Tucked between the larger commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Virginia and overshadowed by the political maneuverings of its neighbor, Washington, D.C., Maryland has often been overlooked and neglected in studies of state governmental systems. With the publication of Maryland Politics and Government, the challenging demographic diversity, geographic variety, and dynamic Democratic pragmatism of Maryland finally get their due. Two longtime political analysts, Herbert C. Smith and John T. Willis, conduct a sustained inquiry into topics including the Maryland identity, political history, and interest groups; the three branches of state government; and policy areas such as taxation, spending, transportation, and the environment. Smith and Willis also establish a –Two Marylands” model that explains the dominance of the Maryland Democratic Party, established in the post_Civil War era, that persists to this day even in a time of political polarization. Unique in its scope, detail, and coverage, Maryland Politics and Government sets the standard for understanding the politics of the Free State (or, alternately, the Old Line State) for years to come.

When it comes to voting, taxes, environmental regulations, social services, education, criminal justice, political parties, property rights, gun control, marriage and a whole host of other modern American issues, the state in which a citizen resides makes a difference. That idea—that the political decisions made by those in state-level offices are of tremendous importance to the lives of people whose states they govern—is the fundamental concept explored in this book. Gary F. Moncrief and Peverill Squire introduce students to the very tangible and constantly evolving implications, limitations, and foundations of America’s state political institutions, and accessibly explain the ways that the political powers of the states manifest themselves in the cultures, economies, and lives of everyday Americans, and always will.

How politics and race shaped Baltimore's distinctive disarray of cultures and subcultures. Charm City or Mobtown? People from Baltimore glory in its eccentric charm, small-town character, and North-cum-South culture. But for much of the nineteenth century, violence and disorder plagued the city. More recently, the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody has prompted Baltimoreans—and the entire nation—to focus critically on the rich and tangled narrative of black–white relations in Baltimore, where slavery once existed alongside the largest community of free blacks in the United States. Matthew A. Crenson, a distinguished political scientist and Baltimore native, examines the role of politics and race throughout Baltimore's history. From its founding in 1729 up through the recent past, Crenson follows Baltimore's political evolution from an empty expanse of marsh and hills to a complicated city with distinct ways of doing business. Revealing how residents at large engage (and disengage) with one another across an expansive agenda of issues and conflicts, Crenson shows how politics helped form this complex city's personality. Crenson provocatively argues that Baltimore's many quirks are likely symptoms of urban underdevelopment. The city's longtime domination by the general assembly—and the corresponding weakness of its municipal authority—forced residents to adopt the private and extra-governmental institutions that shaped early Baltimore. On the one hand, Baltimore was resolutely parochial, split by curious political quarrels over issues as minor as loose pigs. On the other, it was keenly attuned to national politics: during the Revolution, for instance, Baltimoreans were known for their comparative radicalism. Crenson describes how, as Baltimore and the nation grew, whites competed with blacks, slave and free, for menial and low-skill work. He also explores how the urban elite thrived by avoiding, wherever possible, questions of slavery versus freedom—just as wealthier Baltimoreans, long after the Civil War and emancipation, preferred to sidestep racial controversy. Peering into the city's 300-odd neighborhoods, this fascinating account holds up a mirror to Baltimore, asking whites in particular to reexamine the past and accept due responsibility for future racial progress.

The poor are grossly underrepresented in Congress both overall and by individual legislators, even those who represent high-poverty districts.

Explores how non-policy resources, including administrative competence, patronage, and activists' networks, shape both electoral results and which voters get what.

Their Magistrates and Officials combines narrative, institutional study and biographical approaches to revise our understanding the mechanisms of colonial, imperial, and proprietary government in 18th century Maryland, focusing on the executive branch. The fundamental conflict between Enlightenment ideas and the absolutist Charter of Maryland complicated the political scene, which was already a web of conflicting personal ambitions and personalities and a set of recurrent economic and political problems.

"Smarter Government: Governing for Results in the Information Age is about a more effective way to lead that is emerging, enabled by the Information Age. It provides real solutions to real problems using GIS technology and helps develop a management strategy using data that will profoundly change an organization, as successfully implemented by Gov. Martin O'Malley in the state of Maryland"--

This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of both the historical and the contemporary dimensions of the politics and government of the First State. Once a sparsely populated, agrarian, and relatively insignificant polity, Delaware has become a densely and diversely populated financial and legal center often called the corporation capital of the world. Delaware s prime location has been central to its development and transition from a goods-producing economy to a fast-growing, service-based economy. Despite its diminutive size, Delaware is, in many ways, the nation s preferred corporate home. William W. Boyer and Edward C. Ratledge provide an overview of Delaware s history, structure, and present politics and explain why one of the smallest states in the country is also one of the most powerful. Delaware continually promotes pro-business legislation, business and public objectives are entwined, and privatization is a dominant theme in public affairs. The state has an individualistic political order in which public participation is indirect and citizen activism is limited.

"Over the last half century, there has been a marked increase in ideological conservatism among African Americans, with nearly 50% of black Americans describing themselves as conservative in the 2000s, as compared to 10% in the 1970s. Support for redistributive initiatives has likewise declined. And yet, even as black Americans shift rightward on ideological and issue positions, Democratic Party identification has stayed remarkable steady, holding at 80% to 90%. It is this puzzle that White and Laird look to address in this new book: Why has ideological change failed to push black Americans into the Republican party? Most explanations for homogeneity have focused on individual dispositions, including ideology and group identity. White and Laird acknowledge that these are important, but point out that such explanations fail to account for continued political unity even in the face of individual ideological change and of individual incentives to defect from this common group behavior. The authors offer instead, or in addition, a behavioral explanation, arguing that black Americans maintain political unity through the establishment and enforcement of well-defined group expectations of black political behavior through a process they term racialized social constraint. The authors explain how black political norms came about, and what these norms are, then show (with the help of survey data and lab-in-field experiments) how such norms are enforced, and where this enforcement happens (through a focus on black institutions). They conclude by exploring the implications of the theory for electoral strategy, as well as explaining how this framework can be used to understand other voter communities"--

Popular distrust and the entrenchment of government by professionals lie at the root of America’s most pressing political problems. How did U.S. politics get to this point? Contemporary American politics got much of its shape from the transformations brought about from the 1950s to the 1980s. Presidential and congressional behavior, voting behavior, public opinion, public policy and federalism were all reconfigured during that time and many of those changes persist to this day and structure the political environment in the early twenty-first century. Throughout American history, parties have been a reliable instrument for translating majority preferences into public policy. From the 1950s to the 1980s, a gradual antiparty realignment, alongside the growth of professional government, produced a new American political system of remarkable durability – and remarkable dysfunction. It is a system that is paradoxically stable despite witnessing frequent shifts in party control of the institutions of government at the state and national level. Schier and Eberly's system-level view of American politics demonstrates the disconnect between an increasingly polarized and partisan elite and an increasingly disaffected mass public.