Electoral Patterns in Alabama

Reviews / Votes

"The study of American politics suffers from a lack of focus on political change at the state level. This book provides an excellent analysis of electoral change in arguably the most "southern" of southern states since 1945, and interplay of class and race in Alabama politics past and present. As such it is a worthy addition to the literature on ongoing electoral alignments and realignments in the southern US." (--Nicol Rae, Associate Dean, College of Applied Science and Technology Professor, University of Arizona, USA)
"Wagner relies primarily and creatively on county-level election and census data to provide readers with a comprehensive and compelling account of the post-World War II transformation of party politics in Alabama. She ably juxtaposes the dramatic reversal of party fortunes with the persistence of cultural traditions and factionalism rooted in region and socio-economic class. Her single-state focus incorporates and clarifies broader contemporaneous regional and national developments. This is an invaluable addition to the scholarly literature on Southern politics and party realignment." (--Harold F. Bass, Department of Political Science, Ouachita Baptist University, USA)

"Top-down interpretations of American politics are everywhere, interpretations in which state and local developments are mainly reflections--even merely examples--of a national story. So a bottom-up approach is instantly noteworthy, and few if any states have changed as much as Alabama in this bottom-up interpretation of postwar Alabama politics. Gubernatorial, senatorial, and presidential contests; local, regional, and national coalitions; crucial change-points and insistent continuity: all appear here in a clearly organized exposition that still picks up many of the major developments in postwar American politics, while making it clear that these were rarely simple replications at the state and local level--most certainly not in Alabama. The great virtue of a grass-roots context is that it permits an underlying social complexity to show up in political analysis, by offering the real context within which politicians had to plan their campaigns and their careers." (--Byron E. Shafer, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, USA)