This Handbook is the first major work to comprehensively map state-of-the-art scholarship on electoral debates in comparative perspective. Leading scholars and practitioners from around the world introduce a core theoretical and conceptual framework to understand this phenomenon and point to promising directions for new research on the evolution of electoral debates and the practical considerations that different country-level experiences can offer. Three indicators to help analyze electoral debates inform this Handbook: the level of experience of each country in the realization of electoral debates; geopolitical characteristics linked to political influence; and democratic stability and electoral competitiveness. Chapters with examples from the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania add richness to the volume. Each chapter: Traces local historical, constitutive relationships between traditional forms of electoral debates and contexts of their emergence; Compares and critiques different perspectives regarding the function of debates on democracy; Probes, discusses and evaluates recent and emergent theoretical resources related to campaign debates in light of a particular local experience; Explores and assesses new or neglected local approaches to electoral debates in a changing media landscape where television is no longer the dominant form of political communication; Provides a prospective analysis regarding the future challengers for electoral debates. The Routledge International Handbook on Electoral Debates will set the agenda for scholarship on the political communication for years to come.

When Barack Obama was re-elected president in November 2012, his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, took the blame for being alternately too moderate or too conservative. Critics from both within and outside of his party claimed his vast wealth made him unappealing to voters and that his robotic persona meant he just could not connect. How, then, did he win the nomination? What happened during the twelve-month build-up to Romney being named the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party that helped define him as both a man and a candidate? Furthermore, how did media coverage frame his competitors and the race itself, a contest characterized by its rollercoaster nature? Last Man Standing examines mainstream media coverage of the 2012 Republican primary season to identify and examine the frames used to make sense of the candidates and the race. Through an exhaustive analysis of candidate-related coverage from six major media outlets (The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post for newspapers; CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC for cable news networks), Coombs weaves her examination of media frames into a compelling narrative reconstruction of the 2012 primary season. This book features: .Exhaustive analysis of mainstream media coverage over a twelve-month period .Smart, insightful exploration of media frames .Chronological structure, which allows for analysis to address how frames shift with candidate s fortunes"

This book explores the impact of electoral rules on political party development in Central and East Europe. It finds that 'high district magnitude' proportional electoral systems encourage centralised organisational development and campaigning - where communication with voters is conducted primarily via mass, social and digital media - while small electoral districts stimulate grassroots campaigning. As a result, low magnitude electoral systems are more likely to create an active role for party members, stimulating membership recruitment. The book further examines how parties organise and campaign on the ground. The analysis of in-depth surveys and interviews with party elites in Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia sheds light on areas of party life that are rarely examined, including party fundraising. Overall, the effects of electoral systems on party organisation and campaigning reflect patterns previously observed in Western Europe, demonstrating that a degree of convergence has occurred.

In Crackup, the eminent American politics scholar Samuel Popkin tells the story of how the Republican Party fractured into uncompromising groups with irreconcilable demands. Changes in campaign finance laws and the proliferation of mass media opened the way for newly energized groups to split the party. The 2002 "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance reform bill aimed to weaken the power of big corporations and strengthen political parties by ending corporate donations to the parties. Instead, it weakened legislative leaders and made bipartisanship a curse word. Popkin argues that moving money outside the political parties fueled the rise of single-issue advocacy groups and Super PACs funded by billionaires with pet issues. This allowed self-promoting politicians to undermine colleagues with an unprecedented use of tactics once only used to disrupt the other party. One such politician was Ted Cruz, the first Republican senator with the oratorical skills and intelligence to exploit the new possibilities. He effectively promoted himself at the expense of the party, mobilized other obstructionists in congress, and blocked compromises on immigration and healthcare. Into this abyss came Donald J. Trump, who took advantage of the party's inability to do anything for Republican voters struggling with economic decline. No other candidate, when forced to try to satisfy the irreconcilable demands of major donors and party leaders, could offer a credible alternative to his moon-promising bravado. A novel structural explanation of why the GOP ended up with Trump as their standard bearer, Crackup forces us to look at the deeper forces set in motion over a decade ago. It also reveals how lone-wolf figures like Cruz are inevitable given the new rules of the game. Unless the system for financing elections changes, we will continue to see opportunists emerge-in both parties-to block intra-party compromise.

