The Social Roots of American Politics A Widening Gyre?

A novel and powerful explanation of the social roots of American politics and the powerful forces in the background.

The usual approach to political conflict is to look at policy battles inside government, then trace them back to political parties and organized interests. Yet, in The Social Roots of American Politics, Regina L. Wagner and Byron E. Shafer begin at the opposite end of the causal chain by looking at the social roots of American political conflict, how these roots produce differing policy preferences in the general public, and how those preferences get transmitted into American government. Drawing from over a half-century of public surveys of American voters, they demonstrate that class, race, religion, and gender provide the roots of these conflicts across the four primary domains of policy conflict: social welfare, civil rights, foreign affairs, and cultural values. They also factor in how regional differences affect partisan attachment, focusing on the South in particular. By turning the focus to deep-rooted social cleavages, this book provides a novel and powerful explanation of the basic forces that shape the contours of conflict in American politics.

Regina L. Wagner is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama and coauthor, with Byron Shafer, of The Long War over Party Structure (2019).

Byron E. Shafer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin and the author of many books, including The American Political Pattern (2016).