Appointments to the United States Supreme Court are now central events in American political life. Every vacancy unleashes a bitter struggle between Republicans and Democrats over nominees; and once the seat is filled, new justices typically vote in predictable ways. However, this has not always been the case. As late as the middle of the twentieth century, presidents invested little time and effort in finding and vetting nominees, often selecting personal cronies, who senators briskly confirmed. Media coverage was desultory, public opinion was largely non-existent, and the justices often voted independently and erratically. In Making the Supreme Court, Charles M. Cameron and Jonathan P. Kastellec examine 90 years of American political history to show how the growth of federal judicial power from the 1930s onward inspired a multitude of groups struggling to shape judicial policy. Over time, some groups moved beyond lobbying the Court to changing who sits on it. Other groups formed expressly to influence appointments. These activists and organized groups penetrated the national party system so that after about 1980, presidential candidates increasingly pledged to select and confirm nominees who conformed to specific policy and ideological litmus tests. Once in office, these presidents re-shaped the executive selection system to deliver on their promises. Moreover, the selection process for justices turned into media events, often fueled by controversy. As Cameron and Kastellec argue, the result is a new politics aimed squarely at selecting and placing judicial ideologues on the Court. They make the case that this new model gradually transformed how the Court itself operates, turning it into an ideologically driven and polarized branch. Based on rich data and qualitative evidence, Making the Supreme Court provides a sharp lens on the social and political transformations that created a new American politics.

The last two decades have witnessed a substantial change in the media environment, growing polarization of the two dominant parties, and increasing inequality of wealth and income. These profound changes necessitate updating our understanding of political accountability. Accountability Reconsidered examines how political accountability functions in the US today given the dramatic changes in voting behavior, media, congressional dynamics, and relations between branches. With particular attention to policymaking, this volume uses original research to analyze micro-foundations of voter behavior, examining its implications for incentives and offering insight into the accountability relationships among voters, interest groups, legislators, and government bureaucracy. Combining contributions from leading experts who write about the political system synoptically with those who focus on specific elements, Accountability Reconsidered brings together distinct perspectives to focus on the effect of the informational environment on government officials, bridging up-to-date knowledge about accountability mechanisms with our overall understanding of political accountability.

With one party controlling the presidency and the opposing party controlling Congress, the veto has inevitably become a critical tool of presidential power. Combining sophisticated game theory with unprecedented data, this book analyzes how divided party presidents use threats and vetoes to wrest policy concessions from a hostile Congress. Case studies of the most important vetoes in recent history add texture to the analysis, detailing how President Clinton altered the course of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution. Offering the first book-length analysis to bring rational choice theory to bear on the presidency, Veto Bargaining is a major contribution to our understanding of American politics in an age of divided party government.