Research Catalog

Title

Partisan gerrymandering and the construction of American democracy / Erik J. Engstrom.

Author

Engstrom, Erik J.

Publication

Ann Arbor : The University of Michigan Press, [2013]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

227 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

"Erik J. Engstrom offers a historical perspective on the effects of gerrymandering on elections and party control of the U.S. national legislature. Aside from the requirements that districts be continuous and, after 1842, that each select only one representative, there were few restrictions on congressional districting. Unrestrained, state legislators drew and redrew districts to suit their own partisan agendas. With the rise of the "one-person, one-vote" doctrine and the implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, however, redistricting became subject to court oversight. Engstrom evaluates the abundant cross-sectional and temporal variation in redistricting plans and their electoral results from all the states, from 1789 through the 1960s, to identify the causes and consequences of partisan redistricting. His analysis reveals that districting practices across states and over time systematically affected the competitiveness of congressional elections; shaped the partisan composition of congressional delegations; and, on occasion, determined party control of the House of Representatives"--

Series Statement

Legislative politics & policy making

Uniform Title

• Project Muse UPCC books
• Legislative politics & policy making.

Subject

• Gerrymandering > United States
• Apportionment (Election law) > United States
• Election districts > United States
• Voting > United States
• Representative government and representation > United States
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Elections
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Government / Legislative Branch
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Democracy
• United States > Politics and government

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Gerrymandering and the evolution of American politics -- Districting and the construction of early American democracy -- The origins of single-member districts -- The strategic timing of congressional redistricting -- Stacking the states, stacking the house: the partisan consequences of congressional redistricting -- Electoral competition and critical elections -- A congress of strangers: gerrymandering and legislative turnover -- The partisan impact of malapportionment -- From turbulence to stasis, 1900-1964 -- Gerrymandering and the future of American politics.

ISBN

• 9780472119011 (hardback)
• 047211901X (hardback)
• 9780472029525 (e-book) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2013015656

OCLC

844308430

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library