Richard A. Brisbin

Combining new empirical information about political behavior with a close examination of the capacity of the state’s government, this third edition of West Virginia Politics and Government offers a comprehensive and pointed study of the ability of the state’s government to respond to the needs of a largely rural and relatively low-income population.

West Virginia Politics and Government offers the only recent study of politics in the Mountain State. Combining new empirical information about political behavior with a close examination of the capacity of the state’s government, this second edition is a comprehensive and pointed study of the ability of the state’s government to respond to the needs of a largely rural and relatively low-income population. The authors discuss public demands on state government, the shaping of the political agenda by interest groups, elections and the role of political parties, and the influence of the federal government on the state’s political and administrative functions. The book also examines the nature of the state’s constitution and the role of governmental institutions, including the state legislature, the governor, and the state bureaucracy, in the making of public policy and the construction of a state budget, as well as the judiciary and local governments. The concluding chapter assesses the future of governance in the state.

The miners' strike against Pittston Coal in 1989-1990, which spread throughout southwestern Virginia, southern West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky, was one of the most important strikes in the history of American labor, and, as Richard Brisbin observes, "one of the longest and largest incidents of civil disorder and civil disobedience in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century." The company aggressively sought to break the strike, and workers and their families used a variety of tactics-lawful and unlawful-to resist Pittston's efforts as the situation quickly turned ugly. In A Strike like No Other Strike: Law and Resistance during the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989-1990, Richard Brisbin offers a compelling study of the exercise of political power. In considering the legal significance of the strike, Brisbin asks the larger question of whether even extreme transgression or resistance can fracture the "imagined coherence of the law." He shows how each party in the strike invoked the law to justify its actions while attacking those of the other side as unlawful. In the end, both sides lost; although the U. S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the union, most of the strikers faced elimination of their jobs and an ongoing struggle for pensions and health benefits.

As the leading legal voice of the American conservative movement, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has challenged the assumptions and legal methodology of American liberals. In this thorough and exacting study of the development of Justice Scalia's legal principles, Richard Brisbin explores the foundation and elaboration of the justice's conservative political vision. After reviewing Scalia's legal experiences before joining the Supreme Court and describing the influences on his political and legal thought, Brisbin undertakes a detailed analysis of Scalia's Supreme Court voting record and opinions. The conservative philosophy emerging from Scalia's legal decisions, Brisbin argues, assumes the legitimacy and propriety of political regimes functioning under the rule of law. It disciplines-sometimes harshly-inappropriate uses of liberty and accepts the proposition that the law can serve as an effective means to structure, interpret, and control political conflicts. The most comprehensive study of Justice Scalia's politics and jurisprudence yet published, Justice Antonin Scalia and the Conservative Revival joins a vital discussion on contemporary American conservatism and the use of the law to restrain or undermine the New Deal state.