The Internet and National Elections provides a comparative analysis of the use of the World Wide Web in countries around the world for campaign purposes. This ambitious study draws upon a common conceptual framework - the "Web sphere," and a shared methodological approach called Web feature analysis - in order to examine how the Internet is used by a variety of political actors during periods of electoral activity. Research teams around the world conducted analyses in technologically advanced nations, as well as those with low Internet diffusion, and a variety of countries in the middle range of network penetration, and from a variety of political and cultural contexts. The book represents an important contribution towards gaining a cross-national understanding of the current and emerging impacts of the Internet on political practice. To that end, the contributors to this book collect and analyze data related to the structure for political action and information provision. They examine twelve types of political actors engaged in elections, including candidates, parties, non-governmental organizations, government, media and individual citizens. Exploring the complex dynamics between politics, culture, and information technology at both the national and global levels, this text will be of interest to students and researchers of political science, communication studies, international relations, media and Internet studies.

The 2014 midterm election was one of the most significant in recent memory, with a decisive turning of the tables in favor of Republicans. With a now-Republican-controlled Senate and House at odds with a Democratic president with only two years left in office, the fault lines within and between both parties have never been more tenuous. In this book, prominent elections scholar and political commentator Larry J. Sabato brings together respected journalists and experts from across the political spectrum to examine every facet of the midterm election results and the implications for the 2016 election cycle. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines to analyze what the midterm results mean and what is at stake in the coming presidential race. Contributing authors joining Larry Sabato with chapters in the book include: Professor Alan Abramovitz of Emory University; Mark Blumenthal of Huffington Post; Jamelle Bouie of Slate; Rhodes Cook, formerly of Congressional Quarterly; Robert Costa of the Washington Post; Ariel Edwards-Levy of Huffington Post; James Hohmann of Politico, political writers and commentators Kyle Kondik and Geoff Skelley of the University of Virginia Center for Politics; Jill Lawrence of Creators Syndicate; Visiting Assistant Professor Josh Putnam of Appalachian State University; Michael Toner and Karen Trainer of Wiley Rein LLP; and Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics.

Campaign politics has become increasingly professionalized in recent years. The growing prevalence and influence of paid consultants in the United States and other democracies is one of the most important factors changing the nature of electoral politics. Campaign Warriors thoroughly examines this critical --and controversial --development and its impact on the political system in the U.S. and other countries.

The contributors approach the topic from several different perspectives, including the increasing use of "spin doctors" and the resulting loss of influence of state and national political parties. The book investigates the role of these paid advisers: who they are, what they do and why, and how they feel about their work. The contributors discuss the consultant's relationship with candidates and parties, and analyze the effect of their efforts on election outcome.

Images, Issues, and Attacks explores important differences between incumbents and challengers in the uses of televised advertising in modern presidential elections. Elections since 1956 can be divided into three categories: elections with strong incumbents, the incumbent wins; elections with weak incumbents, the incumbent loses; and elections with surrogate incumbents, the vice president runs. Incumbent and challenger advertising emphasizes personal imagery, links the imagery to specific issues, and attacks rivals for opposing those images and issues. The first part of the book describes how incumbents and challengers used these themes in the elections from 1980 to 2000. The second part applies those findings to the 2004 election and shows how George W. Bush presented himself as a strong incumbent and how he and his challengers varied their mix of images, issues, and attacks over different periods of the election campaign.

In recent years, competitive authoritarianism has become an increasingly common form of non-democratic politics. What is the relationship between the demand for particular public policies and a regime's durability in office in such cases? How does policy-making interact with organizational power, the willingness to resort to coercion and patronage politics in countries home to democratic-looking institutions that none the less fall short of democratic standards? In this book we show that such regimes do more than just survive and collapse. Moreover, we argue that far from being passive pawns in the hands of their leaders voters in competitive authoritarian regimes, do matter are taken seriously. We investigate how regimes and voters interact in the cases of Georgia and Armenia, two post-Soviet countries in the South Caucasus, to identify how voters preferences feed into policy-making and gauge the extent to which the regimes' adjustment of their policies crucially affects regime stability. To these ends, we draw on a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, including a survey experiment carried out in the two countries. The volume was originally published as a special issue of the journal Caucasus Survey.

