Most Popular Books by Paul Pierson

A groundbreaking work that identifies the real culprit behind one of the great economic crimes of our time— the growing inequality of incomes between the vast majority of Americans and the richest of the rich. We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven’t. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have continued to fall behind. Why do the “haveit- alls” have so much more? And how have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion’s share of the gains and shift the costs of their new economic playground downward, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it—until now. In their lively and provocative Winner-Take-All Politics, renowned political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate convincingly that the usual suspects—foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top—are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect and take us on an entertaining tour of the mountain of evidence against the culprit. The guilty party is American politics. Runaway inequality and the present economic crisis reflect what government has done to aid the rich and what it has not done to safeguard the interests of the middle class. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics. In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to the late 1970s when, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, a major transformation of American politics occurred. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as under Clinton, with both parties catering to the interests of those at the very top. Hacker and Pierson’s gripping narration of the epic battles waged during President Obama’s first two years in office reveals an unpleasant but catalyzing truth: winner-take-all politics, while under challenge, is still very much with us. Winner-Take-All Politics—part revelatory history, part political analysis, part intellectual journey— shows how a political system that traditionally has been responsive to the interests of the middle class has been hijacked by the superrich. In doing so, it not only changes how we think about American politics, but also points the way to rebuilding a democracy that serves the interests of the many rather than just those of the wealthy few.

A “provocative” (Kirkus Reviews), timely, and topical work that examines what’s good for American business and what’s good for Americans—and why those interests are misaligned. In American Amnesia, bestselling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson trace the economic and political history of the United States over the last century and show how a viable mixed economy has long been the dominant engine of America’s prosperity. We have largely forgotten this reliance, as many political circles and corporate actors have come to mistakenly see government as a hindrance rather than the propeller it once was. “American Amnesia” is more than a rhetorical phrase; elites have literally forgotten, or at least forgotten to talk about, the essential role of public authority in achieving big positive-sum bargains in advanced societies. The mixed economy was the most important social innovation of the twentieth century. It spread a previously unimaginable level of broad prosperity. It enabled steep increases in education, health, longevity, and economic security. And yet, extraordinarily, it is anathema to many current economic and political elites. Looking at this record of remarkable accomplishment, they recoil in horror. And as the advocates of anti-government free market fundamentalist have gained power, they are hell-bent on scrapping the instrument of nearly a century of unprecedented economic and social progress. In the American Amnesia, Hacker and Pierson explain the full “story of how government helped make America great, how the enthusiasm for bashing government is behind its current malaise, and how a return to effective government is the answer the nation is looking for” (The New York Times).

A New York Times Editors’ Choice An “essential” (Jane Mayer) account of the dangerous marriage of plutocratic economic priorities and right-wing populist appeals — and how it threatens the pillars of American democracy. In Let Them Eat Tweets, best-selling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that despite the rhetoric of Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, and other right-wing “populists,” the Republican Party came to serve its plutocratic masters to a degree without precedent in modern global history. To maintain power while serving the 0.1 percent, the GOP has relied on increasingly incendiary racial and cultural appeals to its almost entirely white base. Calling this dangerous hybrid “plutocratic populism,” Hacker and Pierson show how, over the last forty years, reactionary plutocrats and right-wing populists have become the two faces of a party that now actively undermines democracy to achieve its goals against the will of the majority of Americans. Based on decades of research and featuring a new epilogue about the intensification of GOP radicalism after the 2020 election, Let Them Eat Tweets authoritatively explains the doom loop of tax cutting and fearmongering that defines the Republican Party—and reveals how the rest of us can fight back.

This groundbreaking book represents the most systematic examination to date of the often-invoked but rarely examined declaration that "history matters." Most contemporary social scientists unconsciously take a "snapshot" view of the social world. Yet the meaning of social events or processes is frequently distorted when they are ripped from their temporal context. Paul Pierson argues that placing politics in time--constructing "moving pictures" rather than snapshots--can vastly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics, and greatly improve the theories and methods that we use to explain them. Politics in Time opens a new window on the temporal aspects of the social world. It explores a range of important features and implications of evolving social processes: the variety of processes that unfold over significant periods of time, the circumstances under which such different processes are likely to occur, and above all, the significance of these temporal dimensions of social life for our understanding of important political and social outcomes. Ranging widely across the social sciences, Pierson''s analysis reveals the high price social science pays when it becomes ahistorical. And it provides a wealth of ideas for restoring our sense of historical process. By placing politics back in time, Pierson''s book is destined to have a resounding and enduring impact on the work of scholars and students in fields from political science, history, and sociology to economics and policy analysis.

