The Forum

A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics

Edited by: Seth Masket , Sara Chatfield and Devin Caughey

Language: English

First published: May 1, 2003

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About this journal

Objective
This journal provides a forum for professionally informed commentary on issues affecting contemporary American politics. This includes but is not limited to issues engaging parties, elections, and political participation; the news media, interest groups, Congress, the Presidency, and the Courts; trends in public finance, presidential popularity, congressional productivity; in contemporary, historical, or comparative perspective.

The journal is motivated by the view that social scientists, historians, and legal scholars frequently have important insights into the concerns that arise in contemporary politics and government, drawing upon the disciplinary knowledge at their command. Yet they frequently lack a publishing outlet willing to print the analytic reasoning that gives weight to the resulting commentary. The Forum is designed to fill this gap.

We contemplate a journal free of fixed position and requiring no particular verdict with respect to policies, institutions, or processes. Well-reasoned discussion, disciplined by reference to established bodies of knowledge or aimed at stimulating the creation of such knowledge, is the goal of this journal.

What scholars are saying about The Forum

Over recent years I have seen the wealth of articles available through this electronic journal and consider it a valuable resource both for my own research and for keeping in touch with the field generally.

James F. Guyot, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, CUNY

This is a major new initiative in electronic publishing, featuring contributions by some of the best U.S. and international scholars of political science and public policy.

Joe Atkinson, Senior Lecturer and Research Director, Political Science, University of Auckland 　

Its editors have succeeded in attracting knowledgeable and articulate scholars as authors of articles that deal with important issues in a manner that will appeal to a wide range of college educated readers.

Christian Soe, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Long Beach

This electronic journal consistently provides high level cutting edge research which is extremely timely and cogent with respect to the topics which are important to my research and teaching. Anyone in the field of American government and politics would benefit from the most current issue of The Forum for example.

John Jackson, Professor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale 　

This publication is increasingly becoming a "must have" for study of American government.

Melvin J. Dubnick, Professor, University of New Hampshire

Topics

American politics
Political parties
Elections and political participation
The news media
Interest groups
Congress and the Presidency
Courts
Trends in public finance
American foreign policy

Article formats
Texts longer than newspaper columns but shorter than orthodox journal articles

Information on submission process

Your Benefits

Your benefits

Interdisciplinary outlook on American politics
Most recent researches
Analytic reasoning
Contemporary, historical, or comparative perspective
Politically independent
Editorial board including top figures in American political science
The Forum bridges the gap between academic political science and real-world politics
Open access publication

Complete Archive Access

As of 2026, all De Gruyter journal subscriptions include access to every issue, from Volume 1, Issue 1 through to today, meaning subscribers can access even more research at no additional cost.

Open Access
Within Their Ranks: Ranked Choice Voting Reform and Intra-Party Coalition Management

November 7, 2025

Joshua Yesnowitz, Peter Penar

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In 2020, voters in Massachusetts rejected a ballot measure which would have enacted a ranked choice voting (RCV) system. Voters in Alaska narrowly supported a state initiative which adopts the preference-based electoral reform. Despite these mixed outcomes, evidence suggests that the RCV movement is gaining momentum in the American states. Building upon municipal efforts, state legislators in Minnesota and Utah have proposed statewide adoption. While previous research has examined the possible effects of ranked choice voting reforms, much less has been written about the causes of ranked choice voting campaigns. Using four illustrative state-level case studies, we find that sub-national campaigns for RCV reform are motivated by attempts to manage intra-party coalitional disputes in both dominant party systems (Massachusetts and Utah) and in fragmented party systems (Alaska and Minnesota) via this minimally disruptive electoral system change.
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Introduction: Winter 2022 Issue

March 9, 2023

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Open Access
The Civil Service as a Problem-Solving Institution

December 22, 2025

Donald Moynihan

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At a time when there are calls to radically reform – or even eliminate – the civil service, understanding its relative strengths and opportunities for improvement becomes more important. This article considers the capacity of the civil service to engage in learning and problem-solving. While public employees are (sometimes justly) critiqued for their inability to learn and adapt, I review two examples of problem-solving that have been institutionalized into the United States federal government: performance management and reducing administrative burdens. Those examples and broader research offer a number of observations about problem-solving. Governments can build models of iterative adaptation and improvement that are tied to specific routines. While unflashy and incremental, a model of problem-solving that focuses on embedding an ethos of change into organizational routines is more likely to have lasting effect than top-down reforms that feel distant from the day-to-day work of civil servants. But for those routines to succeed requires other changes. Government needs to do a better job of hiring problem-solvers, and then shielding them from the twin threats of proceduralism – becoming bogged down in rules rather than goals – and politicization.
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Are Democracies Better at Solving Problems than Non-Democratic Regimes?