This volume, offers the thought of twenty scholars on the theory, history, and practice of representation. Two developments make a new appraisal of this subject timely. One is the decision of the United States Supreme Court requiring representation to be democratic in the sense of affording every voter an equal voice in government. The other, that some governments that are not democratic in the sense of having freely competitive political parties are now nevertheless "representative." A number of essays in this volume deal with the problems of equitable apportionment of representation from the point of view of constitutional law, normative theory, and practical politics. Two take up the proposal of weighted voting as a means for meeting the Supreme Court's objectives, and two others inquire into the meaning of representation under noncompetitive party systems. Combining an overview of the subject with a detailed analysis of its various aspects, this book presents information of major significance for all engaged in the study of political processes, comparative politics, constitutional law, political theory, and legislative behavior. The general reader of politics and political and legal philosophy will find here a clear vision and explication of the theoretical and practical background and the underpinnings of representative government. "J. Roland Pennock" was professor of political science at Swarthmore College for more than twenty-five years, as well as a fellow at the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. "John W. Chapman" is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.

In his latest book, veteran socialist writer Kim Moody provides a masterful analysis of the political impasse which has shaped the rise of a new socialist movement in the United States: recurring economic and political crises, sharp inequality, state violence, and climate catastrophe proceed apace as the right ascends across the world, while the US political scene remains defined and dominated by two capitalist political parties. Moody situates the historic electoral campaigns of Democratic Socialists such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as the growth of organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, in this context, and incisively assesses the revived movement's focus on electoral strategies. Offering an important account of left attempts to intervene in the American two-party electoral system, Moody provides both a sobering historical corrective and an alternative orientation for the future, arguing that the socialist movement should turn its attention toward a politics of mass action, anti-racism, and independent, working-class organizing.

The authors of this book have joined together for a third time to produce a book on Japanese political parties and elections. The first two books under the title of The Japanese Party System were also published by Westview Press in 1986 and 1992. This book, Japan's New Party System, has a different purpose than the previous volumes. The first two books had as their task the presentation of a vast amount of material on the various parties of the 1955-1993 party system. Since 1955, Japanese politics and parties had been rather uneventful and predictable; consequently, many Japanese political scientists preferred to study other nations. Decade after decade, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) ruled Japan while the permanent opposition party, the Japan Socialist Party GSP) revolved around it but could never even come close to replacing it in power on the national level. All of this changed in 1993 after the LOP split, new parties emerged and formed a non-LOP government, and a new party system began. This book is about the Second Party System and how Japanese politics has changed from the old LOP-dominated First Party System.

Social networking fascinates scholars, pundits, and a billion Facebook users. This book shows that whom we know has a vast impact on our political beliefs, actions, and abilities. Prior scholarship has shown that networks are crucial to explaining everything from how bills get through Congress, why people vote, how NGO's become successful in developing nations, and much more; yet an in-depth analysis of the social basis of the rationality is missing. To fill this void, The Social Basis of the Rational Citizen provides the first empirical analysis of the most important hypothesized effect of social network influence on politics: social cognition. Through new lab experiments and survey data, this book shows that decision-making in groups promotes more rational choices and better citizenship. Thus, advice and learning derived from social network contacts are shown to be the basis of decision-making for the rational citizen.

How do dictatorships justify their rule and with what effects? This and similar questions guide the contributions to this edited volume. Despite the recent resurgence of political science scholarship on autocratic resilience, many questions remain unanswered about the role of legitimation in contemporary non-democracies and its relationship with neighbouring concepts, like ideology, censorship, and consent. The overarching thesis of this book is that autocratic legitimation has causal influence on numerous outcomes of interest in authoritarian politics. These outcomes include regime resilience, challenger-state interactions, the procedures and operations of elections, social service provision, and the texture of everyday life in autocracies. Researchers of autocratic politics will benefit from the rich contributions of this volume. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of Contemporary Politics.

