Ethnicity and ethnic parties have often been portrayed as a threat to political stability. This book challenges the notion that the organization of politics in heterogeneous societies should overcome ethnicity. Rather, descriptive representation of ethnic groups has potential to increase regime support and reduce conflict.

Every four years, the world watches as the United States passes the title and power of the presidency from one person to another in a peaceful and orderly manner. With a formal ceremony, a large parade, and gala inaugural balls, it's a big, colorful show-one rich with history, tradition, and ritual.

Through a compilation of vignettes, author Jim Bendat chronicles all of Inauguration Day's historic events. Democracy's Big Day tells stories about the outgoing and incoming presidents who did not get along, the chief justices who improperly administered the presidential oath, the vice president who showed up to the ceremony drunk, and the nine occasions in which the United States had an unplanned and unanticipated inauguration-often for a nation in mourning.

"Democracy's Big Day" presents a comprehensive history of presidential inaugurations-from George Washington through Barack Obama. From the morning White House coffee gathering to the evening's parties, the author provides a captivating look at what is truly democracy's biggest day.

In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton--and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines had been told--until now.

In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel.

Benoit, Blaney, and Pier apply the functional theory of political campaign discourse to the 1996 presidential campaign. When a citizen casts a vote, he or she makes a decision about which candidate is preferable. There are only three types of rhetorical strategies for persuading voters to believe a candidate is the better choice: acclaiming or self-praise, attacking or criticizing an opponent, and defending or responding to attacks. As they illustrate, acclaims, if accepted by the audience, make the candidate appear better. Attacks can make the opponent seem worse, improving the source's apparent preferability. If attacked, a candidate can attempt to restore-or prevent-lost credibility by defending against that attack. As Benoit, Blaney, and Pier point out, the functional theory of political communication is relatively new, and their book illustrates it with a detailed analysis of the most recent presidential campaign. One of the major strengths of the study is the variety of message forms examined: television spots, debates, talk radio appearances, keynote speeches, acceptance speeches, speeches by spouses, radio addresses, and free television time remarks. It also examines all three parts of the campaign-primary, nominating conventions, and general campaign. This comprehensive analysis of the '96 presidential campaign will be of considerable use to students, scholars, and other researchers dealing with contemporary American electioneering.

The media play active roles in politics with different media channels serving as bridges that link the politicians and citizens together. It is clear that what the media emphasize as important may be seen as such by the public. Hence, it is likely that the media may impact voter decisions during electoral processes and even during the elections. As such, it is imperative that research is collected on the impact of the media and the role it plays in strengthening party loyalty, improving public knowledge on elections, and swaying apathetic citizens to become involved in the electoral process. Global Perspectives on the Impact of Mass Media on Electoral Processes provides relevant theoretical frameworks and research findings that evidence the impact of the media in specific elections in different countries around the world. The book supports professionals who want to improve their understanding of the strategic roles that the media play in electoral politics as well as political candidates who may want to know if their heavy expenditures in paying the media to carry their political messages bring in returns on their investment. Covering topics that include social media, political cartoons, and media influence, this book seeks to provide fresh insights on the media's impact on elections whether at the national, regional, or local levels. It is ideal for politicians, campaign managers, media analysts, government officials, professionals, researchers, students, academicians, and individuals involved in electoral management, political parties, advertising agencies, and marketing companies.

The British General Election of 2010 is a must-read for anyone wanting to know how the action unfolded in the most dramatic election for a generation. Drawing on hundreds of confidential interviews with all the key players, it offers a compelling insider's guide to the election's background, campaign and results, including a detailed account of what really happened in the formation of the UK's first coalition government since the second world war. Designed to appeal to everyone from Westminster insiders, to politics students and to the wider general public, this is the authoritative account of the 2010 election. Continuing a proud Palgrave Macmillan tradition, The British General Election of 2010 is the eighteenth in the prestigious series of books dating back to 1945.

What role do civic associations play in generating free and fair elections? For over two decades, civic and social movement organizations throughout the Americas have mobilized thousands of individuals to act as civic watchdogs over the actions of state officials and political parties during elections. Although it is widely recognized that democratic consolidation depends on national actors, the existing literature on election monitoring focuses almost exclusively on the work of international observers. Lean's work fills this gap with a detailed analysis of the work of domestic election monitors. This book advances our understanding of when and how civic activism can strengthen election processes and provides new insight into the role of elections in democratic consolidation.

The 2012 congressional elections played an equally vital role in determining the future course of America as the presidential race that topped the electoral ticket. Readers of this book will gain insights about the formative aspects of the 2012 campaign season as well as in depth coverage of key races for Congress. Exclusive to this volume are three chapters that look at important processes which impacted the campaign cycle: voter suppression laws passed in nearly every state, the role of Super PACs and independent expenditures in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and the results of redistricting and partisan gerrymandering throughout the country. Then the case studies follow the path of seven House and six Senate races from inception to election postmortem. The chapters are both narrative and provide analysis of an array of interesting and diverse contests from throughout the country. Each entry was written by one or more experts living in the state or region of the race. The authors provide succinct and highly readable chapters meant to illustrate the distinctive nature of the campaigns they are examining. Readers will see individual campaigns and elections "up close" and be able to compare and contrast one from another because of the common format employed throughout the book. Taken together, the chapters reveal that the roads to Congress, while similar in so many ways, each follow a unique route to Capitol Hill.

