Introduction: The Future of Elections Scholarship

Summary

Race, Reform, and the Regulation of the Electoral Process: Recurring Puzzles in American Democracy is the first volume in Cambridge University Press's Cambridge Studies in Election Law and Democracy series. It offers a critical reevaluation of three fundamental and interlocking themes in American democracy: the relationship between race and politics; the performance and reform of election systems; and the role of courts in regulating the political process. This edited volume features contributions from some of the leading voices in election law and social science. The authors address the recurring questions for American democracy and identify new challenges for the twenty-first century. They consider not just where elections scholarship and electoral policy are headed, but also suggest where scholarship and policy ought to go in the next two decades. The book thus provides intellectual guideposts for future scholarship and policy making.

Most of the democratic reform during the twentieth century – and certainly the most important reform – has related to the central subject of race. Because electoral reform and regulation of the political process have been viewed largely through the prism of race, election law and reform have been framed largely in rights-based terms. Consistent with the civil-rights paradigm, courts emerged as the primary regulatory agents of American democracy and served as the vehicle through which much of the reform of American representative institutions has occurred.