Selecting candidates for elections is a major goal of political parties and a major function of political regimes in democratic systems. With the negative effects of the economic crisis being seen to translate into changes in voting patterns, and citizens using elections to punish parties in government for their roles in economic mismanagement or lack of response to the global economic crisis, a broad examination is required. This book is presented as the first comparative study of the effects of the political crisis on candidate selection covering a large number of countries. Using an integrated framework and unified strategy, it examines how new relevant political actors are really implementing participative ways of candidate selection, whether they are being innovative in their political environments and the extent to which traditionally mainstream parties are changing selection procedures to have more open and inclusive mechanisms as part of internal, or intra-party, democracy. The book illuminates these issues through empirically driven chapters explaining changes in the way candidates for parliaments are selected in countries where new parties have emerged and consolidated, or where traditional mainstream parties have adopted new mechanisms of selection affecting (if not challenging) traditional politics. Additionally, therefore, this work will serve as a response to some current debates in the discipline on the consequences of the democratization of party life, relating political participation and representation. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties, organizational change, social and political elites and more broadly to comparative politics and sociology.

This book presents a collection of lessons on how best to run elections and politics, using examples from the Japanese experience and showing how elections operate in a non-Western democracy. Featuring extensive data and evidence from both Japan and the United States, the themes covered include one-party rule, ballot security and voting procedures, election regulations, malapportionment and gerrymandering, court interventions, voter attachments, and distortions of the public will by election rules. In so doing, the analysis challenges conventional wisdom in both Japan and the United States, highlighting surprising and counterintuitive findings from decades of observation. This book also explicitly compares Japan to other, similarly situated democracies. Japan is therefore not treated as a standalone case but, rather, the lessons from Japan are contextualized for greater understanding and can be used to inform discussions about comparative elections and democracy. Offering practical advice in relation to elections and the functions of democracy, Japanese Democracy and Lessons for the United States will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese, US, and comparative politics.

A sea change is taking place in how people use media, and it affects not only how people perceive political candidates and where they get their information, but also-more broadly-their basic democratic values. Mediating the Vote systematically explores a number of questions about media use and its relation to democratic engagement, analyzing the effects of communication forms on the 2004 presidential elections. Are Democratic and Republican voters increasingly turning to different outlets for information about candidates and campaigns and, if so, what does this mean for political discourse? Which communication forms-newspapers, television news programs, the Internet, or films-had the greatest impact on people's perceptions of the presidential candidates during the 2004 campaigns? Do different forms of media affect people, either intellectually or emotionally, in distinct ways? And do some communication forms elevate, whereas others degrade, basic democratic values? This book probes these questions and more, and the results contribute to an important goal in political communication studies: creating a more refined, integrated, and-ultimately-precise picture of how media affects democratic engagement.

This book provides an overview of the sudden ascendancy of Islamism in post-Mubarak Egypt and a detailed history of the power grab by the Muslim Brotherhood. The author argues that liberals and Copts are minor factions, and that the Islamists, the military and 'couch party' (non- politically affiliated Egyptians) are the true key actors in Egyptian politics. Additionally, it is posited that, ironically, Mubarak's coup-proofing strategy was responsible for the military turning against him. The strained civil-military relations in Egypt are examined, as are the ideological development of the MB, Salafist and jihadist groups, and the power struggle between the Islamists and the military.

Over the last 30 years referendums have played an increasingly important role in determining government policy. Recent high profile referendums in Scotland, Catalonia and Ukraine have continued the movement towards independence referendums following decolonization and the end of the Cold War. The Greek bailout referendum and Britain's vote on membership of the EU reflect a tradition of European states giving their people a direct say in the transfer of sovereign powers to the European Union seen through the ratification of key treaties such as Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon. This Routledge Handbook covers key aspects and issues of direct democracy and referendums throughout the world including: *their history; *when, why, where, how and on which issues referendums are held; *why some referendums are more democratic than others; *how referendums are won; *whether they produce good policies; *if referendums increase participation and improve the quality of representative democracies; *do referendums increase trust in democracy and the political actors; *the impact of new technology on the possibilities, methods and frequency of direct public political participation; *how they should be regulated. Covering other related areas such as recall, citizen juries and random selection, this compendium is an indispensable guide to referendums and the workings of modern democracy.

