Description: Charting the changes from Watergate to the present, this book is a rigorous and compelling investigation of the politics of scandals.
Brief description: Brandon Rottinghaus is associate professor and Senator Don Henderson Scholar in political science at the University of Houston. He is the author of The Provisional Pulpit (Texas, 2010), The Institutional Effects of Executive Scandal (Cambridge, 2015), and Inside Texas Politics (Oxford, 2015).
Review Quotes: Rottinghaus tackles a complex, even explosive question: Why (and how) are some politicians able to survive scandals in this partisan age while others fall? He does so with clearheaded analysis, thorough and deep scrutiny, and a keen eye toward real-world politics. It's a masterful job, well executed, by a major scholar who is at the top of his game. This may not be the final word on how politicians handle scandals, but it is clearly the best work we have to date.--Michael A. Genovese, author of The Modern Presidency: Six Debates That Define the Institution