An exploration of whether politicians are perceived to keep their election promises. While scholars claim that parties act on most of their election promises, citizens hold the opposite view. This 'Pledge Puzzle' guides Naurin in her analysis of the often referred to but not empirically investigated, 'conventional wisdom' about election promises.

This volume focuses on the manner in which declining citizen involvement affects two key elements of democratic government, elections and political parties. It examines the reasons underlying citizen withdrawal and explores and assesses innovative approaches on both sides of the Atlantic to try to counter these phenomena.

This book is an examination of the central role of incumbency in the televised world of American presidential elections and analyzes how an individual incumbent, Bill Clinton, influenced the recurring and predictable patterns of televised news in ways that secured his reelection. Dover advances a theoretical perspective on the importance of incumbency and links it to the institutional and rhetorical features of the presidential office. He describes how television news media responds to incumbency by depicting a strong incumbent, one who leads in the polls and eventually wins, as a statesman deserving of reelection, and by showing a weak incumbent, one who trails in the polls and eventually loses, as a troubled politician unqualified for office. Professor Dover demonstrates that the uniquely appearing events of the 1996 Campaign were not unique, but were instead additional manifestations of the recurring patterns by which incumbency and television news operate in American politics. Clinton became a strong incumbent before the election began and TV news media responded predictably. After examining how Clinton became a strong incumbent by defeating the Republicans in a highly televised series of battles in 1995 over Medicare and the federal budget, he then describes how the news media responded to Clinton's strength by directing attention to the most divisive aspects of the Republican nomination campaign while presenting Clinton as a statesman. He also examines the general election campaign from the same perspective, while demonstrating how TV news media constantly depicted Clinton as a likely winner while focusing on Dole as the probable loser. An important analysis for all students and researchers of presidential elections and political journalism.

The United States stands at a pivotal intersection, and the election of 2012 will determine whether it chooses the right or wrong path to travel down.

Voters must decide whether to support a selfish philosophy or one that seeks to help the less fortunate. The superrich, fundamentalists, and closed-minded are battling those who rely on science, history, and compassion.

This extended essay explores major issues that are at stake in the 2012 election.

The superrich and their closed-minded colluders want public to forget about what happened before 2008, when the United States slipped into recession. They want to run amok again, and if society allows them to do so, the consequences will be worse than ever.

With the stakes so high, it's imperative that everyone takes time to understand the issues involved in The 2012 Election and Beyond, and vote accordingly. If that doesn't happen, then dark days lie ahead.

Chris Rennard's long relationship with the Liberals, and later the Liberal Democrats, began when a compassionate Liberal candidate helped his disabled mother receive her widowed mother allowance. By his 20s Rennard was the most successful election campaigner his party has ever known. He helped the Liberal Party win power in Liverpool in the 1970s and campaigned for Shirley Williams and Roy Jenkins in famous by-elections which helped the Liberal SDP Alliance to compete for power before its acrimonious collapse in the late 80's. He was then responsible for a series of spectacular by-election victories that rescued his party's fortunes and he oversaw a huge increase in the party's number of MPs and elected representatives. Liberal leaders Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell and Nick Clegg would all rely on him as the party grew to the peak of its success. This volume of memoirs spans his first 30 years in politics (to 2006) and includes the highs and lows of his party during the leaderships of Paddy Ashdown (including his hopes for coalition with Tony Blair) and Charles Kennedy, (including the latter's enforced resignation after revealing publicly his problem with alcohol). There will never be a better inside account of a political party, or contemporary history of the Liberal Democrats. Winning Here is a record that shows how election campaigns are really fought and won and how party leaders change and parties develop. Similarly, there will never be a commentator better placed to tell this story.

A growing majority of humanity lives in sprawling, interconnected urban regions. Diversified metropolitan geographies have replaced the centuries-old divide between urban and rural areas, and transformed the local sources of electoral politics. The resulting patterns of electoral support and participation have shifted axes of partisan competition to the right. This volume undertakes the first international comparative analysis of metropolitan political behaviour. The results support a powerful new thesis to explain many recent shifts in political behaviour: the metropolitanisation of politics.

The collapse of the Irish "Celtic Tiger" economy, in the wake of a banking disaster, provoked a joint EU/IMF rescue plan in late 2010. The election that followed saw Europe's most successful ever party lose more than half of its vote and almost three quarters of its seats. This book provides the definitive analysis of an electoral earthquake.

Kleppner's study represents an attempt to move beyond the older voting studies by questioning their underlying assumptions and analyzing the changes that occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century. Rejecting the view that partisan identification is a nearly unchangeable psychological attachment, he argues that twentieth century voters were more likely to respond to short-term factors--fluctuations in the economy, charismatic candidiates, etc.--than their nineteenth century counterparts. This reexamination of long-held theories will provide new insight into assumptions about the links between cultural and ethnic values and party affiliation.

