Jeffrey M. Stonecash

Maxwell Professor of Political Science

Degree

Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1975

Specialties

Political parties, electoral behavior, state politics, and intergovernmental relations

Publications

Counter Reealignment: Political Change in the Northeast.  (with Howard L. Reiter: Cambridge, 2010); New Directions in Party Politics, Editor (Routledge, forthcoming, 2010); The Dynamics of the American Party System (with Mark D. Brewer; Cambridge, 2009); Reassessing the Incumbency Effect (Cambridge, 2008); Split: Class and Cultural Divisions in American Politics (CQ Press, 2007); Parties Matter: Realignment and the Return of Partisanship (Lynne-Rienner, 2006); Governing New York State (SUNY Press, 2006); Political Polling (Roman and Littlefield, 2003, 2009); The Emergence of State Government: Parties and New Jersey Politics, 1950-2000 (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002); Diverging Parties: Social Change, Realignment, and Party Polarization (Westview Press, 2002); Class and Party in American Politics (Westview Press, 2000); Editor. 

Courses

Graduate Courses:

Theories of American Politics
American Political Parties
Advanced Quantitative Methods

Research Interests

Political parties, realignment of their electoral bases, and the impact of changing alignments on the nature of policy debates.

Research Projects

Incumbents and Realignment: Interpreting House Careers:  An analysis of how realignment, largely beginning in the 1960s, has affected the electoral careers of Members.  The analysis will focus on those who exited via retirement or a loss (at least 40 percent of all exiting incumbents since 1900).  The book is an attempt to reconcile cross-sectional short-term analyses with an approach that incorporates long-term partisan shifts in support within regions.

The Role of Class in American Politics:  While many think class matters, there is no consensus that it does.  We tend to focus on individual level variations as evidence for the relevance of class and the results are mixed, depending on what indicator is used.  This analysis will argue that we have been looking in the wrong places.  House districts vary enormously in their median family income and that creates considerable variation in concern for issues of class among Members and in policy debates in Congress.  This analysis will explore how variations in district composition affect advocacy and voting on class issues in the House of Representatives.

Shifting the Debate in the 1960s:  From the 1930s through the 1960s Democrats and liberalism dominated American politics.  Then abruptly in the 1960s, following the candidacies of Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon and considerable social disorder, conservatives began their ascendancy.  This analysis focuses on how these events rapidly changed the electoral bases and agendas of each party.  With Mark Brewer, University of Maine.