The Changing Racial Regime: (National Political Science Review Series)

The National Political Science Review is the official publication of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists. The Review's purpose, as described by Matthew Holden in his introduction, is to "lead to new information, insights, and findings" into the social and political status of African Americans. The volume is not exclusionist or narrow. It integrates essays that could stand alone, as they initially were written, according to the method and theory of the author in question. As presented here, however, they also lend themselves to a broader treatment of race and the political order. The present volume combines essays expressly focused on African Americans, Africa, and the African diaspora. At the same tune, it contains essays about broad generic subjects such as budgeting and interest groups, written with no explicit racial relevance. Holden integrates these essays under the theme of the changing racial regime. The integrating concept is the old word "regime," which political scientists have used in many situations before to define such more or less persistent, though not necessarily permanent, orders of precedence. If no significant benefits and no significant burdens could be forecast by knowledge of the social identity called race, then the regime could be seen as non-racial. In American experience, the regime was, at one time, purposeful and sustained white advantage. The "white race" and its preferential standing, was central to virtually all institutional practice public and private. The significant contemporary question is the degree of change hi the racial regime. Some proceed with the assumption that a large degree of change has occurred in the American political system. The view of other contributors is that the system still sustains racial stratification. In its very internal dialogue, this volume presents a panorama of current work by political scientists, African American and other, on the character of the American political system. Contributors include: Cedric Robinson, Charles Henry, Edward J. Muller, Marjorie Lewis, Katherine A. Hinckley and Bette S. Hill, Nancy Haggard-Gilson, and Vernon Johnson. The Changing Racial Regime is an essential resource for political scientists, black studies specialists, and scholars and policy analysts of race relations in the United States.

Table of Contents:
Editor’s Introduction “Regime” and “Race” in Political Science; Slavery and the Platonic Origins of Anti-Democracy; Abram Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche: The Howard School of Thought on the Problem of Race; Organizational Character and Interest Group Strategies; Regimes, Party, and Federal Budgeting: Presidential Estimates, Appropriations, and Expenditures; Ethics and Budgeting: Comment on an Integrity Model; The Rehnquist Court’s 1990 and 1991 Terms: The Constitutional Politics of Federalism and its Consequences for Black Americans; Agenda and Roll-Call Responsiveness to Black Interests: A Longitudinal Analysts of the Alabama Senate *; Race, Abortion, and Judicial Retention: The Case of Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw; Mayoral Politics Chicago Style: The Rise and Fall of a Multiethnic Coalition, 1983-1989; Party Sorting at the Local Level in South Carolina; Boston’s Mandela Referendum: Urban Nationalism and Economic Dependence; Minority Business Enterprise Set-Aside Programs, Disparity Fact-Finding Studies, and Racial Discrimination in State and Local Public Contracting in the Post- Croson Era; Racial Formation in Zimbabwe; Affirmative Action: The Quality of the Debate; Mozambique’s Descent into Hell; Democracy in America and the Representation of African Americans; Book Reviews; Editor’s Postscript: Regime Issues and a Study Agenda; Invitation to the Scholarly Community