Whatever Happened to Party Government?

Mark Wickham-Jones is Professor of Political Science at the University of Bristol.

There is nothing like this book in print. No one has traced the inside story of how the famous APSA report got produced in anything like this depth. It is a fascinating story!  Among other things, the book is a wonderful, unmatched window into American political science of the mid-20th century as its professionals went about their business."" - David Mayhew, Yale University""As much archaeologist as historian, Mark Wickham-Jones dug up sources—unpublished papers, letters, memos, oral histories—buried in multiple sites across the nation. Using these sources and hundreds of cited publications, he shows how interpersonal relationships among party politics scholars has affected our views of party government in the United States."" - Kenneth Janda, Northwestern University""In 1946 the American Political Science Association asked its best and brightest to conceive of a responsible party system for the brave new world. In this masterful political history, Mark Wickham-Jones recounts with gripping detail the APSA task force's struggles to reconcile a dilemma of governance. How could disciplined party power, necessary to implement the activist postwar agenda, be reconciled with political responsiveness to voices far from the cloakrooms of Congress? At this critical juncture in American politics, it behooves us to revisit the deliberations and legacies of our predecessors. The struggles of the task force are our own, and Wickham-Jones' suspenseful story should be required reading for anyone concerned about the promise, folly, and fate of American politics."" - Cathie Jo Martin, Boston University, Co-Chair of the 2013 American Political Science Association Presidential Task Force on Political Negotiation""As our parties today struggle to actually govern, this surprising and thoughtful book takes us back to a time when political scientists placed their highest hopes for more effective and democratic government in the party system."" - Jennifer Delton, Skidmore College