Brookings Press Blog

Early Buzz for a Workbook for the New President

What Do We Do Now? Will offer advice on everything from selecting a cabinet to picking a desk for the Oval Office

Psst…check out this “Washington Whisper” from the latest U.S. News & World Report. The post is titled “A Beginner’s Guide Clinton Really Needed” and it comes complete with a cartoon of Bill Clinton wearing a dunce cap. The piece is on a forthcoming Brookings Institution Press book by Stephen Hess, a presidential expert here at Brookings. What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect will be available in October, just in time for an election week publication.

- Check out the "Washington Whisper" column featuring What Do We Do Now?

Freedom's Unsteady March

America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy

President George W. Bush intended to bring democracy to the Middle East, but the early results were dispiriting. After stalemate in Iraq and the electoral success of Hamas, many observers concluded that the pursuit of Arab democracy was a fool's errand. Despite these setbacks, Tamara Cofman Wittes argues that democracy promotion in the Arab world remains an essential component of any strategy to achieve long-term American goals in that critical region.

Freedom's Unsteady March shows why America cannot afford to be neutral or passive in the face of the momentous changes taking place in Arab states and why it must wield its power and influence in support of democratic reform. Wittes also dissects the Bush administration's failure to advance freedom in the Middle East. She diagnoses the roots of America's ambivalence about Arab democracy, and shows how to confront more honestly the risks of change and act more effectively to contain them.

On May 1, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings will host Wittes for a discussion of this book.

- Learn more about Freedom’s Unsteady March.

- Learn more about the May 1 event at Brookings.

Good Anthropology, Bad Islam?

The Pitfalls of Steamrolling the Muslim World

Two of the students that traveled with Akbar Ahmed during his Journey into Islam have written a working paper expanding on the material in the book. Frankie Martin and Hailey Woldt address the current crisis in Waziristan and suggest a new way forward for the United States and the Muslim world.

- Read the paper.

- Learn more about Journey into Islam.

Election Event Extravaganza

Panel discussions feature books on voting and elections

Don’t miss these Brookings events highlighting timely research on voting and elections.

• Get Out the Vote: Understanding Voter Mobilization
  Featuring Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber. Moderated by Thomas E. Mann.
  Thursday, March 20 at 3 p.m.


• Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot
  Featuring Paul S. Herrnson, Richard Niemi, Michael Hanmer, Benjamin Bederson, and Michael Traugott. Moderated by Thomas E. Mann.
  Friday, March 21 at 10 a.m.

- Learn about Get Out the Vote, the book.

- Learn about Voting Technology, the book.

- Read more about these and other Brookings events on brookings.edu

Twenty-First Century Gateways

New book examines the popular destinations of immigrants

As we have seen in 2008’s Presidential Election, the issue of immigration has reemerged once again. In Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), a multidisciplinary group of top-flight analysts focus on the fastest-growing immigrant populations in metropolitan areas with previously low levels of immigration—places such as Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C. Today, one in five immigrants live in these gateways. This book explores how the pace of change in this new geography of immigration has presented many local areas with challenges—social, fiscal, and political.

“In their remarkable new book, Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell reveal the new contours of immigrant adaptation and reception in places with little experience of immigration within living memory. Through nine carefully chosen case studies, Twenty-First Century Gateways offers new insights into the promises and pitfalls of America's diverse, multi-ethnic future.”—Douglas S. Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

- Learn more about Twenty-First Century Gateways.

Global Warming

New book looks for solutions beyond Kyoto

Climate change poses a multidimensional international challenge, one that eludes straightforward solutions. In Global Warming: Looking beyond Kyoto (Brookings and the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, 2008), some of the best-known and respected authorities in climate policy—including members of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—provide a comprehensive agenda for global collective action. Representing both industrialized and developing nations, the contributors present a thought-provoking examination of the economic, social, and political context of climate policy within their countries.

“With customary skill, Ernesto Zedillo has assembled a penetrating collection of international perspectives on what to do next about the most important challenge of our time—global warming and the resulting climate change. As nations look beyond the Kyoto Protocol to more serious action, this volume will be both timely and extremely helpful."
—James Gustave Speth, Yale University, author of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment

- Learn more about Global Warming.

Of related interest:

- Climatic Cataclysm: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change (Available Spring 2008).

Allied Social Science Associations 2008 Convention

The Brookings Press joined several thousand participants in New Orleans at the 2008 convention of the American Economic Association/Allied Social Science Associations (AEA/ASSA), America’s largest congregation of academic and professional economists. In between multiple feedings of crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, and piping hot gumbo, we managed to display our newest books in business and economics as well as meeting with some current and potential future authors.

