Redistricting in the U.S.: A Review of Scholarship and Plan for Future Research
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Theodore S. Arrington
The nation-wide cycle of redistricting is the most consequential, repetitive decision-making process shaping the nature of American democracy. Because the arrangement of the districts forms an essential part of the “rules of the game,” the process by which they are drawn is meta-politics or a quasi-constitution making activity. The research on this process is voluminous and includes bits and pieces of the process. But the process is complicated, in part because the criteria for redistricting are in conflict with one another. The criteria include considerations of political geography, physical features, community of interest, one person one vote, race and ethnicity, partisanship, contiguity, compactness, recognition of local political boundaries, incumbents’ addresses, and desires for minimal change. The literature also covers the use of geographic information systems in the process and possible reforms. But no overall theory of redistricting has been developed which includes all these features.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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- Electoral Challenges of Moderate Factions: Main Streeters and Blue Dogs, 1994-2008
- "Still Chastened": Assessing the Scope of Constitutional Change under an "Obama Court"
- Race and 2008 Presidential Politics in Florida: A List Experiment
- Black Radical Voices and Policy Effectiveness in the U.S. Congress
- Palin as Prototype? Sarah Palin's Career in the Context of Political Women in the Frontier West
- Redistricting in the U.S.: A Review of Scholarship and Plan for Future Research
- The Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering: Looking Ahead to the 2010 Congressional Redistricting Cycle
- Review
- Review of Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
- Review of Class War: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality
- Review of In Time of War: Understanding Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- The British General Election of 2010
- Electoral Challenges of Moderate Factions: Main Streeters and Blue Dogs, 1994-2008
- "Still Chastened": Assessing the Scope of Constitutional Change under an "Obama Court"
- Race and 2008 Presidential Politics in Florida: A List Experiment
- Black Radical Voices and Policy Effectiveness in the U.S. Congress
- Palin as Prototype? Sarah Palin's Career in the Context of Political Women in the Frontier West
- Redistricting in the U.S.: A Review of Scholarship and Plan for Future Research
- The Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering: Looking Ahead to the 2010 Congressional Redistricting Cycle
- Review
- Review of Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
- Review of Class War: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality
- Review of In Time of War: Understanding Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq
