The riveting new book on the momentous year, campaign, and election that shaped American history.

It’s January 2, 1960: the day that Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy declared his candidacy; and with this opening scene, Chris Wallace offers readers a front-row seat to history. From the challenge of primary battles in a nation that had never elected a Catholic president, to the intense machinations of the national conventions—where JFK chose Lyndon Johnson as his running mate over the impassioned objections of his brother Bobby—this is a nonfiction political thriller filled with intrigue, cinematic action, and fresh reporting. Like with many popular histories, readers may be familiar with the story, but few will know the behind-the-scenes details, told here with gripping effect.

Featuring some of history’s most remarkable characters, page-turning action, and vivid details, Countdown 1960 follows a group of extraordinary politicians, civil rights leaders, Hollywood stars, labor bosses, and mobsters during a pivotal year in American history. The election of 1960 ushered in the modern era of presidential politics, with televised debates, private planes, and slick advertising. In fact, television played a massive role. More than 70 million Americans watched one or all four debates. The public turned to television to watch campaign rallies. And on the night of the election, the contest between Kennedy and Nixon was so close that Americans were glued to their televisions long after dawn to see who won.

The election of 1960 holds stunning parallels to our current political climate. There were—potentially valid—claims of voter fraud and a stolen election. There was also a presidential candidate faced with the decision of whether to contest the result or honor the peaceful transfer of power.

South Africa’s general election of 2024 saw the African National Congress losing its majority at the national level for the first time since the arrival of democracy in 1994. To maintain its rule, President Cyril Ramaphosa led his party into a Government of National Unity (GNU) centered around a hitherto unlikely coalition with the opposition Democratic Alliance. Election 2024, South Africa: Countdown to Coalition presents the first comprehensive analysis of this historic process.

It outlines the extensive social and economic crisis that preceded the election; provides detailed analyses of the election campaigns of the political parties; highlights the dramatic rise Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe Party; places the GNU against the recent experiences of coalition formation at provincial and local level; offers comprehensive summaries of voter participation and both the national and provincial results; and discusses prospects for the GNU’s survival and its possible long-term consequences.

Written in a highly accessible style, Election 2024, South Africa is an indispensable resource for all those wanting to understand South Africa’s contemporary politics.

This is the go-to guide for confused South Africans and all those seeking an informed, balanced and up-to-date analysis of South African politics and society in the Ramaphosa era.

When Nelson Mandela emerged from decades in jail to preach reconciliation, South Africans appeared to many as a people reborn as the Rainbow Nation. Yet, a quarter of a century later, the country sank into bitter recriminations and rampant corruption under Jacob Zuma. Why did this happen, and how was hope betrayed? President Cyril Ramaphosa, hoping to heal these wounds, was re-elected in May 2019 with the ANC hoping to claw back support lost to the opposition in the Zuma era. This book analyses this election, shedding light on voters’ choices.

With chapters on all the major issues at stake – from education to land redistribution – Understanding South Africa offers insights into Africa’s largest and most diversified economy, closely tied to its neighbours’ fortunes.

Although nearly every country in the world today holds multiparty elections, these contests are often blatantly unfair. For governments, electoral misconduct is a tempting but also a risky practice, because it represents a violation of Although nearly every country in the world today holds multiparty elections, these contests are often blatantly unfair. For governments, electoral misconduct is a tempting but also a risky practice, because it represents a violation of international standards for free and fair elections. In Defending Democratic Norms, Daniela Donno examines how international actors respond to these norm violations. Which governments are punished for manipulating elections? Does international norm enforcement make a difference? Donno shows that although enforcement is selective and relatively rare, when international actors do employ tools of conditionality, diplomacy, mediation and shaming in response to electoral misconduct, they can have transformative effects on both the quality and outcome of elections. Specifically, enforcement works by empowering the domestic opposition and increasing the government's incentives to reform institutions of electoral management and oversight. These effects depend, however, on the presence of a viable opposition movement, as well as on the strength and credibility of the enforcement effort itself. The book shows that regional international organizations possess unique sources of leverage and legitimacy that make them the most consistently effective norm defenders, even compared to more materially powerful actors like the United States.
Drawing on an original dataset from almost 700 elections and incorporating case studies from the Dominican Republic, Serbia, Armenia, Kenya and Cambodia, Defending Democratic Norms is a bold new theory of international norm enforcement that demonstrates the importance of active international intervention in domestic politics.