BIP representatives Chris Kelaher and Jaime Fearer were very excited at the prospect of traveling to warmer climes in early January. Much to their chagrin, however, the Big Easy was nearly as cold as Washington when we landed. Who gets frostbite in Louisiana?! Fortunately, things warmed up as the week progressed. The city was packed, as the New Orleans tourism officials managed to sneak the ASSA convention in between the Sugar Bowl (between Georgia and Hawaii) and the BCS National Championship football game between Ohio State and Louisiana State. Bourbon Street was a sea of scarlet and gray as Buckeye fans poured into the Delta: “Toto, we’re not in Columbus anymore!” (They weren’t nearly as happy a few days later: LSU prevailed, 38–24.)

Our most popular title at ASSA was Yegor Gaidar’s Collapse of an Empire: Lessons for Modern Russia. Tied for second were Opportunity 08, edited by Michael O'Hanlon, and Cliff Winston’s Government Failure vs. Market Failure.

Panel topics that captured people’s attention included expert discussions of the subprime crisis, climate change, the economics of national defense, and post-Katrina recovery. Among the speakers commanding large audiences were Paul Krugman, Jamie Galbraith, Joseph Stiglitz, Alan Blinder, and Robert Shiller.

Next year’s ASSA convention will be held January 3–5 in San Francisco. If economics is your bailiwick, maybe we’ll see you in the Bay Area.

- Learn more about ASSA.

- Check out the titles that were popular at ASSA:

• Collapse of an Empire by Yegor Gaidar.
  
• Opportunity 08, edited by Michael O'Hanlon.
  
• Government Failure vs. Market Failure by Cliff Winston.

Media Hits

Washington Post, NPR & Publishers Weekly...Oh My!

- Jay Mathews, Washington Post education columnist, dedicated his column last Tuesday to research presented in The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate Education, Clive Belfield and Henry M. Levin, eds. You can read the column here.

- Electronic voting and tech user frustrations were the focus of this past Tuesday’s Kojo Nnamdi Show on NPR. During the second segment Ben Bederson discussed Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot, by Paul S. Herrnson, Richard G. Niemi, Michael J. Hanmer, Benjamin B. Bederson, and Frederick C. Conrad. You can listen to the show here.

- The January 21 issue of Publishers Weekly is the Spring Books issue. The following titles from our new Spring 2008 catalog [pdf] are included in the listings:

• Hardcover/Contemporary Affairs: Freedom’s Unsteady March: America's Role in Building Arab Democracy, by Tamara Cofman Wittes
• Hardcover/Politics: Power Play: The Bush Presidency and the Constitution, by James P. Pfiffner
• Paperback/Contemporary Affairs: Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America, Audrey Singer, Susan W. Hardwick and Caroline B. Brettell, eds.
• Paperback/Politics: Beyond the Façade: Political Reform in the Arab World, Marina S. Ottaway and Julia Choucair-Vizoso, eds. (a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace book)

U.S. Strategy in Iraq

Ivo Daalder discusses this important issue on the Diane Rehm Show

Brookings senior fellow Ivo Daalder offered up his expertise in a discussion of U.S. strategy in Iraq on the Diane Rehm Show on Thursday. The discussion, which also included Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations and Dan Senor, former Bush Administration foreign policy advisor, apprised the current situation in Iraq, and examined the military strategy options offered up by the leading presidential candidates.

Daalder is the author or coauthor of several Brookings titles, including most recently Beyond Preemption: Force and Legitimacy in a Changing World and Crescent of Crisis: U.S.-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East.

- Listen to "U.S. Strategy in Iraq" on the Diane Rehm show.

- Learn more about Beyond Preemption.

- Learn more about Crescent of Crisis.

Front-loading and the Presidential Primaries

The compression and hastening of the nomination season are changing the nature of the presidential selection process

The race for the White House may seem like a marathon, but the nomination process is becoming a sprint, with the starting gun fired earlier each time. Where state primaries and caucuses were once spread out over a period of three or four months, most are now crammed into a four—or five—week interval at the very beginning of the delegate selection calendar. Despite the importance of this issue in American politics, however, too little systematic analysis has been done on the topic. The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations, by William G. Mayer and Andrew E. Busch, offers a comprehensive examination of the front-loading problem in all its facets.

- Check out the Democratic primary schedule.

- Check out the Republican primary schedule.

- Recent and forthcoming Brookings books on campaigns and elections:

• NEW! The Swing Voter in American Politics, edited by William G. Mayer
• NEW! Voting Technology: The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot, by Paul S. Herrnson, Richard G. Niemi, Michael J. Hanmer, and others
• COMING SOON! Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout, 2nd edition, by Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber
• A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election, edited by David E. Campbell
• The Marketplace of Democracy: Electoral Competition and American Politics, edited by Michael P. McDonald and John Samples