当前位置: X-MOL 学术Journal of Southern History › 论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics by Charles S. Bullock III et al. (review)
Journal of Southern History Pub Date : 2021-02-06 , DOI: 10.1353/soh.2021.0034
Keneshia N. Grant

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

  • The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics by Charles S. Bullock III et al.
  • Keneshia N. Grant
The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics. By Charles S. Bullock III, Susan A. MacManus, Jeremy D. Mayer, and Mark J. Rozell. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. viii, 196. Paper, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-19-006592-8; cloth, $99.00, ISBN 978-0-19-006591-1.)

The South and the Transformation of U.S. Politics by Charles S. Bullock III, Susan A. MacManus, Jeremy D. Mayer, and Mark J. Rozell is born of a 2018 panel in which four political scientists came together to reflect on the fiftieth anniversary of 1968. The book’s seven chapters are individually authored, including an introduction by Bullock and a conclusion by Rozell. MacManus’s chapter on demographics in the South explains population changes in terms of race, education, the economy, and political participation. Bullock describes the changing strength of parties in the South. Bullock and Rozell both analyze development in Black political participation after the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the increasing election of Black people to political office. Rozell explains the relationship between southern politics and evangelical Christianity. That chapter also grapples with the curiosity of Virginia, the birthplace of the Christian Right, emerging as a Democratic stronghold. Finally, Mayer examines how Donald J. Trump won in southern states despite evidence that may have suggested potential support for a different Republican candidate.

The impetus for this book is justified, given that southern politics has changed over fifty years and will continue evolving in the years to come. However, this book is ill-conceived in ways that may hinder its impact. Given the complicated existence and history of southern politics, this book would have benefited from better framing of the central organizing concepts. Some of the big ideas political scientists use to understand American politics—race, realignment, and the space between party ideology and party identification—read like afterthoughts, and the book suffers for it. For example, Bullock writes, “Across the last half century, the region and each of the states experienced a secular realignment” (p. 16). However, he does not further unpack the role of ideology in southern realignment in the introduction or in his chapter on party change.

Another hindrance is the book’s awkward approach to the discussion of race. The book would have benefited from grappling with the political consequences of whiteness. Although white racism is the oldest and broadest organizing construct in southern politics, the authors neither refer to the political science literature on whiteness nor put forward an explanation of how whiteness has undoubtedly influenced southern politics. The preface acknowledges that race underlies the various parts of the book, and the authors attempt to deal with race in a separate chapter. However, the race chapter limits itself to analysis of Black political participation, which is insufficient to describe how race has shaped southern politics. A better framing on race comes in the book’s chapter 6, where [End Page 154] it is too late and bound too closely to Mayer’s specific questions to compensate for its mishandling in the rest of the text.

The inattention to whiteness is most limiting in Bullock’s description of changes in southern partisanship, which also suffers from the aforementioned conflation of party identification with party ideology. Political scientists widely agree that party ideology (what a party believes) and party identification (the party to which a person says they belong) are separate ideas. Party ideology may shape an individual’s party identification, but these things are not automatically connected. Put another way, individuals may disagree with a political party’s position on issues but may still call themselves members of that party. Given the potential for this internal contradiction, Bullock’s description of white southerners’ shift between the Democratic and Republican Parties seems more dramatic than it is.

For much of the period under consideration, white southerners were voting and governing in ways that reflected an ideology decoupled from party labels. From 1968 through the 1992 realignment, described in the chapter, the most important concern for many white southerners was racial conservatism and white supremacy...



中文翻译:

南方与美国政治的转变,查尔斯·布洛克(Charles S. Bullock)III等人。(审查)

代替摘要,这里是内容的简要摘录:

审核人:

  • 南方与美国政治的转变,查尔斯·布洛克(Charles S. Bullock)III等人。
  • 肯尼西亚·格兰特(Keneshia N.Grant)
南方与美国政治转型。查尔斯·布洛克(Charles S.Bullock)三世,苏珊·麦克马纳斯(Susan A.MacManus),杰里米·迈耶(Jeremy D.Mayer)和马克·罗泽尔(Mark J.Rozell)。(纽约:牛津大学出版社,2019年。第iii页,第196页。纸,26.95美元,ISBN 978-0-19-006592-8;布,99.00美元,ISBN 978-0-19-006591-1。)

南方与美国政治的转变由Charles S.Bullock III,Susan A.MacManus,Jeremy D.Mayer和Mark J.Rozell出生于2018年的一次座谈会,四位政治学家齐聚一堂,共同回顾1968年五十周年。的作者,包括Bullock的引言和Rozell的结论。麦克马努斯(MacManus)关于南方人口统计的章节从种族,教育,经济和政治参与方面解释了人口变化。布洛克描述了南方政党不断变化的实力。布洛克(Bunock)和罗泽尔(Rozell)都分析了1965年《投票权法案》(Voting Rights Act)之后黑人政治参与的发展以及黑人在政治职位上的日益增加的选举。罗泽尔解释了南方政治与福音派基督教之间的关系。该章还解决了弗吉尼亚的好奇心,基督教右翼的发源地,逐渐发展成为民主据点。最后,梅耶研究了唐纳德·J·特朗普如何在南部各州获胜,尽管有证据表明可能暗示了对另一位共和党候选人的潜在支持。

鉴于南方政治在过去五十年中发生了变化,并且在以后的几年中将继续发展,因此本书的推动力是有道理的。但是,这本书的构思不当,可能会影响其影响力。考虑到南方政治的复杂存在和历史,这本书将受益于中央组织概念的更好框架。政治学家用来理解美国政治的一些大思想-种族,重组以及政党意识形态和政党认同之间的间隔-读起来像事后的想法,而这本书为此而受苦。例如,布洛克写道:“在过去的半个世纪中,该地区和每个州都经历了长期的重组”(第16页)。但是,他在引言或他关于政党更迭的章节中没有进一步阐明意识形态在南方重新统一中的作用。

另一个障碍是这本书对种族的讨论很尴尬。该书本来会因应对白人的政治后果而受益。尽管白人种族主义是南方政治中最古老和最广泛的组织结构,但作者们既未参考关于白人的政治学文献,也未提出关于白人无疑如何影响南方政治的解释。前言承认种族是本书各个部分的基础,作者试图在单独的章节中讨论种族。但是,种族一章仅限于对黑人政治参与的分析,不足以描述种族如何塑造了南方政治。本书的第6章为种族提供了更好的框架,其中[End Page 154]现在为时已晚,并且与Mayer的特定问题联系得太紧,以弥补在文本的其余部分中对Mayer的处理不当。

布洛克对南方党派变化的描述最大程度地限制了对白人的漠视,这也遭受了前面提到的党派认同与党派意识形态的混淆。政治学家广泛同意,政党意识形态(政党相信什么)和政党认同(一个人说自己所属的政党)是分开的思想。政党意识形态可以塑造个人的政党认同,但是这些事情并不会自动联系起来。换句话说,个人可能不同意某个政党在问题上的立场,但仍然可以称自己是该政党的成员。鉴于这种内部矛盾的潜在可能性,布洛克对白人南方人在民主党和共和党之间转移的描述似乎比过去更具戏剧性。

在所考虑的大部分时间里,白人南方人都在投票和执政,其方式反映了与党派标签脱节的意识形态。在本章中描述的从1968年到1992年的结盟,许多南方南方人最关注的是种族保守主义和白人至上主义。

更新日期:2021-03-16
down
wechat
bug