5.4 million Americans--1 in every 40 voting age adults-- are denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on
universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement--both for election outcomes, and for public policy more generally? Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little
known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors' path-breaking analysis will
inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Tackling the complex issues surrounding what shapes a person's vote, this cutting-edge Advanced Introduction analyses the main findings in current research on electoral behavior to provide a comprehensive understanding of electoral choice. Key Features: Treats the voting decision as the cumulation of a lifetime of learning Studies global voting examples, from Europe and the Anglo-American democracies to newly democratic states Places the act of voting in context to cover all dimensions of the voting decision, examining the causes of an individual's vote and how that interacts with the design of the country's institutions Considers the ideological effects of short-term factors like issues and leaders which dominate election campaigns, and long-term factors like social backgrounds, looking at how class and economic interests can influence voters Analysing the incentives behind party loyalties and political participation, this Advanced Introduction will be an invaluable guide for students and scholars interested in political and electoral behavior and comparative politics.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. This Research Agenda documents and establishes the thinking of leading scholars in the field of political marketing and related sub-fields, also encompassing additional social science disciplines that intersect at the crossroads of political marketing. Chapters address the complexity of how politicians and political parties leverage trust, credibility, and expertise across their policy positions, and how citizens formulate their attitudes and opinions. Contributors focus on the new challenges and opportunities for political parties and politicians around the globe when communicating about complex issues, such as science and technology. This Research Agenda will be an essential resource for political marketing researchers and practitioners looking to explore how marketing tactics may be used to shape, guide, and manage public opinion and policy discourse.

Reporting data and predicting trends through the 2008 campaign, this classroom-tested volume offers again James E. Campbell's ""theory of the predictable campaign,"" incorporating the fundamental conditions that systematically affect the presidential vote: political competition, presidential incumbency, and election-year economic conditions. Campbell's cogent thinking and clear style present students with a readable survey of presidential elections and political scientists' ways of studying them. ""The American Campaign"" also shows how and why journalists have mistakenly assigned a pattern of unpredictability and critical significance to the vagaries of individual campaigns. This excellent election-year text provides: a summary and assessment of each of the serious predictive models of presidential election outcomes; a historical summary of many of America's important presidential elections; and a significant new contribution to the understanding of presidential campaigns and how they matter.

Examining the nature of public opinion in democratic societies, this Handbook succinctly illustrates the importance of public opinion as an instrument of popular control and democratic accountability. Expert contributors in the field provide a thorough review of a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of this timely topic. The concise but comprehensive chapters investigate the theoretical value of biological, contextual, psychological, sociological and economic perspectives when exploring public opinion. The Handbook also demonstrates useful insights that can be generated from quantitative or qualitative research designs from both an observational and experimental perspective. Furthermore, its informative assessment of the origins and structure of how public opinion is formed allows for a greater understanding of how policies are developed as a result. Providing a state-of-the-art review, this Handbook will be an excellent study resource for scholars of public opinion in political science, sociology and psychology. Political practitioners, particularly government officials, political operatives and pollsters will also find this informative and illuminating.

