In the Current Issue

Volume 136 - Number 1 - Spring 2021

Articles

The Presidential and Congressional Elections of 2020: A National Referendum on the Trump Presidency
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Gary C. Jacobson discusses the 2020 presidential and congressional elections. He argues that the elections were above all a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency, which provoked extreme levels of party loyalty, partisan polarization, and partisan animosity in the electorate, as well as the highest voter turnout in more than a century.

Policy or Pique? Trump and the Turn to Great Power Competition
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Deborah Welch Larson analyzes Donald Trump’s policy toward China and Russia and the return of great power competition. She argues that Trump’s personalization of foreign policy undermined his trade war with China, and efforts to improve relations with Russia and that the Joe Biden administration will continue to compete but seek cooperation in areas of shared interests.

Loyalists and Switchers: Characterizing Voters’ Responses to Donald Trump’s Campaign and Presidency
Meredith Dost, Ryan Enos, and Jennifer Hochschild look at the crucial segment of American voters who have changed their views about Donald Trump since the 2016 presidential election. Using two original surveys, they find that attitudes on race and immigration, populism and authoritarianism, and the nation’s and their own economic well-being are all associated with loyalty to and switching from this divisive president.

America’s Crisis of Democracy
William G. Howell and TERRY M. MOE explain how the populist threat to American democracy has been fueled by our government’s ineffective responses to the disruptive economic and cultural problems of modernity. They argue that saving democracy calls for aggressive policy actions and institutional reforms that balance the promise and the fear of presidential power.

U.S. Geopolitics and Nuclear Deterrence in the Era of Great Power Competitions
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Peter Rudolf argues that in the new era of great power competitions the United States is faced with the question of whether to seek some form of geopolitical accommodation based on de facto spheres of influence and buffer zones or to push ahead with strategic rivalries overshadowed by the risk of a military conflict with a nuclear dimension.

How the 1976 Election Reshaped American Politics: A Review Essay
Kathryn Cramer Brownell reviews two recently published books on Jimmy Carter: The Election of the Evangelical: Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and the Presidential Contest of 1976 and Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign. She argues that the discussion of the 1976 election put forth in these two books contributes to our understanding of modern political realignment and polarization.

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