This fourteenth edition accounts for the 2012 elections and includes discussion of the agenda of the new Congress, White House-Capitol Hill relations, party and committee leadership changes, judicial appointments, and partisan polarization, as well as covering changes to budgeting, campaign finance, lobbyists in legislative policymaking, public attitudes about Congress, reapportionment, rules, and procedural shifts. Always balancing great scholarship with currency, the book features lively case material along with relevant data, charts, exhibits, maps, and photos.
Roger H. Davidson is professor emeritus of government and politics at the University of Maryland, and has served as visiting professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. For the 2001-2002 academic year, he served as the John Marshall Chair in political science at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. His books include Remaking Congress: Change and Stability in the 1990's, co-edited with James A. Thurber (1995), and Understanding the Presidency, Third Edition, co-edited with James P. Pfiffner (2003). Davidson is co-editor with Donald C. Bacon and Morton Keller of The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress (1995).
Walter J. Oleszek is a senior specialist in the legislative process at the Congressional Research Service. He has served as either a full-time professional staff aide or consultant to every major House and Senate congressional reorganization effort beginning with the passage of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. In 1993, he served as Policy Director of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. A long-time adjunct faculty member at The American University, Oleszek is a frequent lecturer before various academic, governmental and business groups. He is the author or co-author of several books, including Congress and Its Members, 10th ed. (2006),with Roger H. Davidson, and Congress Under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority (1997), with C. Lawrence Evans.
Frances E. Lee is associate professor of government and politics at University of Maryland. She has been a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an APSA Congressional Fellow. She coauthored Sizing Up The Senate: The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation with Bruce I. Oppenheimer, which won the D. B. Hardeman Prize in 1999. Her articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and American Journal of Political Science, among others.
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这本书的装帧和排版简直是阅读体验的噩梦。内页纸张的质感粗糙得让人联想到廉价的影印本,墨水的渗透性太差,导致字迹边缘模糊不清,尤其是在需要仔细辨认那些复杂的法条和历史时间线时,简直是种折磨。更别提那可笑的索引系统了,查找某个特定议员的投票记录或者委员会变动,就像在大海捞针,完全没有遵循任何可识别的逻辑顺序。我花了几乎一半的时间在与这些糟糕的物理呈现作斗争,而不是真正去理解那些关于国会运作的精髓。对于任何严肃的学术研究者或者仅仅是想认真阅读的普通读者来说,这种制作水准是完全不可接受的,它极大地削弱了内容本身的价值,让我感到出版商在制作过程中明显敷衍了事,只为了快速上架。如果内容真的如宣传所说的那般深刻,也应该配得上更精良的制作工艺。
评分这本书的结构安排实在令人困惑,缺乏清晰的逻辑主线,仿佛是将一系列独立的研究论文生硬地拼凑在一起。每一章似乎都在探讨一个独立的议题,但章节之间的过渡极其生硬,读起来毫无连贯性。比如,在前一章还着重分析了委员会体系的权力演变,下一章就突然跳跃到对某一特定历史时期媒体报道习惯的分析,两者之间没有建立起有效的桥梁,让读者难以建立起对国会作为一个整体系统的宏观认知框架。我不得不频繁地翻回目录和前言,试图重新定位自己所处的分析层次,这种体验极大地破坏了阅读的沉浸感。一个好的学术作品应该引导读者逐步建立起对主题的系统理解,而这本书更像是一系列零散笔记的集合,让人的知识点难以串联起来。
评分我对书中引用的数据来源和研究方法的透明度表示严重关切。虽然书中充斥着大量的数字和图表来支撑其论点,但对于这些数据是如何收集、样本是如何选取的,以及所采用的统计模型的局限性,介绍得极其含糊不清。这使得我对其中许多结论的可靠性产生了合理的怀疑。例如,在评估某项改革对议员行为影响时,作者似乎完全没有考虑到“霍桑效应”——即研究对象因被观察而改变行为的可能性。一个严肃的研究应该在其方法论部分提供足够的细节,以便同行可以进行检验和复现,但这本书在这方面做得非常不到位。对于希望利用这本书进行严谨研究的读者来说,这种“黑箱”式的处理方式是完全不可接受的,因为它要求读者无条件地相信结论,而没有提供足够的证据链去支撑信任。
评分书中对于不同政治派系之间意识形态差异的分析,显得过于简化和标签化了,这让我作为长期关注政治动态的读者感到非常失望。作者似乎热衷于将复杂的政治立场简化为简单的“左”与“右”的二元对立,完全忽略了跨党派联盟的形成、温和派的游说作用,以及个体议员在面对选区压力时的实际摇摆。这种平面化的处理方式,使得对国会内部权力博弈的理解流于表面,缺乏对深层动机和历史根源的挖掘。例如,对于某项重要法案的通过过程,书中仅仅描述了投票结果,却几乎没有触及到幕后交易、利益集团的影响力以及议事规则如何被策略性地利用,这些才是真正决定政策走向的关键要素。总而言之,它停留在“发生了什么”的层面,而未能深入探讨“为什么会这样发生”的复杂性。
评分坦率地说,这本书的叙事节奏把控得令人抓狂,简直就像在读一份冗长乏味的官方年报,而不是一本旨在阐释复杂政治生态的读物。作者似乎完全沉迷于堆砌枯燥的统计数据和冗余的背景信息,却忘记了如何讲一个引人入胜的故事。在讨论关键的立法斗争或权力制衡的微妙时刻,笔锋突然就变得干巴巴的,缺乏必要的戏剧张力和人物侧写,以至于那些本应是高潮的部分读起来平淡无奇。我发现自己经常需要反复阅读同一段落,以确保没有遗漏任何关键信息,但这往往是因为作者的句子结构过于复杂和绕口,而不是因为内容本身晦涩难懂。它更像是一份为内部人士准备的备忘录,而不是面向广大公众的知识普及作品,使得普通读者很难建立起对国会内部动态的直观理解。
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