America is under attack from within. "American Manifesto" identi?es the enemy self-serving federal legislators and proposes a peaceful, legal solution: depriving them of re-election.

"American Manifesto" highlights the current decline and envisions the possible destruction of the United States of America. It places responsibility on the self-serving and self-perpetuating behavior of the United States senators and representatives who have spent and borrowed us to the brink of ?nancial collapse. By pandering to the American Left, labor unions, lawyers, environmentalists, and other vote-buying interests instead of conscientiously serving us by effectively addressing our excessive spending, the insolvency of entitlement programs, our arbitrary and unduly burdensome tax laws, and the erosion of our military strength and international standing, these professional politicians have our once-great country on the brink of ruin.

"American Manifesto" proposes to make federal legislators work for us rather than themselves in the only way possible and outlines just how this can be done.

A revelatory, inside look the Biden, Harris, and Trump camps during the 2024 battle for the White House, arguably the most consequential contest in American history.

The ride was so wild that it forced a sitting president to drop his re-election bid, a once and future president to survive felony convictions and a would-be assassin’s bullet, and a vice president, unexpectedly thrust into the arena, to mount an unprecedented 107-day campaign to lead the free world.

Fight is the backstage story of bloodsport politics in its rawest form—the clawing, backstabbing, and rabble-rousing that drove Donald Trump into the White House and Democrats into the wilderness. At every turn, the combatants went for the jugular, whether they were facing down rivals in the other party or their own.

Bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes give readers their first graphic view of the characters, their motivations, and their innermost thoughts as they battled to claim the ultimate prize and define a political era. Based on real-time interviews with more than 150 insiders—from the Trump, Harris, and Biden inner circles, as well as party leaders and operatives—Fight delivers the vivid and stunning tale of an election unlike any other.

In the end, Trump overcame voters’ concerns about his personal flaws by tapping into a deep vein of dissatisfaction with the direction of the country. At the same time, Democrats struggled to connect with an electorate that felt gaslit by Biden’s insistence that he had delivered economic prosperity—and his pledge to be a “bridge” president. He tore his party asunder, leaving destroyed personal relationships in his wake, as he clung to power. And when he gave it up, he kneecapped Harris by demanding unprecedented loyalty from her.

As Allen and Parnes have done in the #1 New York Times bestseller Shattered and Lucky, they provide readers with a skeleton key to the rooms where it all happened, revealing a story more shocking than previously reported.

This title gives students and other users a clear understanding of the true state of voting and representative democracy in the United States by impartially examining claims surrounding voter fraud, voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other voting-related issues in the U.S. This work is part of a series that uses evidence-based documentation to examine the veracity of claims and beliefs about high-profile issues in American culture and politics. Each book in the Contemporary Debates series is intended to puncture rather than perpetuate myths that diminish our understanding of important policies and positions; to provide needed context for misleading statements and claims; and to confirm the factual accuracy of other assertions. This particular volume examines beliefs, claims, and myths about voting and elections in the United States. Issues covered include constitutional provisions concerning the franchise, constitutional amendments expanding the vote to previously disenfranchised groups, the specific provisions of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, and modern-day controversies swirling around claims of voter suppression for partisan gain, voter fraud, and partisan gerrymandering. All of these issues are examined in individualized entries, with objective responses grounded in up-to-date evidence.

Anderson, Zelle, and their contributors provide in-depth analyses of electoral trends in Germany--the one country in which an electorate that had maintained stable democracy after World War II was enlarged by compatriots who had experienced decades of socialist rule.

Most of the essays in this book first focus on long-term developments known to affect electoral change in industrial societies such as: societal transformations, changes in ideological thinking, and value change. After establishing if and how these developments have been taking place in the old Lander, they investigate whether similar trends can be observed in the eastern electorate or if the patterns are different. Then, present state and future prospects of electoral politics in the united Germany are assessed. In addition, some chapters concentrate on phenomena visible only in the eastern section in order to investigate causes and effects of these peculiarities. The editors elaborate on common themes and assess the findings in light of the author's guiding questions offered in introductory and concluding chapters. This is a major resource for students and scholars concerned with German politics.

Using election returns, public opinion surveys, and legislative roll-call data from many mixed systems in every world region, the authors show that contamination systematically affects party strategy, voting behavior, legislative cohesion and the overall structure of partisan competition.

Focusing her attention on the audience, Diana Owen investigates the way people process media messages during campaigns. This study examines the role of ads, news stories, poll results, and debates in presidential elections. Based on surveys fielded during the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, Owen compares these four message categories to determine their relative importance to voters. In addition she investigates how individuals make use of messages in establishing their perception of candidates and issues. Mass communication's uses and gratifications approach provides this study's theoretical foundation. The book is designed for researchers and students in communications and mass media, voting behavior, and public opinion. Using surveys conducted during the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns, Diana Owen first addresses two basic research questions. How do media messages transmitted during presidential elections shape voter attitudes toward and perceptions of candidates and campaign issues? Do different types of media messages influence voters' feelings about candidates and elections in different ways? Focusing on candidate advertisements, newspaper and television news stories, poll results, and presidential debates, she also ties voters' general media use habits to the way they receive and process media messages.