January 15, 2026

Bryan D. Jones

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Are democracies better at solving problems than non-democratic regimes? If so, what elements of democracies make them better? How do different political systems monitor and manage problems that are long-term? In this paper I sketch the issues in making such comparisons, and report some of the major findings at present. Then I point to possible directions for making those comparisons by linking components of the problem-solving paradigm to specific elements of democratic institutions and governance.
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Congressional Fundraising Dynamics and Their Implications for Problem-Solving

December 29, 2025

Brandice Canes-Wrone

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A major development in the modern Congress is the increased centrality of fundraising. Although raising money has long been a component of members’ responsibilities, until recently it was a more moderate one. As this essay describes, numerous factors have contributed to the development, including the reduced role of seniority in determining committee positions, the rise of the internet as a medium through which challengers can raise funds from out-of-district donors, and reforms to campaign finance law that have handicapped parties’ ability to serve as the dominant fundraising organizations. These changes, individually and in combination, have been quite detrimental to congressional problem-solving. The increased amount of time needed for fundraising means that members have less time for problem-solving; donor opinion has an outsized impact on members’ policy behavior; and the types of members and candidates who are interested in problem-solving are now less willing to run for office. The essay concludes by offering potential reforms to the campaign finance system and congressional rules that would better incentivize problem-solving in the contemporary Congress, as well as suggestions for future research that would help us better understand the current dynamics.
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Problem Solving Criminal Justice

February 4, 2026

Steven M. Teles

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From the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, the politics of criminal justice took a sudden turn from highly politicized punitiveness, to lower-salience problem solving that led to a range of breakthroughs that reduced the growth in incarceration. This shift was driven by decreasing party competition at the state level, the increasing space for reform produced by lower public salience of crime, and the creative advocacy and political entrepreneurship of advocates. This period of problem solving appears to be over, driven by increasing public concern about crime and repolarization in response to social movement activism. Lessons are offered that advocates and funders can draw from this case, especially concerning the linkage between salience and problem-solving reform.
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Heuristic Agenda Closure in Administrative Government

December 23, 2025

Daniel Carpenter

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Agenda-setting shapes the problems that occupy the sustained attention of those who craft laws and policy, and the heuristics and solutions used to address those problems. An extensive political science literature has elucidated agenda formation, concluding that (1) policy change happens under the conjuncture of solution streams and policy streams (given a structure or moment of political opportunity), and (2) “there is an impressive congruence between the priorities of the public and the priorities of Congress across time” (Jones and Baumgartner 2004. “Representation and Agenda Setting.” Policy Studies Journal 32 (1): 1–24), conditioned upon wider legislative agendas than those for the public. I contend here that the rise of administrative government qualifies these conclusions. That delegation trades off expertise for agency preferences is well known, but it also embeds a second trade-off: between a forum with more open agendas (the legislature) and one that restricts them (administration). Indeed, delegation to administrative agencies presumes, if it does not favor, agenda closure – a tightly constrained focus on a limited set of issues to which the legislature has entrusted the agency’s authority and resources, and a narrow set of methods and consiliaria (experts, lawyers, adversaries, commenters) from which the agency seeks and gets its information. Agenda limitation may be desirable but may also worsen the quality of public problem solving, and agenda democracy itself may be normatively desirable. This tension is ineluctable. Hypothetically, it might be ameliorated by (a) the development and embedment of greater expertise in law-making assemblies and/or (b) the restriction or deliberative aperture (or both) of administrative policymaking.
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Alison W. Craig. 2023. The Collaborative Congress: Reaching Common Ground in a Polarized House. Cambridge University Press. $110 cloth. 225 pages

February 8, 2024

SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor

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Reflections on Government Success and Failure: Then and Now

