These two volumes explore the influence of ideas and think tanks in contemporary Britain. Notable commentators such as Rodney Barker and Andrew Gamble contemplate how ideas have shaped politics and society. The purveyors of ideas for change, the think tanks, are examined in a series of studies; and leading academics and participants' views are recorded in a number of interviews. Volume 2 Contributors: Andrew Gamble, Tim Bale, John Callaghan, Michael Harris, Peter Ruben, Michael Oliver, Richard Cockett. Witness Seminar: Geoff Mulgan. Interviews: Anthony Seldon interviews David Edgerton, Anthony Flew, Lawrence Freedman, Christopher Hill, Rodney Lowe, and Jim Tomlinson. Michael Kandiah interviews Richard Rose..

As a field of rich theoretical development and practical application, political communication has expanded over the past fifty years. Since its development shaped by the turmoil of the World Wars and suspicion of new technologies such as film and radio, the discipline has become a hybrid field largely devoted to connecting the dots between political rhetoric, politicians and leaders, voters' opinions, and media exposure to better understand how any one aspect can affects the others. The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication provides contexts for viewing the field of political communication, examines political discourse, media, and considers political communication's evolution inside the altered political communication landscape. Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson bring together some of the most groundbreaking scholars in the field to reflect upon their areas of expertise to address the importance of their areas of study to the field, the major findings to date, including areas of scholarly disagreement, on the topics, the authors' perspectives, and unanswered questions for future research to address. Their answers reveal that political communication is a hybrid with complex ancestry, permeable boundaries and interests that overlap with those of related fields such as political sociology, public opinion, rhetoric, neuroscience and the new hybrid on the quad, media psychology. This comprehensive review of the political communication literature is designed to become the first reference for scholars and students interested in the study of how, why, when, and with what effect humans make sense of symbolic exchanges about sharing and shared power. The sixty-two chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication contain an overview of past scholarship while providing critical reflection of its relevance in a changing media landscape and offering agendas for future research and innovation.

This study looks at the influence of ideas and think tanks in Britain, contemplating how ideas have shaped politics and society. The purveyors of ideas for change - the think tanks - are examined, and academics and participants views are recorded in a number of interviews.

The Monstrous Discourse in the Donald Trump Campaign: Implications for National Discourse provides a lens through which to explore the implications of the monster metaphor as applied to Trump during the 2016 presidential election. Analyzing the overt and buried usages of the monster metaphor in the media's and Trump's discourse, as well as the structure of the monster narrative generally, offers connections between the metaphor and the actions incited by its narrative. This book explores the ways in which this language also serves as a metaphor to understand the ecology of Trump's candidacy and the polarized responses drawn by his campaign, and considers its troubling implications for the future direction of national discourse.

This text provides an analysis of the variety of consequences that elections may have for the operation of American political institutions and the formulation and administration of policy.

This study looks at the influence of ideas and think tanks in Britain, contemplating how ideas have shaped politics and society. The purveyors of ideas for change - the think tanks - are examined, and academics and participants vieww are recorded in a number of interviews.

Focusing on the Iranian presidential elections of 2009 and ensuing demonstrations in major cities across Iran and world, Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age provides a balanced discussion of the role and impact of modern communication technologies, particularly the novel utilization of "small digital media" vis-a-vis the elections and global media coverage. Written in a non-technical, easy to read, and accessible manner, the volume will appeal to scholars, students, policy makers and print professionals alike. To provide a global overview of media coverage and diverse perspectives on the controversial 2009 presidential election, this book consists of 24 original essays, covering issues from global media coverage to new media-social networking, from the ideological-political dimensions to the cultural facets of the elections. Organized in a cohesive manner, the writing styles and presentation remain varied and richly informative.

