What are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics

James A Gardner

Provides analysis that draws from several related fields - law, empirical political science, and democratic theory - to create a picture of a critically important sociolegal institution: the election campaign
Examines the role of election law in structuring and shaping election campaigns and the role of campaigns in democratic theory
Emphasizes non-electoral mechanisms that influence collective public opinion
Briefly highlights areas on which the concerns of election critics might more profitably focus, including the structure and regulation of mass media, and structural resource inequalities

What are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics

James A Gardner

Description

Election campaigns ought to be serious occasions in the life of a democratic polity. For citizens of a democracy, an election is a time to take stock-to reexamine our beliefs; to review our understanding of our own interests; to ponder the place of those interests in the larger social order; and to contemplate, and if necessary to revise, our understanding of how our commitments are best translated into governmental policy-or so we profess to believe.

Americans, however, are haunted by the fear that our election campaigns fall far short of the ideal to which we aspire. The typical modern American election campaign seems crass, shallow, and unengaging. The arena of our democratic politics seems to lie in an uncomfortable chasm between our political ideals and everyday reality.

What Are Campaigns For? is a multidisciplinary work of legal scholarship that examines the role of legal institutions in constituting the disjunction between political ideal and reality. The book explores the contemporary American ideal of democratic citizenship in election campaigns by tracing it to its historical sources, documenting its thorough infiltration of legal norms, evaluating its feasibility in light of the findings of empirical social science, and testing it against the requirements of democratic theory.

What are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics

James A Gardner

Author Information

James A. Gardner is Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Joseph W. Belluck and Laura L. Aswad Professor of Civil Justice at the University at Buffalo Law School, State University of New York, where he also directs the Edwin F. Jaeckle Center for State and Local Democracy. After earning a BA from Yale University and a JD from the University of Chicago, Gardner practiced law at the United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, in Washington, D.C. He subsequently taught at Western New England College School of Law, William and Mary, and the University of Connecticut before coming to the University of Buffalo in 2001.

Gardner's research interests include the theoretical foundations of the constitutional structure of politics, the institutionalization through law of principles of democracy, constitutional structures of federalism, and subnational constitutional law. He is the author or editor of five books and more than forty articles.

What are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics

James A Gardner

Reviews and Awards

"Jim Gardner's lively book probes one of the central conflicts of our political culture. We live in a democratic era that valorizes citizen equality and participation. But our political institutions and many of our legal structures harken back to our republican founding, a time that presumed rule by elites and deference from the masses. Not surprisingly, our current ideals and inherited structures come into conflict. As Gardner provocatively shows, reconciling this conflict requires challenging the way we conduct our campaigns, the role of the media, the financing of our political parties, and just about every facet of our political edifice." -Samuel Issacharoff, New York University School of Law

"What are Campaigns For? is a masterful account by a genuinely learned and gifted academic on a subject that is critical to democracy but too-long neglected. Jim Gardner fills the gap in a book that is an absolute must-read for any student of law and democracy. What are Campaigns For? is a truly thoughtful and useful book." -Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Duke Law School

"This is a thoughtful and provocative book that forces us to think more deeply about a question that seems simple but is really quite complex. Gardner makes a compelling case that our expectations regarding political campaigns are unrealistic, distracting us from the most formidable challenges that our democracy faces. Adeptly combining history, political science, and law, Gardner argues that we should pay much greater attention to engaging citizens between campaigns rather than just during them. Scholars, advocates, policymakers, and ordinary citizens would all do well to heed his advice." -Daniel P. Tokaji, The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law

"Gardner's work successfully prods the reader to re-think the widely accepted Progressive ideal for American political campaigns." --Joseph Bessette Election Law Journal

"The great strength of Professor Gardner's book is that it reminds us to situate our thinking about elections and election campaigns in the theory and practice of democracy." --Richard Briffault Buffalo Law Review