Preface

Abstract

Extract When I started my PhD at New York University (NYU), I originally planned to study the politics of the American bureaucracy. As I progressed in the program my research interests changed, and I became interested in conflict and political violence. Yet across my five years at NYU, I ended up serving as a TA several times for an undergraduate introductory class on American politics. Maybe this was because I had originally said I wanted to be an Americanist, or, more likely, we had so many PhD students studying Comparative Politics and International Relations that we needed graduate students to cover undergrad classes in American politics. I was taking classes and conducting research on political violence, becoming a comparativist in the process, all while teaching undergraduates about pivotal politics in the U.S. Congress (Krehbiel 1998). The contrast between the seemingly stable nature of U.S. politics—with its campaign rules, organized parties, and strong institutions—and places where armed groups were the de facto political parties was jarring. American institutionalists had their models of legislative bargaining. If you could figure out what the president, the median member of Congress, and the veto override all wanted, you could predict what policy was likely to be enacted in the U.S. I took it for granted that American politics was different, more orderly, and more structured. Part of this stems from the fact that NYU was one of the foremost places to study positive political economy and rational choice.