The landslide reelection of President Ronald Reagan in 1984 prompted political analysts to consider the possibility of a national realignment of the electorate toward the Republican party. The 1986 elections, however, proved any predictions of a national realignment to be premature. A major shift in voting patterns had not taken place--except in the Mountain West, where a realignment was already in place. Once second only to the southern states in Democratic attachments, these western states (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) now compose the most Republican region in the nation. The contributors to this volume assert that this substantial change in electoral patterns, which has spanned nearly forty years, resulted not from a westward migration but from a widespread conversion among those who are born and remain in the region. In analyzing this realignment, these writers--some of the nation's best electoral scholars--provide historical and contemporary overviews and assess the important issues not only for voters but also for party organizations and members of Congress. Their focus in The Politics of Realignment, however, is on the Mountain West's role in contemporary American politics. The authors present a comprehensive investigation into the meaning of this regional realignment for national politics.

The Politics Of Realignment: Party Change In The Mountain West

Politics & Social Sciences

Francis, John G.

Simmons, Randy T.

Galderisi, Peter F

Lyons, Michael S

Social Sciences

Routledge

Green vs. Green: The Political, Legal, and Administrative Pitfalls Facing Green Energy Production (Routledge Research in Environmental Policy and Politics)

Renewable and carbon-neutral energy have been promoted as the future of energy production in the United States. Non-traditional energy sources show promise as alternatives to fossil fuels and may provide a sustainable source of energy in increasingly uncertain energy markets. However, these new sources of energy face their own set of political, administrative, and legal challenges. Green vs. Green explores how mixed land ownership and existing law and regulation present serious challenges to the development of alternative energy sources in the United States. Analytically examining and comparing five green energy sectors; wind, solar, geothermal, biofuel and hydro power, Ryan M. Yonk, Randy T. Simmons, and Brian C. Steed argue that discussing alternative energy without understanding these pitfalls creates unrealistic expectations regarding the ability to substitute "green" energy for traditional sources. The micro-goals of protecting individual areas, species, small-scale ecosystems, and other local environmental aims often limits ability to achieve macro-goals like preventing global climate change or transitioning to large-scale green energy production. Statutes and regulations designed to protect environmental and cultural integrity from degradation directly conflict with other stated environmental ends. Although there is substantial interest in adding clean energy to the grid, it appears that localized environmental interests interfere with broader environmental policy goals and the application of existing environmental laws and regulations may push us closer to gridlock. Green vs. Green provides a fascinating look into how existing environmental law created or will create substantial regulatory hurdles for future energy generations.

Yonk, Ryan M.

Steed, Brian C.

Environmental & Natural Resources Law

Environmental topics pervade classrooms today, but true understanding of them is elusive. All too often, subjects such as global warming, species extinction, and the role of pesticides are reduced to simple slogans because accurate information is hard to find. 
 Yet there is enormous scientific debate about these topics. Thomas Jefferson said that "difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to truth." Critical Thinking About Environmental Issues will prepare young people to become inquiring citizens by introducing them to the scientific and economic debates that underlie environmental issues. 
Each volume will provide readers with a range of scientific views and theories on an environmental topic and introduce facts that are sometimes ignored. Each will help readers use their critical thinking skills. By exposing students to differences in opinion, this series will enable them to search for the truth and to make their own decisions.

Critical Thinking About Environmental Issues - Endangered Species (hardcover edition)

Teen & Young Adult

Social Issues

Greenhaven Press

Traditional public policy and welfare economics have held that market failures” are common, requiring the intervention of government in order to serve and protect the public good. In Beyond Politics, William C. Mitchell and Randy T. Simmons carefully scrutinize this traditional view through the modern theory of public choice.The authors enlighten the relationship of government and markets by emphasizing the actual rather than the ideal workings of governments and by reuniting the insights of economics with those of political science. Beyond Politics traces the anatomy of government failure” and a pathology of contemporary political institutions as government has become a vehicle for private gain at public expense. In so doing, this brisk and vigorous book examines a host of public issues, including social welfare, consumer protection, and the environment. Offering a unified and powerful perspective on the market process, property rights, politics, contracts, and government bureaucracy, Beyond Politics is a lucid and comprehensive book on the foundations and institutions of a free and humane society.

Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, And The Failure Of Bureaucracy (Independent Studies in Political Economy)

Business & Money

Mitchell, William

Economics

Westview Press

Book by Galderisi, Peter F., Lyons, Michael S., Simmons, Randy T., Francis, John

The Politics Of Realignment: Party Change In The Mountain West (Westview Special Studies in American Government and Politics)

Politics & Government

Providing students of economics, politics, and policy with a concise explanation of public choice, markets, property, and political and economic processes, this record identifies what kinds of actions are beyond the ability of government. Combining public choice with studies of the value of property rights, markets, and institutions, this account produces a much different picture of modern political economy than the one accepted by mainstream political scientists and welfare economists. It demonstrates that when citizens request that their governments do more than it is possible, net benefits are reduced, costs are increased, and wealth and freedom are diminished. Solutions are also suggested with the goal to improve the lot of those who should be the ultimate sovereigns in a democracy: the citizens.

Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure

Independent Institute

What if what we think we know about ecology and environmental policy is just wrong? What if environmental laws often make things worse? What if the very idea of nature has been hijacked by politics? What if wilderness is something we create in our minds, as opposed to being an actual description of nature? Developing answers to these questions and developing implications of those answers are our purposes in this book. Two themes guide us—political ecology and political entrepreneurship. Combining these two concepts, which we develop in some detail, leads us to recognize that sometimes in their original design and certainly in their implementation, major U.S. environmental laws are more about opportunism and ideology than good management and environmental improvement.

Nature Unbound: Bureaucracy vs. the Environment

Sim, Kenneth J.

Nature Unbound: Bureaucracy vs. the Environment (Independent Studies in Political Economy)

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Books by Simmons, Randy T.