Despite the recent wealth of literature on national populism, research has often overlooked one crucial aspect: the border. This innovative book bridges these key concepts, providing a new theoretical conceptualisation of the interplay between populism, nationalism and territorial borders. In this book, borders are not considered as mere institutional boundaries between nation states; on the contrary, the authors adopt a multi-dimensional view of borders as narratives, issues and territorial spaces of mobilisation. Reconsidering the contemporary politicisation of borders in Western Europe, the authors investigate how national populism deals with territorial borders and the various meanings they embody. Empirical case studies focusing on the Swiss borderlands explore parties' programmes and discourses, representatives' attitudes, as well as public opinion and voting behaviour, offering key insights into how political actors and citizens react to trends such as growing transnational flows, globalisation and European integration. This timely book, based on original party sources and surveys, will be an essential resource for students and scholars of political science, political sociology, border studies, European integration, Euroscepticism and Swiss politics. Its context-oriented analysis will also prove beneficial to practitioners and representatives involved in cross-border cooperation.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Tackling the complex issues surrounding what shapes a person's vote, this cutting-edge Advanced Introduction analyses the main findings in current research on electoral behavior to provide a comprehensive understanding of electoral choice. Key Features: Treats the voting decision as the cumulation of a lifetime of learning Studies global voting examples, from Europe and the Anglo-American democracies to newly democratic states Places the act of voting in context to cover all dimensions of the voting decision, examining the causes of an individual's vote and how that interacts with the design of the country's institutions Considers the ideological effects of short-term factors like issues and leaders which dominate election campaigns, and long-term factors like social backgrounds, looking at how class and economic interests can influence voters Analysing the incentives behind party loyalties and political participation, this Advanced Introduction will be an invaluable guide for students and scholars interested in political and electoral behavior and comparative politics.

Moreland and Steed bring an overall analysis of presidential politics in the South together with a state-by-state analysis and updated data on the 1996 presidential elections in each southern state. The 1996 elections are placed within the context of recent party and electoral developments in the South, particularly as those relate to fundamental changes in the party system and the ascendancy of the Republican Party.

The South is a region undergoing significant partisan change, and that change has substantial implications for national politics. This volume analyzes the South's role in the 1996 presidential nomination process, issues as southerners saw them in 1996, and the role of third parties in the South. The volume also analyzes the results of the 1996 presidential election in each of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy. The 1996 elections are placed within the context of recent party and electoral developments in the South, particularly as those relate to fundamental changes in the party system and the ascendancy of the Republican Party.

This volume is unique in that there is no other analysis of the 1996 elections that has a southern regional focus. This is the fourth of a series of volumes on presidential elections in the South edited by Moreland and Steed, and together these studies constitute a valuable resource for those interested in Southern politics, presidential elections, and American political parties in general.

The most definitive report ever on verdict effects, this book gives striking new evidence that media assessments of presidential debates sway voters. The authors conducted 2,350 surveys and extensive analysis of news reports to scrutinize the post-debate news of 1988. They also examined the effects of the attack ads used by Bush and Dukakis. They found that the news media consistently downplay debate content and instead emphasize their own views on candidate performance--media verdicts influence voters as much as the debates themselves.

Extensive content analyses and more than 2,350 surveys were conducted to analyze media verdicts on the 1988 debates. The verdicts on Bush, Dukakis, Quayle, and Bentsen announced in post-debate newscasts are compared with those from debates in 1984, 1980 and 1976. The study finds that the news media consistently downplay debate content and instead emphasize their own views on candidate performance. These media verdicts influence voters as much as the debates themselves. The study also examines the effects of attack ads used by Bush and Dukakis, and finds that they backfired--network news probably rebroadcast more excerpts of attack ads in 1988 than ever before. Television journalists, the essays in this book show, have become increasingly less interested in how the debates served the information needs of the voters and increasingly more preoccupied with how they affected the ambitions of the candidates. A noticeable trend in 1988 was as the fall debates went on, voters' beliefs that further debates would be helpful to them went down. Another finding of the study deals with a huge tactical error that the League of Women Voters committed by simultaneously announcing its withdrawal and blasting the format and ground rules imposed on it by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Also, the spin doctors who continually spouted insider information during the 1988 campaign gained more legitimacy and impact than ever before--and had a very strong effect on American public affairs journalism. This intriguing book, which also provides policy recommendations for the debates, their sponsors, and the news media, is useful to journalists, researchers, and civic groups concerned with elections, government, campaign reform, and communications.

