Arkansas Politics and Government

Diane D. Blair Irrevocable Trust, Jay Barth

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780803261983
• eBook ISBN: 9780803204898
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Published a decade and a half after the late Diane D. Blair's influential book Arkansas Politics and Government, this freshly revised edition builds on her work, which highlighted both the decades of failure by Arkansas's government to live up to the state's motto of Regnat Populus ("The People Rule") and the positive trends of democracy. Since the first edition, Arkansas has seen the two-term U.S. presidency of a native son, the retirement of players who defined the state's politics in the modern era, the further realignment of the state's electorate, the passage of the nation's most extreme legislative term limits, the complete overhaul of the state's court system, and the declaration that the state's public education system was unconstitutionally inadequate and inequitable. While maintaining the basic structure of Blair's original work with its focus on important historical patterns and the ways in which the past continues to shape the present, the second edition details the causes and consequences of recent changes in Arkansas and asks whether they are profound and permanent or merely transitory variations in symbol and style. Jay Barth argues that although Arkansas currently expresses a healthier representative democracy than throughout most of its history, its political and governmental entities are still sharply limited as effective instruments of "the people."

Table of contents

• Contents
• Tables, Maps, and Figures
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The Past in the Present
• 2. Some Socioeconomic, Cultural, and Political Explanations
• 3. Traditional Politics and Its Transformation
• 4. Contemporary Political Patterns
• 5. Dealigned Voters and Disadvantaged Political Parties in Contemporary Arkansas
• 6. The Influence of Interest Groups
• 7. The Constitution: Provisions and Politics
• 8. The Power and Politics of the Executive Branch
• 9. The Power and Politics of the Legislative Branch
• 10. The Power and Politics of the Judicial Branch
• 11. Arkansas in the Federal System: Cooperation and Conflict
• 12. Politics at the Grassroots: How Democratic?
• 13. The Politics of State Services
• 14. Continuity and Change in Arkansas Politics
• 15. For the Future: Suggested Sources
• Notes
• Index