Amazon.com: Off Center : The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy
Prof. Henry Farrell:The Republicans have been transformed over the last twenty years from a loosely organized coalition in which moderates appeared to have the upper hand, to a party that is astonishingly well disciplined by the standards of American political history and dominated by right-wing radicals. How has this happened?
Hacker and Pierson immediately discard two common explanations, neither of which is supported by the facts. First, there is no evidence that Americans are more conservative on social issues than they used to be; indeed some evidence suggests that they are now a little more centrist. Nor does it appear that mobilization of "morals voters" was the key to Republican success in the last Presidential election - detailed analysis suggests that state-level efforts to put gay marriage on the ballot helped Kerry, not Bush. Second, there is no evidence of a general process of `polarization' in which both the left and the right are rapidly seceding to the extremes, leaving moderate voters with few palatable choices. The evidence suggests the contrary - while Democrats have become only somewhat more left wing, as Southern Democrats have either disappeared or defected to the Republicans, the Republican party has shifted radically to the right. Positions that were in the mainstream of the Republican party of the 1970s and 1980s are anathema today.
So why hasn't the Republican party been punished by voters for its radicalism? As I understand it, Hacker and Pierson's explanation has three main components. First, information. Voters are often poorly informed about politics, and are vulnerable to "tailored disinformation," which distorts public perceptions. Second, institutions. The Republican Party has been able to use its dominance of Senate, House and Presidency to set the agenda and to sideline opposition. Finally, networks. "New Power Brokers" like Tom DeLay have been able to assemble networks that bring together politicians, think-tankers, funders and lobbyists, creating a coherent agenda across separate institutions, rewarding and protecting loyalists while brutally punishing those who go off-message.
By bringing these together, Hacker and Pierson can explain how the Republican party has succeeded in bringing through radical policy shifts that go against public preferences. Their analysis of the 2001 tax cuts, the Bush energy plan, and the Medicare drugs bill shows how highly objectionable policies can be crafted to fleece the public without raising much in the way of public opposition. In the case of the tax cuts, assiduous propaganda disguised the fiscal impact of the cuts and made them look less biased towards the rich than they in fact were. Republican leaders made sure that they were sent to the floor for voting without opportunity for proper debate or for consideration of alternatives. "Sunsets," "phase-ins" and "time-bombs" were deployed to make the measures temporarily more palatable and to disguise their true costs and long term consequences. "Backlash insurance" provided protection to Republicans who signed onto the agenda.
Nor do Hacker and Pierson confine their argument to the legislative process. Executive action (and non-action) too is important, as witnessed by their account of the systematic gutting of the EPA's and OSHA's ability to enforce regulations.
The book's detailed discussion of how the Republicans have been able to pull all this off is valuable in itself. Readers who have paid attention to Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall over the last couple of years will already know much of the story, although not all of it. Hacker and Pierson uncover some interesting and important new facts. But where the book shines is in providing the analytic chops to draw it together into a coherent whole. Off Center does this in two ways. First, it provides a taxonomy of the different tactics that right wing radicals in the Republican party have used. Second, and more importantly, it shows how distortion of information, manipulation of institutions and careful application of network resources work to reinforce each other. Without understanding all of these - and the interaction between them - you can't understand the quite remarkable success of the Republican party over the last few years.
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