Current Debates in American Government

Ideal for introductory courses, Current Debates in American Government presents over 50 lively readings drawn from major news sources including: The Economist, The Washington Post, NPR News, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. The authors selected these readings to introduce students to key debates in American politics and to help them better understand how these issues and debates affect their own lives.

Current Debates in American Government, Second Edition, is a perfect companion to Morone/Kersh's textbook, By the People: Debating American Government, Third Edition, (OUP, 2016), as its selections are organized thematically into sections that correspond to the chapters in that text.

James A. Morone is the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Brown University.

Ryan Emenaker is Professor of Political Science at the College of the Redwoods.

PART I: IDEAS AND RIGHTS
SECTION 1: THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN POLITICS
1.1) The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, July 4, 1776.
1.2) Adam Davidson, "Why Are Some Countries Rich and Others Poor?" Plant Money Blog, NPR News, March 16, 2012.
1.3) Jeffrey Lazarus, "Why More Republicans Don't Object to How Trump Fired Comey," The Washington Post, May 16, 2017
1.4) Richard Goldstein, "Fred Korematsu, 86, Dies: Lost Key Suit on Internment" The New York Times, April 1, 2005.
SECTION 2: THE IDEAS THAT SHAPE AMERICA
2.1) Fredrick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" 1852 speech delivered to Rochester Women's Antislavery Society.
2.2) Howard Zinn, "Some Truths Are Not Self-Evident," The Nation, August 1, 1987.
2.3) Nicholas Kristof, "It's the Canadian Dream Now," The New York Times, May 14, 2014.
2.4) Clifford May, "American Exceptionalism and Its Discontents," National Review, November 1, 2012.
2.5) George Will, "Progressives Are Wrong about the Essence of the Constitution," The Washington Post, April 16, 2014.
SECTION 3: THE CONSTITUTION
3.1) James Read and Alan Gibson, "The Conversation: Four Myths about the Constitution," The Sacramento Bee, January 23, 2011.
3.2) Robert Dahl, "The Constitution as a Model: An American Illusion," Chapter 3 in How Democratic Is the American Constitution?, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 41-72.
3.3) Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's comments before Senate Hearing 112-137, "Considering the Role of Judges under the Constitution of the United States," October 5, 2011.
3.4) Louis Seidman, "Let's Give Up on the Constitution," The New York Times, December 30, 2012.
3.5) Louis Fisher, "Crush Videos: A Constructive Dialogue," The National Law Journal, February 21, 2011.
SECTION 4: FEDERALISM AND NATIONALISM
4.1) George Annas, "Jumping Frogs, Endangered Toads, and California's Medical-Marijuana Law," New England Journal of Medicine, November 2005.
4.2) Seung Min Kim, "States Take on Immigration," Politico, May 19, 2014.
4.3) Dan Levine, "In Trump Era, Democrats and Republicans Switch Sides on States' Rights," Reuters, January 26, 2017.
SECTION 5: CIVIL LIBERTIES
5.1) Jonathan Tobin, "Freedom for Religion, Not From It," Commentary, May 5, 2014.
5.2) Adam Liptak, "Justices to Hear Case on Religious Objections to Same-Sex Marriage," The New York Times, June 26, 2017.
5.3) Nina Totenberg, "High Court Struggles with Military Funerals Case," NPR News, October 6, 2010.
5.4) Kent Greenfield, "The Limits of Free Speech," The Atlantic Monthly, March 13, 2015.
5.5) Riley v. California (2014) Majority Opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts.
SECTION 6: THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS
6.1) Cass Sunstein, "Did Brown Matter?" The New Yorker, May 3, 2004.
6.2) Stokely Carmichael, "What We Want," The New York Review of Books, September 22, 1966. Vo. 7. pp. 5-6, 8.
6.3) Christopher Ingraham, "Study Finds Strong Evidence for Discriminatory Intent Behind Voter ID Laws," The Washington Post, June 3, 2015.
6.4) Philip Bump, "Trump's Argument Against Transgender Soldiers," The Washington Post, July 26, 2017.
6.5) Josh Lohmer, "An Issue of Sovereignty," National Council of State Legislatures, 2009.



