PULLMAN, Wash. – The post-WWII political landscape has been distinguished by three distinct patterns that help provide perspective on the Obama presidency, according to Byron E. Shafer, who will speak at noon Tuesday, Jan. 15, in Bryan 308, as part of the Foley Institute’s Coffee & Politics series.
Shafer is a specialist in the politics of presidential selection who has written extensively about campaigns and elections, political parties, policy conflicts and the big picture in American politics. He is the Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Chair of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the previous Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government at Oxford University.
The first post-WWII pattern was a continuation of the New Deal Era, with unified partisan control in mainly Democratic hands. The second was the Era of Divided Government a story of split partisan control. The most recent era is characterized by unified partisan control, but tending to swing between Republicans and Democrats.
Please RSVP to relgar@wsu.edu so there is enough pizza and pop for lunch.