At the end of the last century, political marketing appeared to have become a global phenomenon with an increasing number of electoral campaigns resembling those of the United States. Comparative research has shown the existence of a so-called 'Americanization' of election campaign practices. This book examines the nature of electoral campaigns in East and Southeast Asia. Based on the analyses of developments in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines, it examines whether there is an 'Asian style' of election campaigning. Contributing to the fields of media studies and comparative politics, the book offers an insight into the various changes in election campaigning that occurred in the East and Southeast Asia during the process of democratization and modernization. It sheds new light on the causes and consequences of the worldwide proliferation of US election campaigning and provides the academic world with previously unpublished material on the electoral strategies of Asian political parties.

Broderick covers the ballyhoo and intrigue of the 1912 presidential campaign with remarkable evenhandedness and realism. He views the race for the White House from the vantage points of the Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs camps, and analyzes their strengths and weaknesses accordingly. The book emphasizes the variety of choice offered to the progressive voter in 1912. . . . Broderick makes his points with great clarity and persuasiveness, as well as with detailed examples and anecdotes. This book offers fresh insight into an oft-covered campaign year. Choice The presidential election of 1912 was critical in American history, defining not only the Progressive Era, but setting domestic political standards that remained implicitly or explicitly influential until the second Nixon administration. The election campaign dealt with the central issue of Progressivism: How could the United States develop a strategy for orderly social change in a new economic order created by large-scale industrial capitalism? However, in the face of an acknowledged need for reform, there was little agreement on what reforms were desirable. Broderick provides an in-depth picture of the personalities and issues involved in this crucial election. He shows how the four presidential candidates--Roosevelt, Taft, Debs, and Wilson--sought votes for their solutions. In addition to battling each other, the author contends, the candidates struggled for dominance within their own parties. Broderick also considers the influence of Elihu Root, Robert M. La Follette, William Jennings Bryan, Charles Murphy, Champ Clark, and a dozen other political leaders who left their mark on the drama of the campaign of 1912. In conclusion, he demonstrates how, while Wilson won the office, Roosevelt won the debate and shaped the future. This history of an election unique in American politics will be welcomed by political scientists, historians, and the general reader.

Set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq, drastically altered relations with traditional U.S. allies, intense partisanship, and a national debate over moral values, the 2004 presidential campaign presented voters with a clear choice that reflected deep divisions within the country. This collection analyzes this watershed election, and its likely consequences. The contributors examine every aspect of the election, including the strategies and tactics of the Bush and Kerry campaigns, voter turnout and policy consequences, campaign financing, and the power of incumbency.

Set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq, drastically altered relations with traditional U.S. allies, intense partisanship, and a national debate over moral values, the 2004 presidential campaign presented voters with a clear choice that reflected deep divisions within the country. This collection analyzes this watershed election, and its likely consequences. The contributors examine every aspect of the election, including the strategies and tactics of the Bush and Kerry campaigns, voter turnout and policy consequences, campaign financing, and the power of incumbency.

A sea change is taking place in how people use media, and it affects not only how people perceive political candidates and where they get their information, but also_more broadly_their basic democratic values. Mediating the Vote systematically explores a number of questions about media use and its relation to democratic engagement, analyzing the effects of communication forms on the 2004 presidential elections. Are Democratic and Republican voters increasingly turning to different outlets for information about candidates and campaigns and, if so, what does this mean for political discourse? Which communication forms_newspapers, television news programs, the Internet, or films_had the greatest impact on people's perceptions of the presidential candidates during the 2004 campaigns? Do different forms of media affect people, either intellectually or emotionally, in distinct ways? And do some communication forms elevate, whereas others degrade, basic democratic values? This book probes these questions and more, and the results contribute to an important goal in political communication studies: creating a more refined, integrated, and_ultimately_precise picture of how media affects democratic engagement.