PART II: POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
SECTION 7: POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
7.1) "Room For Debate: Does Polling Undermine Democracy?" The New York Times, November 30, 2015.
7.2) Benjamin Ginsberg, "The Perils of Polling," presented to the 2008 conference on Polling and Democracy, Miller Center, University of Virginia, April, 2008.
7.3) Peter Schrag, "Dysfunction: Maybe it's What the Voters Want," Sacramento Bee, June 14, 2011.
7.4) Steven White, "Many Americas Support Trump's Immigration Order. Many Americans Backed Japanese Internment Camps, Too," The Washington Post, February 2, 2017.
7.5) John Cassidy, "Is America an Oligarchy?," The New Yorker, April 18, 2014.
SECTION 8: PUBLIC OPINION
8.1) Eric Black, "Why is Turnout so Low in U.S. Elections? We make it More Difficult to Vote Than Other Democracies," MinnPost, October 1, 2014.
8.2) Russell Dalton, "Citizenship and the Transformation of American Society," The Good Citizen: How a Younger Generation is Reshaping American Politics, CQ Press. 2008. pp. 1-16.
8.3) Howard Zinn, "The Problem is Civil Obedience," 1971 speech given at Johns Hopkins University.
8.4) Laura Seay, "Does Slacktivism Work?," The Monkey Cage Blog, March 12, 2014.
SECTION 9: THE MEDIA
9.1) Robert Kaiser, "The Bad News about the News," The Brookings Essay, October 16, 2014.
9.2) Cass Sunstein, Republic 2.0, Princeton University Press. 2007. Excerpts.
9.3) Amy Mitchell, "Political Polarization and Media Habits," PEW Research, October 21, 2014.
9.4) Babak Bahador, "Did Pictures in News Just Change U.S. Policies in Syria?," The Washington Post, April 10, 2017.
9.5) Justin Wolfers, "Perceptions Haven't Caught Up to Decline in Crime," The New York Times, September 16, 2014.
9.6) Alexandra E. Petri, "How Fake News Tricks Your Brain," National Geographic, March 24, 2017.
SECTION 10: CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTIONS
10.1) "President, by Popular Vote," The Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2012.
10.2) Zoltan Hajnal et al., "Do Voter Identification Laws Suppress Minority Voting? Yes. We did the Research," The Washington Post, February 15, 2017.
10.3) Ari Shapiro, "No Big Money or TV Ads--What's with The U.K.'s Low-Key Election?" NPR News, March 10, 2015.
10.4) Ben Pryor, "How Different Polling Locations Subconsciously Influence Voters," The Conversation, February 29, 2016.
10.5) John Sides, "Five Key Lessons from Donald Trump's Surprising Victory," The Washington Post, November 9, 2017.
SECTION 11: POLITICAL PARTIES
11.1) Michael Riegner and Richard Stacy, "Democracy Without Political Parties: Constitutional Options," Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law, June 2014.
11.2) Peter J. Wallison and Joel M. Gora, "Better Parties, Better Government: A Realistic Program for Campaign Finance Reform," AEI Press, 2009. Excerpts.
11.3) Alan Greenblatt, "Why Partisans Can't Kick the Hypocrisy Habit," NPR News, June 14, 2013.
11.4) Ambreen Ali, "Can Activists Win by Losing?" Congress.org, August 12, 2008.
SECTION 12: INTEREST GROUPS
12.1) Alexis de Tocqueville, "Political Associations in The United States," Democracy in America, 1835.
12.2) Dara Strolovitch, Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics, University of Chicago Press, 2007. Excerpts.
12.3) Matea Gold, "Ready for a Surprise? Money Does Equal Access in Washington," The Washington Post, March 11, 2014.
12.4) Marie Hojnacki et al., "Business Doesn't Always Get Its Way," The Washington Post, June 10, 2015.

PART III: POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
SECTION 13: CONGRESS
13.1) Ari Shapiro, "Would the U.S. Be Better Off with a Parliament?" NPR News, October 12, 2013.
13.2) Adam Liptak, "Smaller States Find Outsize Clout Growing in Senate," The New York Times, March 11, 2013.
13.3) Annie Lowrey, "What If Senators Represented People by Income or Race, Not by State?" The Washington Post, February 7, 2011.
13.4) Chris Cillizza, "People Hate Congress, but Most Incumbents Get Re-elected. What Gives?," The Washington Post, May 9, 2013.
13.5) Walter Oleszek, "Congressional Oversight: An Overview," Congressional Research Service, February 22, 2010.
SECTION 14: THE PRESIDENCY
14.1) George Will, "Congress's Unused War Powers," The Washington Post, November 4, 2007.
14.2) Allen Greenblatt, "Why Obama (And Any President) Fails To Meet Expectations," NPR News, March 12, 2013.
14.3) Andrew Rudalevige, "President Trump Couldn't Pass Obamacare Repeal. This is Why," The Washington Post, March 24, 2017.
14.4) Haeyoun Park and Margot Sanger-Katz, "What Trump Can do Without Congress to Dismantle Obamacare," The New York Times, April 12, 2017.
14.5) John Yoo, "Executive Power Run Amok," The New York Times, February 6, 2017.
SECTION 15: BUREAUCRACY
15.1) Matthew Spalding, "A Republic If You Want It," National Review, February 8, 2010.
15.2) Douglas Amy, "The Case for Bureaucracy," Government Is Good Blog, 2007.
15.3) Juliet Eilperin et al., "Resistance from Within: Federal Workers Push Back Against Trump," The Washington Post, January 31, 2017.
15.4) Robert Reich, Locked in the Cabinet, Knopf, 1997. Excerpts.

SECTION 16: THE JUDICIAL BRANCH
16.1) Erwin Chemerinsky, "How the Supreme Court is Failing the Constitution," American Constitution Society Blog, September 17, 2014.
16.2) Adam Liptak, "The Polarized Court," The New York Times, May 10, 2014.
16.3) Lori Ringhand & Paul Collins Jr., "Why Not Limit Neil Gorsuch--and all Supreme Court Justices--to 18-Year Terms?" The Washington Post, March 23, 2017.
16.4) Ryan Emenaker, "High Court not Final Say on U.S. Law," Times-Standard, April 12, 2012.
16.5) Donald F. Kettl, "Why States and Localities Are Watching the Lower Federal Courts," Governing, Oct. 2010.