"European Social Policy brings together a distinguished group of specialists who examine the development and current status of European social policies in areas such as social security, industrial relations, regional development, gender equity, agriculture, and immigration. The authors emphasize the distinctive dynamic that arises from a multitiered system in which individual member states share policymaking responsibilities with central authorities. European social policy, emerging in conjunction with the construction of the common market, is the result of a pluralistic process in which member states, social actors, and European institutions, such as the Commission and the European Court of Justice, all vie for influence. According to the authors, the highly fragmented structure of European social policy typifies policymaking in the new European polity, where policy develops without being under the firm control of any particular political group." "The book also provides a comparison of social policymaking in the EU with that in Canada and the United States, two other multitiered, or federal, systems."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This book offers a careful examination of the politics of social policy in an era of austerity and conservative governance. Focusing on the administrations of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Pierson provides a compelling explanation for the welfare state''s durability and for the few occasions where each government was able to achieve significant cutbacks. The programmes of the modern welfare state - the ''policy legacies'' of previous governments - generally proved resistant to reform. Hemmed in by the political supports that have developed around mature social programmes, conservative opponents of the welfare state were successful only when they were able to divide the supporters of social programmes, compensate those negatively affected, or hide what they were doing from potential critics. The book will appeal to those interested in the politics of neo-conservatism as well as those concerned about the development of the modern welfare state. It will attract readers in the fields of comparative politics, public policy, and political economy.

The Republicans who run American government today have defied the normal laws of political gravity. They have ruled with the slimmest of majorities and yet have transformed the nation’s governing priorities. They have strayed dramatically from the moderate middle of public opinion and yet have faced little public backlash. Again and again, they have sided with the affluent and ideologically extreme while paying little heed to the broad majority of Americans. And much more often than not, they have come out on top. This book shows why—and why this troubling state of affairs can and must be changed. Written in a highly accessible style by two professional political scientists, Off Center tells the story of a deliberative process restricted and distorted by party chieftains, of unresponsive power brokers subverting the popular will, and of legislation written by and for powerful interests and deliberately designed to mute popular discontent. In the best tradition of engaged social science, Off Center is a powerful and informed critique that points the way toward a stronger foundation for American democracy.

A provocative exploration of how America’s democratic crisis is rooted in a dangerous mismatch between our Constitution and today’s nationalized, partisan politics. The ground beneath American political institutions has moved, with national politics subsuming and transforming the local. As a result, American democracy is in trouble. In this paradigm-shifting book, political scientists Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler bring a sharp new perspective to today’s challenges. Attentive to the different coalitions, interests, and incentives that define the Democratic and Republican parties, they show how contemporary polarization emerged in a rapidly nationalizing country and how it differs from polarization in past eras. In earlier periods, three key features of the political landscape—state parties, interest groups, and media—varied locally and reinforced the nation’s stark regional diversity. But this began to change in the 1960s as the two parties assumed clearer ideological identities and the power of the national government expanded, raising the stakes of conflict. Together with technological and economic change, these developments have reconfigured state parties, interest groups, and media in self-reinforcing ways. The result is that today’s polarization is self-perpetuating—and intensifying. Partisan Nation offers a powerful caution. As a result of this polarization, America’s political system is distinctly and acutely vulnerable to an authoritarian movement emerging in the contemporary Republican Party, which has both the motive and the means to exploit America’s unusual Constitutional design. Combining the precision and acuity characteristic of their earlier work, Pierson and Schickler explain what these developments mean for American governance and democracy.

Cet ouvrage analyse le développement et l''état actuel des politiques sociales européennes dans des domaines tels que la protection des plus démunis, les conditions de travail et les relations professionnelles, le développement régional, l''égalité de traitement entre les sexes, l''agriculture, l''immigration. Il analyse aussi la refonte des systèmes nationaux de protection sociale impliquée par la construction européenne.

