Cambridge University Press Who Gets What?: The New Politics of Insecurity (SSRC Anxieties of Democracy)

The authors of this timely book, Who Gets What?, harness the expertise from across the social sciences to show how skyrocketing inequality and social dislocation are fracturing the stable political identities and alliances of the postwar era across advanced democracies. Drawing on extensive evidence from the United States and Europe, with a focus especially on the United States, the authors examine how economics and politics are closely entwined. Chapters demonstrate how the new divisions that separate people and places–and fragment political parties–hinder a fairer distribution of resources and opportunities. They show how employment, education, sex and gender, and race and ethnicity affect the way people experience and interpret inequality and economic anxieties. Populist politics have addressed these emerging insecurities by deepening social and political divisions, rather than promoting broad and inclusive policies. Book Description As stable political alliances in democracies have dissolved, populism deepens social and economic divisions rather than addressing economic insecurity. About the Author Frances McCall Rosenbluth is Damon Wells Professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University. She writes widely about the politics and political economy of democratic accountability. Her books include Women, Work, and Power (with Torben Iversen, 2010), Forged Through Fire (with John Ferejohn, 2016), and Responsible Parties (with Ian Shapiro, 2018).Margaret Weir is Wilson Professor of Public and International Affairs and Political Science at Brown University. She has written and edited several volumes on social policy, race, and employment in the United States. Professor Weir also served as director of the MacArthur Foundation Network on Building Resilient Regions and is currently working on a book entitled, The New Metropolis: The Politics of Spatial Inequality in Twenty-First Century America.