When Politicians Attack

American party members work together to build a positive brand name in the public eye. The party brand name comes from what partisans do and what they say. This book focuses on the latter: when party members are critical of fellow partisans, what they say is both credible and damaging.

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Fostering a positive brand name is the chief benefit parties provide for their members. They do this both by coordinating their activities in the legislative process and by communicating with voters. Whereas political scientists have generally focused on the former, dismissing partisan communication as cheap talk, this book argues that a party's ability to coordinate its communication has important implications for the study of politics. The macro-level institutional setting of a party's communication heavily influences that party's prospects for cohesive communication. Paradoxically, unified government presents the greatest challenge to unified communication within the president's party. As this book argues, the challenge stems primarily from two sources: the constitutional separation of powers and the intervening role of the news media.