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The Republicans who run American government today have defied the normal laws of political gravity. They have ruled with the slimmest of majorities and yet have transformed the nation's governing priorities. They have strayed dramatically from the moderate middle of public opinion and yet have faced little public backlash. Again and again, they have sided with the affluent and ideologically extreme while paying little heed to the broad majority of Americans. And much more often than not, they have come out on top. This book shows why—and why this troubling state of affairs can and must be changed.Written in a highly accessible style by two professional political scientists, Off Center tells the story of a deliberative process restricted and distorted by party chieftains, of unresponsive power brokers subverting the popular will, and of legislation written by and for powerful interests and deliberately designed to mute popular discontent. In the best tradition of engaged social science, Off Center is a powerful and informed critique that points the way toward a stronger foundation for American democracy

This groundbreaking book represents the most systematic examination to date of the often-invoked but rarely examined declaration that ""history matters."" Most contemporary social scientists unconsciously take a ""snapshot"" view of the social world. Yet the meaning of social events or processes is frequently distorted when they are ripped from their temporal context. Paul Pierson argues that placing politics in time--constructing ""moving pictures"" rather than snapshots--can vastly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics, and greatly improve the theories and methods that we us.

New data makes it possible to measure the evolution of social program generosity over the roughly three decades since the affluent democracies entered the era of austerity. Compared with plausible expectations derived from power resource theory, as well as prior historical experience, these data reveal a striking level of stability in benefits. This finding has important implications for the study of the welfare state; rather than focusing exclusively on accounting for variation in program outcomes over time and across countries, we need to consider why there is often relatively little variation to explain. At the same time, this relative stability at the level of programs co-exists with dramatic change in social context as well dramatic shifts in other aspects of the post-war social contract. The ramifications of programmatic stability can only be understood by situating it within these broader patterns of social transformation. ; Neue Daten ermöglichen uns heute die Messung, wie sich die Generosität von Sozialleistungen in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten entwickelt hat - also in jener Phase, in der die reichen Demokratien in das Zeitalter der Austerität eingetreten sind. Im Vergleich zu den Erwartungen der Machtressourcen-Theorie und zu historischen Erfahrungen zeigen die Daten eine bemerkenswerte Stabilität im Hinblick auf die Höhe der Sozialleistungen. Dieser Befund besitzt erhebliche Implikationen für die Sozialstaatsforschung. Diese sollte sich nicht mehr nur auf die Erklärung der Unterschiede von Outcomes im Zeitverlauf und zwischen Ländern beschränken, sondern auch die Frage stellen, weshalb oftmals die zu erklärenden Unterschiede so gering sind. Gleichzeitig geht die Stabilität der Sozialleistungen Hand in Hand mit dramatischen Veränderungen im gesellschaftlichen Umfeld und tiefgreifenden Umwälzungen in der Nachkriegsordnung. Die Konsequenzen dieser Stabilität verstehen wir nur dann, wenn wir sie als Teil einer umfassenden sozialen Transformation begreifen.

In the past few decades research relying primarily on qualitative methods has been almost completely marginalized within the subfield of American politics. After outlining the unusual organizational contours of the subfield, the author demonstrates that even as it has been marginalized, qualitative work continues to make very important contributions to scholars' understanding of American politics. Much of the strength of this work comes from its focus on the substance of politics, its configurative approach to explanation, and its attentiveness to the temporal dimensions of social processes. Despite the high quality of much quantitative work in American politics, the marginalization of qualitative approaches has come at a substantial cost, introducing a range of biases and shortcomings in the subfield's main research programs.