Midterms and Mandates:
Electoral Reassessments of Presidents and Parties
full details and booking here
National Library of Scotland
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh
1–2 November 2018
Thursday 1 November
National Library of Scotland
2.00pm–3.00pm
Andrew Rudalevige (Bowdoin), ‘Presidential Power and Midterm Loss’
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh
3.15pm–4.00pm
David Silkenat (Edinburgh), ‘Midterm Elections from Washington to Hoover’
Chair: Megan Hunt (Edinburgh)
4.00pm–4.30pm: coffee
4.30pm–6.30pm
Midterms in Contemporary America
Mattias Eken (St Andrews), 'The "Republican Revolution" of 1994'
Mark McLay (Glasgow), ‘From Shellacked to Shackled: The Midterms of 2010 and the Obama Presidency’
Nadia Hilliard (UCL), ‘Accountability, Partisanship, and the Midterm Elections of 2018’
Chair: Robert Mason (Edinburgh)
6.00pm–7.00pm: drinks
7.00pm: colloquium dinner
Friday 2 November
9.30am–11.00am
Testing the New Deal coalition
Iwan Morgan (UCL), ‘Swing Time: Democratic Triumph and Tribulation in the New Deal Era Midterms’
Andrew Johnstone (Leicester), ‘Politics as Usual? Roosevelt, War, and the Midterm Elections of 1942’
Christopher Brown (Oxford), ‘“Unless we progress, we regress”: Eisenhower, Modern Republicanism, and the path to the Farewell Address’
Chair: Sarah Thomson (Edinburgh)
11.00am–11.30am: coffee
11.30am–1.00pm
Midterm Elections and the Republican Resurgence
Sarah Thelen (Cork), ‘“The Power of Their Votes”: Nixon, the Silent Majority, and the 1970 Midterm Elections’
Patrick Andelic (Northumbria), ‘“We Are Improbable Members of Congress”: The Midterm Elections of 1974, the Watergate Babies, and the Democratic Party’
Joe Ryan-Hume (Glasgow), ‘The 1986 Midterms: The End of the Reagan Revolution?’
Chair: Fabian Hilfrich (Edinburgh)
1.00pm–1.45pm: lunch
1.45pm–3.00pm
Opportunities and challenges: Researching American political parties and elections (roundtable discussion)
Patrick Andelic (Northumbria); Nadia Hilliard (UCL); Sarah Thelen (Cork)
Chair: Mark McLay (Glasgow)
3.00pm–3.30pm: coffee
Supported by the US Embassy in London and the British Association for American Studies
