Review by Choice Review
Romero (public administration, Univ. of Texas-San Antonio) maintains that her work is "an institutionally oriented history of Civil Rights...." More specifically, she is interested in examining the extent to which majority opinion has impacted the decision making of Congress and the Supreme Court in regard to civil rights policies. In that pursuit the author develops an interesting typology of public support for civil rights policies and the Supreme Court and Congress. Sanders-Romero's use of a statistical research methodology leads her to conclude that behavioral and environmental variables explain some of the variation in civil rights policies. She tested the "notion of whether, in reality, public opinion influences congressional output but failed to influence Supreme Court output," concluding that "both predictions were supported, with only Congress displaying a clear majoritarian tendency." This is a rigorous, empirical analysis of the most divisive issue in American domestic public policy. It should interest a wide variety of scholars and students. General readers through professionals. J. S. Robey University of Texas at Brownsville
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
