Bruce E. Cain is the Charles Louis Ducommun Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Political Science Department at Stanford University, California, where he is also the director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. In addition to publishing numerous scholarly works, he has also served as a consultant for state and local governments on constitutional and charter reform, campaign finance regulation, redistricting, and voting rights. He received the Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• 1. The ascendancy of reform populism; 2. Reform pluralism; 3. How much transparency?; 4. Participation paradoxes; 5. Reform cycles; 6. Fair representation; 7. Raising the political ethics bar; 8. Election administration or policy?; 9. A blended reform agenda.

'Everyone talks about the dysfunction of American politics, but very few people have practical or thought-through ideas on what to do about it. Bruce Cain has studied this topic extensively as a scholar and has first-hand experience in the cauldron of California's ongoing experiments in structural reform. In this book he explains the conceptual weakness in today's most popular reform proposals and offers a convincing alternative. I hope this book informs media, academic and public discussions of a way out of our political morass.' James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic