Beyond Ideology, by Frances Lee

Frances Lee gave an interview with Ezra Klein recently on his podcast which explored some of the points she raises in her book, Beyond Ideology, on the strength of whose fascinating title alone I would have read it. The conversation is also excellent and well worth a listen. In essence, though the two parties have become more ideological, Lee argues that the very structure of parties and of the American political system have driven confrontations between Democrats and Republicans just as strongly. This understudied component of political conflict, which may be summed up as teamsmanship, or, with a nod to The Federalist, as factionalism, gets careful analysis, particularly focusing on the US Senate.

As I'm no political scientist, I skipped the graphs and tables and some of the discussions of statistics, but they all seem impressive. They clearly support the thesis, from what I can tell, and would tend to support the importance of Klein's style of journalism, too, which delves beneath labels and personalities, helping to make sense of the news with more encompassing explanatory models, which are themselves constantly being interrogated anew.