Brian M. Conley is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Program in Political Science at Suffolk University. His principal research interests are in the areas of US electoral politics, political parties, and political marketing and branding.
In the period between the defeat of Barry Goldwater and the election of Ronald Reagan, two long-term trends defined the national Republican Party: the growing influence of conservatism within the GOP and the innovative use of the service party concept to help Republicans navigate the 1964 landslide and Watergate. Professor Conley connects these events in a way that helps explain how a resurgent Republican National Committee led by moderate chairs fuelled the conservative Reagan Revolution. The Rise of the Republican Right is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how the Republican Party emerged from these political disasters to reshape the political system for decades to come. -Andrew Dowdle, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Arkansas Persuasive, illuminating, and impeccably researched, Conley chronicles the evolution of the modern Republican Party by reviewing the dynamics and demographics, ideology and issues that transformed the modern GOP. As political scientists address the electoral realignments and asymmetric party polarization that defines our current age, it is imperative that we revisit the tectonic forces that remade the Republican Party during a profoundly consequential period of political history. - Kevan M. Yenerall, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Clarion University