Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, 1970-1998 - Hardcover

Fenno, Richard F.

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9780807825426: Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, 1970-1998

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807825425 ISBN 13: 9780807825426

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000

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However much politicians are demeaned and denounced in modern American society, our democracy could not work without them. For this reason, says Richard Fenno, their activities warrant our attention. In his pioneering book, Home Style, Fenno demonstrated that a close look at politicians at work in their districts can tell us a great deal about the process of representation. Here, Fenno employs a similarly revealing grassroots approach to explore how patterns of representation have changed in recent decades.

Fenno focuses on two members of the U.S. House of Representatives who represented the same west-central Georgia district at different times: Jack Flynt, who served from the 1950s to the 1970s, and Mac Collins, who has held the seat in the 1990s. His on-the-scene observation of their differing representational styles--Flynt focuses on people, Collins on policy--reveals the ways in which social and demographic changes inspire shifts in representational strategies.

More than a study of representational change in one district, Congress at the Grassroots also helps illuminate the larger subject of political change in the South and in the nation as a whole.

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Book Description:

"Fenno's book is an enjoyable read for more than its intellectual contributions to the study of representation. . . . This volume communicates . . . the essential humanity of both of the politicians who are observed and their observer."-- Journal of Politics

From the Inside Flap:

Using the close observational style he employed in his pioneering book, Home Style, Fenno examines changing patterns of Congressional representation in the South as politians changed their approach from personal to more policy/issues orientation.

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