For decades, center-left parties in the West have been moving right on economic issues. They have also become less oriented to the working class, growing their support among the affluent and highly educated--what economist Thomas Piketty has dubbed the "Brahmin Left." Until recently, the U.S. Democratic Party has been no exception--leading to accusations, from both left and right, that it engages in culture wars at the expense of economics. In this issue, political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson say that trend is over: the Democrats have decisively broken with the politics of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. What explains the Democrats'' "U-turn" on economics, despite their growing reliance on affluent suburban voters? Can it work--as both an economic project and a way of building power? And what does this transformation mean for the future of the party--and a nation facing down democratic crisis Hacker and Pierson lead a forum with responses from Jared Abbott, Larry Bartels, Bryce Covert, Ted Fertik & Tim Sahay, Heather Gautney, Lily Geismer, Representative Ro Khanna, and Dorian Warren & Thomas Ogorzalek. Elsewhere in the issue, Barnett R. Rubin examines the relationship between Zionism and colonialism--and what it means (and doesn''t mean) for a political solution in Israel and Palestine. We talk with Palestinian-American poet Fady Joudah and feature two poems he wrote after October 7. Plus essays on Walter Rodney''s radical legacy, geopolitics amid war in Gaza, and more. Full list of contributors: Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson lead a forum with Jared Abbott, Larry M. Bartels, Bryce Covert, Ted Fertik & Tim Sahay, Heather Gautney, Lily Geismer, Ro Khanna, and Dorian Warren & Thomas Ogorzalek--plus work by Noaman G. Ali & Shozab Raza, Abena Ampofoa Asare, Rachel Ida Buff, Helena Cobban, Fady Joudah, and Barnett R. Rubin.

This book summarize, comments, explains the background, and tells the purpose of the Book of Acts of the Bible. The Book of Acts tells the history and the story of the disciples of Christ and how they proclaimed the message of Christ. The books explains the basis of the Christianity as understood by the disciples of Christ.

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Presidents shape the economy; the economy shapes presidencies. Yet analyses of presidential influence over the economy usually examine this interplay through an excessively narrow focus: the ability of presidents to shape short-term economic outcomes, particularly as these affect their own reelection prospects. Here, drawing on work in comparative political economy, we ask about the capacity of presidents to influence long-term economic developments, particularly the degree to which the economy produces broadly distributed growth. Focusing on the transformation of American tax policy over the last generation, we stress the constraints and opportunities that come from "durable policy coalitions" of partisans, activists, and organized economic interests seeking enduring shifts in governance. We develop this argument in part through a contrast with the influential views of Larry Bartels, who claims that presidents have a powerful immediate impact on economic inequality. We suggest that presidents are generally much more constrained, while attempting to clarify when and how they make a difference.

Literaturverz. S. 28 - 30

My thesis consists of three essays investigating the existence, causes, and mitigation of profit cycles at an industry level. The first essay examines profit cycles by proposing that the industry-specific features of how competition acts on a firm are important determinants of how mean reversion manifests in firm earnings. The evidence suggests that because competition has inertia, caused by the time to build productive capacity specific to each industry, earnings do not smoothly revert to the mean, but instead cycle around it. Since these findings affect research that uses expected earnings models, lags of capital expenditure are used as a proxy for competition in a regression model of firm earnings and are shown to be significant determinants of the earnings reported. The second essay seeks to explain why aggregate airline industry profits have displayed cyclicality since deregulation in 1978. In order to better understand the causes of these profit cycles, I build a large-scale model of the airline industry that includes more endogenous feedbacks than previous models, as well as formulations for several strategies that have been employed by airlines to mitigate the cycles. While I find that, consistent with earlier research, the delay in acquiring capacity is an important determinant of the behavior of airline profits, I also show that multiple negative feedback loops are involved in the intensity and periodicity of the profit cycle in the airline industry. Specifically, analysis of my model suggests that the growing reliance on yield management as a tool for determining ticket prices has exacerbated the volatility of airline industry profits. The third essay focuses on the insurance industry, where the delay in building productive capacity is short. I build and analyze a parsimonious model of the property-casualty insurance industry, and show results which suggest that delays in adjusting the characteristics of underwritten insurance policies are responsible for the oscillatory behavior. Simulations where the industry increases both the target level of capital reserves, and the attention paid to the adequacy of that level, show significantly reduced profit variance.

Globalyceum''s American Government is a supplemental and optional print version of the essays from Units 1-8 of its digital course platform American Government. It does not include the lectures, problems, compositions, or multimedia materials of the digital course platform. However, it is useful to students who are accustomed to reading longer texts on paper. About the authors: Globalyceum''s American Government has eight texts from leading political scientists, many of whom have won national prizes in the field of American government: Jack Rakove, Anne-Marie Hancock, Melinda Jackson, Dara Strolovitch, Kathleen Dolan, Sean Gailmard, Lawrence Baum, and Paul Pierson.