Election 2000: Aberration or paradigm? The essays in this innovative volume combining scholarly and journalistic views, seek to place the extraordinary events of the 2000 presidential election into context with the trends of electoral politics before and after. Originally presented as a series of public lectures at Oxford University, this volume benefits from an international perspective, a stellar lineup of contributors, and a remarkably cohesive analysis that lays the election results (and thus, the current state of American politics) at the feet of a persistent American cultural divide.

Part 1 Politics and Society Chapter 2 The Bush Nation and the Gore Nation Chapter 3 The Search for a New Center Part 4 Elite Strategies and Mass Publics Chapter 5 The Invisible Primary and the Hidden Campaign Chapter 6 Dynamics of the 2000 Campaign Part 7 Governmental Institutions Chapter 8 The Presidential Transition into a Fifty-Fifty Government, and Beyond Chapter 9 The U. S. Congress in 2001: Representation and Process Chapter 10 Judicial Activism, 1950 to 2000 Part 11 Afterword Chapter 12 How Divided is America?

Byron E. Shafer is the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.