. Bush.Iappreciate input from SSRC Commission members Henry Brady,Martha Kropf, Walter R. Mebane, Jr., and Michael Traugott withwhom I collaborated on the SSRC's “Interim Report on AllegedIrregularities in the United States Presidential Election of 2November 2004” (Brady et al. 2004). Ialso thank Benjamin Bishin for comments on the paper. The SocialScience Research Council and its staff, including JasonMcNichol, Dashiell Flynn, and Sarah Alexander, provided generoussupport for this work. The views expressed in this paper are notnecessarily shared by other SSRC Commission members or theSocial Science Research Council.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded more than 80% of the city of NewOrleans. As the stories of hurricane victims, mostly AfricanAmericans, dominated the national news coverage, New Orleans' racialpolitics in particular, and the racial divisions in general, onceagain invited public debate. Why did a city that had been firmlycontrolled by African-American politicians from the mayor's officeto the city council exhibit such a clear racial image? What role didWhites play in the city's political establishment?This project was supported by research grantsfrom the American Political Science Association and theUniversity of Wisconsin, which allowed the author to travel toMemphis and New Orleans to collect original data and interviewthe mayor of Memphis and other politicians. The author wouldalso like to thank Susan Reed, Martin Gruberg, Wayne Parent, andDavid Siemers for their helpful comments on an earlier versionof the article. Special thanks go to the three reviewers and theeditors of PS: Political Science and Politics,and to Laura Fisher-Guex, James Vanderleeuw, and Susan Howellfor their invaluable assistance with thedata-collection/recording process.

In every contested election there are inevitably winners and losers,both among the candidates and among the voters. Some candidates willtake their seats as elected officials, and others will not. Somevoters will be happy with the outcome, others will not. Here I seekto better understand the relationship between whether a voter castsa ballot for the winning candidate in U.S. House elections and thatvoter's evaluations of her representative. I build on a burgeoningliterature on the relationship between voters and their electedgovernments to derive and test a theory about this connection. Thedata will show that voters whose preferred candidate wins a seat inthe House of Representatives are systematically happier with theirrepresentative than those voters whom did not vote for the winningcandidate. While this finding is not especially groundbreaking, theimplications for the way in which we draw congressional and statelegislative district lines are quite provocative. Specifically,since district lines in the House are necessarily an artificialconstruct, I argue that map makers ought to “pack” districts with asmany like-minded partisans as possible. Trying to draw “competitivedistricts” effectively cracks ideologically congruent voters intoseparate districts, which has the effect of increasing the absolutenumber of voters who will be unhappy with the outcome anddissatisfied with their representative. I discuss the benefits offundamentally rethinking the way in which we draw congressional andstate legislative districts, as well as address likely concerns thatmight be raised about drawing districts this way.I would like to thank Jim Adams, Valerie Brunell,Bruce Cain, Geoff Evans, Bill Koetzle, Bernie Grofman, SamHirsch, Michael D. McDonald, Iain McLean, Sam Merrill, GlennPhelps, David Rueda, Alec Stone Sweet, Chris Wlezian, and thePolitics Group at Nuffield College for their comments.

“Here is a telling statistic. One hundred fifty-three of California'scongressional and legislative seats were up in the last election,and not one, I repeat, not one, changed parties. What kind ofdemocracy is that?”

In “Don't Blame Redistricting for Uncompetitive Elections” in thisissue of PS: Political Science and Politics,Abramowitz, Alexander, and Gunning (2006) argue that redistrictingis not responsible for the decline in the number of competitivedistricts, defined as a district with a near balance ofpartisanship. Further, the authors claim that non-partisanredistricting institutions are not correlated with the number ofcompetitive districts. The relationship between redistrictinginstitutions and competitive districts is of importance not only toacademics who study redistricting and elections, but also to policymakers and reformers who advocate redistricting reform. If theseclaims are true, then policymakers are expending much misguidedeffort to enact redistricting reform to treat the greater problem ofthe decline of electoral competition in recent U.S. congressionalelections.

In “Drawing the Line on District Competition,” Michael McDonald(2006) challenges our conclusion that redistricting is notresponsible for declining competition in House elections. McDonaldclaims that this conclusion is incorrect largely because our measureof district partisanship in 1992 is flawed. According to McDonald,using the normalized 1992 major party presidential vote as a measureof House district partisanship in 1992 seriously overstates thecompetitiveness of House districts in that year because of theimpact of the vote for Ross Perot. McDonald recommends instead usingthe 1988 presidential vote to measure district partisanship in 1992,or using a procedure developed by Gelman and King (1994a) toestimate the partisan bias of House districts. With either of thesemethods, McDonald claims that a significant proportion of thedecline in competitive districts between 1990 and 2002 was caused byredistricting. In addition, contrary to our finding that nonpartisanredistricting commissions have failed to produce increasedcompetition in House elections, McDonald claims that nonpartisanredistricting in Arizona provides a positive example of what can beaccomplished by nonpartisan redistricting commissions elsewhere.

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to Abramowitz,Alexander, and Gunning's (2006b) rejoinder to my critique of theirarticle appearing in this same issue entitled “Don't BlameRedistricting for Uncompetitive Elections” (2006a). We should havehad a scholarly debate that informed the profession and raisedinteresting questions in one of the widest read journals. Instead,Abramowitz, Alexander, and Gunning mischaracterize my arguments asif this was a political talk show debate, and it is telling thatthey never directly quote me in their rejoinder. The few sourcescited in support of their methodology, upon close inspection,provide no support to their measurement choice or findings. I hopethat fair-minded readers will carefully evaluate all material,including cited sources, to reach their own judgment. I concludethis article with some thoughts that I hope shed light on the lowlevels of electoral competition that Abramowitz, Alexander, andGunning and I agree characterize current congressionalelections.