In this monograph, Chris Featherman adopts a discourse analytical approach to explore the ways in which social movement ideologies and identities are discursively constructed in new and old media. In the context of his argument, Featherman also considers current debates surrounding the role that technologies play in democracy-building and global activist networks. He engages these critical issues through a case study of the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, looking at both US legacy media coverage of the protests as well as activists' use of social media. Through qualitative analysis of a corpus of activists' Twitter tweets and Flickr uploads, Featherman argues that activists' social media discourses and protesters' symbolic and tactical borrowing of global English contribute to micronarratives of globalization, while also calling into question master narratives about Iran commonly found in mainstream Western media accounts. This volume makes a timely contribution to discussions regarding the relationship between cyber-rhetoric and democracy, and provides new directions for researchers engaging with the influence of new media on globalized vernaculars of English.

This volume looks at the political events and discusses the major issues of 1994, most notably the European parliament elections.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book investigates the impact of vote buying on the accountability of democratic institutions and policy representation in newly democratic countries, with a focus on Indonesia. In doing so, the book presents a wide-ranging study of the dynamics of vote buying in Indonesia's young democracy, exploring the nature, extent, determinants, targeting and effectiveness of this practice. It addresses these central issues in the context of comparative studies of vote buying, arguing that although party loyalists are disproportionately targeted in vote buying efforts, in total numbers -given the relatively small number of party loyalists in Indonesia- vote buying hits more uncommitted voters. It also demonstrates that the effectiveness of vote buying on vote choice is in the 10 percent range, which is sufficient for many candidates to secure a seat and thus explains why they still engage in vote buying despite high levels of leakage.

"The American Elections of 2008" assembles leading political scientists and journalists to explain the election results and their implications for America's future. Topics include financing the elections, religion's influence, the media, and how the George W. Bush legacy affected the outcome. The book also explores Congressional behavior in the twenty-first century and discusses how it affected election results in 2008.

This book is about presidents in parliamentary systems. One commonly recurring political debate within parliamentary systems is over whether or not the public should directly elect the head of state. Despite the importance of this topic in practical politics, political scientists have offered little empirical evidence, yet made bold assumptions about the consequences of popular elections for heads of state. A common argument is that direct elections enhance presidents' legitimacy thereby increasing their activism and encouraging authoritarian tendencies. Another popular assumption is that direct presidential elections are more heavily contested and partisan, polarizing and dividing political elites and the electorate. Proponents of direct elections argue that such elections will help decrease voter alienation and apathy. This book challenges the conventional wisdom. Using both quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence from democratic systems across the world, this book demonstrates that compared to indirect selection methods, direct elections do not yield more active and contentious presidents, do not polarize political elites or society, and do not remedy political apathy. Rather, presidential activism in both "semi-presidential" and "pure parliamentary" systems is shaped by political opportunity framework - the institutional strength and partisan composition of both parliament and government. Further, because holding the presidency provides parties with an electoral asset, direct and indirect presidential elections can be equally contentious and polarizing. Last, but not least, rather than decreasing apathy, direct election is associated with increased voter fatigue and decreased turnout in parliamentary elections by about seven percentage points.

Since the 1970s the role of the mass media in the world of politics has become increasingly influential, controversial and disturbing. In an analysis of systems of political communication, the authors trace the origins and development of this "crisis of communication for citizenship". They provide detailed critiques of the relationship between British and American broadcasters and politicians, and of political communication in election campaigns since the late 1960s. They trace the roots of the problem to the contemporary social and political environment, characterized by an increasingly disaffected public whose ability to make sense of civic problems is increasingly confounded and frustrated. Looking to the future, they consider how political communication might be improved within the context of a restructured public sphere.

An examination of the evolution of the democratic two-party system in Taiwan. This work explores the growth of Taiwan's competitive party system in the context of social attitudes, issue-based politics and local factions.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415108519

The Political Geography of Campaign Finance examines the distribution of political campaign contributions in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 preprimary election periods. Using aggregated individual level data, the authors determine if certain areas contribute more to presidential candidates in different stages of the campaign, and if these patterns are independent of wealth and partisanship. Unlike previous research, this book examines individual counties over multiple election cycles.

Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe examines the norms and practices of collective decision-making across pre-modern European history, east and west, and their influence in shaping both intra- and inter-communal relationships. Bringing together the work of twenty specialist contributors, this volume offers a unique range of case studies from Ancient Greece to the eighteenth century, and explores voting in a range of different contexts with analysis that encompasses constitutional and ecclesiastical history, social and cultural history, the history of material culture and of political thought. Together the case-studies illustrate the influence of ancient models and ideas of voting on medieval and early modern collectivities and document the cultural and conceptual exchange between different spheres in which voting took place. Above all, they foreground voting as a crucial element of Europe's common political heritage and raise questions about the contribution of pre-modern cultures of voting to modern political and institutional developments. Offering a wide chronological and geographical scope, Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe is aimed at scholars and students of the history of voting and is a fascinating contribution to the key debates that surround voting today.

An examination of the evolution of the democratic two-party system in Taiwan. This work explores the growth of Taiwan's competitive party system in the context of social attitudes, issue-based politics and local factions.

Why India Votes? offers a fascinating account of the Indian electorate through a series of comprehensive ethnographic explorations conducted across the country Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. It probes the motivations of ordinary voters, what they think about politicians, the electoral process, democracy and their own role within it. This book will be useful to scholars and students of political science, anthropology and sociology, those in media and politics, and those interested in elections and democracy as also the informed general reader.

Jongwoo Han's Networked Information Technologies, Elections, and Politics: Korea and the United States is a study on the changes that have been occurring in elections, politics, and democratic movements in both the United States and Korea. There has undoubtedly been a paradigm shift in political discourse, as the industrial age mass media-based public sphere gives way to the new networked information technologies (NNIT)-based cyber sphere. Analyzing and comparing Korea's presidential election in 2002 and the United States' 2008 presidential election, Han discusses the impact of NNITs in electoral politics, as previously apolitical young generations have become more involved and transformed themselves into both a cohesive voting bloc and a formidable constituency. Han also addresses the role of NNITs in Korea's beef crisis and President Obama's legislation battle to reform the U.S. health care system, revealing unprecedented opportunities to observe this major change occurring in political systems during the so-called Information Age.

This volume combines current academic research on British elections, parties and public opinion with a detailed reference section including a chronology of the major political events of 1993, opinion polls and by-election results for 1993, as well as an up-to-date digest of party and media addresses and contacts.

This volume combines current academic research on British elections, parties and public opinion with a detailed reference section including a chronology of the major political events of 1993, opinion polls and by-election results for 1993, as well as an up-to-date digest of party and media addresses and contacts.

The parliamentary elections of 2015-16 in Greece, Spain and Portugal had extraordinary consequences, bringing repeat elections, unprecedented processes of government formation and uncharted government outcomes. Greece formed a coalition of radical left and radical right and Portugal its first government supported by the communist party while Spain took ten months to get a government. These developments are especially astonishing in three states which in previous decades were a byword for democratic stability. After the transitions following the fall of their dictatorships in the 1970s, Greece, Spain and Portugal established bipolar electoral competition and predictable patterns of government formation. But more recently, all three countries have been in the frontline of the economic crisis and austerity implementation, triggering electoral realignments and turning the radical left into a major player. This volume offers essential understanding of the political destabilisation of Southern Europe. It includes detailed analyses of all five 'crisis elections' and of Greece's bailout referendum. It also provides studies of the five 'new contender' parties (SYRIZA, Podemos, Ciudadanos, the Bloco Esquerda and the Portuguese Communist Party) which played a key role in government formation for the first time. The chapters originally published as a special issue in South European Society and Politics.

This title was first published in 2003. This precise and well-structured book focuses on the mechanics (its evolution and the debates it generates) of the German electoral system. Briefly outlining the past German electoral systems and the influence they exerted on the political systems of the time, it differs from existing literature by being the first volume in the English language which gives in-depth treatment to local and regional electoral systems in Germany, as well as the federal system. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of German electoral systems and their role and contribution within the party and political systems, it is particularly relevant at a time when other European countries' electoral systems are under review. Students and academics concerned with German politics in particular and German or European studies more generally, will find this book valuable.

This book examines how electoral structure, representation styles and policy outputs affect the Mexican American community in Texas. In so doing, it makes a major contribution to the larger study of minority politics in the context of urban electoral and political structures.