Andrew Wroe is a lecturer in United States Politics at the University of Kent, Canterbury. His long-standing research interests include immigration politics, the Republican Party and conservatism, and the reasons why people don’t trust government. Current research projects include the British MPs’ expenses scandal (and its relation to political trust) and the rise of traditional moral issues in the United States. Recent publications include books on The Republican Party and Immigration Politics (2008) and Assessing the Bush Presidency (2009, edited with Jon Herbert).

The Republican Party and Immigration Politics tells the story of the party’s flirtation with immigration politics over the last two decades. In the 1990s, the party was closely associated with an anti-immigration discourse, but the selection of George W. Bush as its presidential nominee in 2000 represented a new direction as leading strategists sought to appeal to the increasingly influential Latino electorate by pushing pro-immigration policies, including the legalisation of over ten million illegal immigrants. That Bush’s liberal reform agenda was ultimately dashed by conservative Republican hardliners demonstrates the party has not yet resolved the ideological and political tensions wrought by this most contentious of issues.

Assessing the George W. Bush Presidency explores the achievements and failures of Bush’s presidency. It argues that Bush had many political and policy successes during his first term, but that his second term largely failed. Strategic errors over Iraq and perceived incompetence in response to Hurricane Katrina seriously dented his professional reputation and public prestige and engendered further failure on other policy initiatives (including the amnesty for illegal immigrants).