December 30, 2025

Lawrence S. Rothenberg

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This discussion surveys changes in the world that might impact the ability to solve policy problems as outlined initially in Glazer and Rothenberg (2001. Why Government Succeeds and Why It Fails . Harvard University Press). While the basic premises of the original analysis hold, interrelated political and economic changes have occurred in ways that would produce a far different monograph than was authored roughly a quarter-century ago. Politically, four changes are highlighted: (1) growth in polarization; (2) rise of private politics; (3) heightened globalization; and (4) media diversification. Economically, three notable changes are discussed involving: (1) the changing nature of industrial organization; (2) the redesign of supply and value chains; and (3) the dramatic rise of artificial intelligence. While no universal statement can be offered, changes in these features, both individually and interactively, provide additional opportunities and new obstacles for policy successes to be realized and suggest areas for further scholarly investigation.
Open Access
Congress as Problem Solver: Building Consensus and Remaining Policy Productive Despite Polarization

January 12, 2026

James M. Curry, Frances E. Lee

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We examine the contributions Congress makes to problem solving in contemporary American government. We offer a more positive assessment of the institution than is the norm for political science. In terms of representation, institutional processes, and policy outcomes, the polarized Congress has underappreciated virtues. Congress’s membership and party composition do a credible job reflecting the political diversity that exists in the country, and its institutional processes show respect for that diversity. Congress’s policy outcomes typically command broad support across party lines. Amid the intense polarization of contemporary American politics, the contemporary Congress enacts as much or more legislation by sheer volume than it did in the 1980s and the 1990s, and it normally does so in ways that large majorities and both parties support.
Open Access
Introduction: American Government and the Politics of Problem Solving

February 2, 2026

Alan S. Gerber, Eric M. Patashnik

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This special issue brings together essays by leading political scientists to provide insights on the politics of problem solving in the contemporary American state. This brief introduction summarizes the essays in the special issue and highlights common themes.
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Missouri and the Deployment of the Southern Strategy in the Twenty-First Century

October 15, 2025

Peter Reilly

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Missouri was once a noteworthy bellwether state that became a Republican stronghold during this century. This paper explores whether the Republicans achieved their success through the deployment of their Southern Strategy associated with the similar replacement of Democratic control in the South. Having considered the principal characteristics of what is an ill-defined and contested concept, the paper finds that the Southern Strategy was not used to obtain political change in Missouri. Absent was any Republican focus on civil rights issues like segregated education, housing or employment. There was no concerted Republican determination to exclude Black people from voting. There were periodic attempts to assert Missouri’s independence from federal government in states’ rights terms, but only with opposition to Obamacare was an effective operation organized. The strategic focus of the Republican’s campaign in Missouri over the early years of the 20th century was populist rather than racist and focused on small government and cultural issues. A key target for the Missouri GOP were Democrats who were “conflicted conservatives,” liberal on economics but conservative on culture, along with suburban residents, Evangelical Christians and married women. The former formed part of Nixon’s chosen constituency and the latter two groups succumbed to Reagan’s appeal. Whilst there was some use of its rhetorical devices, it was only in terms of these key audiences that there was a clear adoption of the Southern Strategy in Missouri.
Open Access
The Politics of Problem Solving: Housing, Pensions, and the Organization of Interests

December 29, 2025

Sarah F. Anzia

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Good governance and effective problem solving are important goals for American government, and one branch of political science that focuses on them is research on the politics of public policy. This essay summarizes important insights from that literature and illustrates their relevance to two problems: housing unaffordability and public pension underfunding. With housing unaffordability, problem-solving politics is currently activated, whereas with pension underfunding, it is not. To understand why, it is important to consider the features of the policy, the organization of interests, and the politics of problem creation. In the problem-creation stage, the two cases share much in common: they feature lopsided interest structures buttressed by longstanding institutions. But for the activation of problem-solving politics and what problem solving looks like, there are meaningful differences between the two. One difference relates to how the problems are experienced by the broader public. The other is that in one of the cases, the side with vested interest in the status quo is a well-organized interest group. In both cases, problem-solvers tend to emerge from political offices with broader constituencies: state-level offices for housing, and executives (governors and mayors) for pensions.

Issue 0

Issue 1-2

Special Issue: Gender and Gender Identity after the 2024 Election; Editor: Sara Chatfield

Journal Impact Factor	0.8	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
5-year Journal Impact Factor	1.1	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
Journal Citation Indicator	0.41	2024, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2025)
CiteScore	1.8	2024, Scopus (Elsevier B.V., 2025)
SCImago Journal Rank	0.468	2024, SJR (Scimago Lab, 2025; Data Source: Scopus)
Source Normalized Impact per Paper	0.492	2024, CWTS Journal Indicators (CWTS B.V., 2025; Data Source: Scopus)
European Reference Index for the Humanities	0

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