ABSTRACT
As a challenge to many mainstream approaches the African American politics tradition has sought to expose deficiencies in dominant theoretical approaches, formulate new concepts and approaches, and define, redefine, and liberate concepts and approaches that have been misapplied, mal-applied or unapplied to the African American political experience. Thus, the African American politics tradition more often than not is iconoclastic and paradigm-shifting. In short, on different fronts, it seeks to de-center theoretical and empirical approaches that are ill-equipped to address the African America experience. Of course Hanes Walton, of the University of Michigan is not a neophyte to this task. He has been at this for some time. Of special note, however, is his Invisible Politics which exposed some of the limitations of behavioralism to the black political experience. In the present work, African American Politics and Power, Walton and his very capable group of collaborators turn their attention to the political context variable, which is a collective reference to a number of situational, environmental and ambient factors that can affect political behavior.