This up-to-date collection of essays addresses key elements of the law and politics of voting rights: the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, and the opportunities for enhanced minority representation posed by alternative electoral systems. This volume, comprised of contributions by leading legal and political science practitioners in the field of voting rights, will be a valuable resource to experienced researchers and newcomers to the field. It includes current assessments of the intricacies of the Supreme Court's decisions, current research on the impact of the the Voting Rights Act on the various minority groups it purports to assist, and critical analysis of the use of alternative electoral systems.

Clifford W. Brown, Jr. and Robert J. Walker outline and analyze the entire Anderson/Lucey platform. The book includes the original Program of the Anderson/Lucey National Unity Campaign; a summary of the platform--Rebuilding a Society that Works: An Agenda for America; and the Budget Impact Statement which outlines the full financial implications of Anderson's proposals. Brown and Walker, who participated in the writing of the platform, discuss contemporary political platforms and differentiate the Anderson/Lucey platform from those of the major political parties in 1980 in an informative introduction. They also briefly describe the Anderson campaign, focusing on Anderson's rise to national attention, the role of the research department that produced the platform, the process of writing it, and its reception by the national news media.

Presidential candidates have criticized the press since the days of Thomas Jefferson, with claims of media bias for one party or another being a recurring campaign complaint. In focusing on the presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of media bias in two particular elections as well as for presidential campaigns in general. Stempel and Windhauser have collected more data than in any previous study, and they have included newspapers, network television news, and news magazines in their evaluation. Their thorough analysis of the content and slant of each item provides a clearcut picture of just what the media covered and how the coverage differed when an incumbent was not running. The study is based on news items collected from 23 sources in the three media, covering the Labor Day through Election Day period of both campaigns. Seventeen elite newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune, had their election coverage analyzed, as did the three major television networks and the three general news magazines, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. Each news item was classified by which candidate it primarily concerned, whether it was favorable, unfavorable, or neutral, and what major issue the story dealt with. The findings are presented in three separate chapters that focus on the different media, with additional chapters offering analysis of newspaper editorials in the two campaigns and the results of a telephone survey on public attitudes toward coverage. A final chapter provides a concluding look at the press, politicians, and the public. This comprehensive study will be an important reference for courses in political science, journalism, and American history, and a valuable addition to public and academic libraries.

"Engaging and inspiring . . . Reading this book should make you want to vote." Barack Obama In a world of sound bites, deliberate misinformation, and a political scene colored by the blue versus red partisan divide, how does the average educated American find a reliable source that's free of political spin? What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don't breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why-whether it's the economy, income inequality, Obamacare, foreign policy, education, immigration, or climate change. If you're a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it's the perfect book to brush up on a single topic or read through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics. This is an essential volume for understanding the background to the 2016 presidential election. But it is also a book that transcends the season. It's truly for anyone who wants to know more about the perennial issues that will continue to affect our everyday lives. The third edition includes an introduction by Naomi Wolf discussing the themes and issues that have come to the fore during the present presidential cycle.

The issue of electoral reform has divided the Labour Party since its inception, but only for a brief period in the early 20th century has the Party been committed to reforming first-past-the-post (FPTP). Now, having suffered four successive general election defeats, the Labour Party will have to reconsider its electoral strategy if it is, once again, to become a party of government. For some, a commitment to electoral reform is an indispensable step to widen support, transform the Party, and unlock British Politics. For others, the present system still offers the best hope of majority Labour governments, avoiding deals with the Party's rivals and the watering down of Labour's social democratic agenda. This book explores the Labour Party's approaches towards reforming the Westminster electoral system, and more widely, its perception of electoral pacts and coalition government. The opening chapters chart the debate from the inception of the Party up to the electoral and political impact of Thatcherism. From there, the book takes a closer look at significant recent events, including the Plant Report, the Jenkins Commission, the end of New Labour, the Alternative Vote Referendum, and closing with the Labour leadership containing the matter at Party Conference, 2021. Importantly, it offers an assessment of the pressures and environment in which Labour politicians have operated. Extensive elite-level interviews and new archival research offers the reader a comprehensive and definitive account of this debate.