This book provides a concise and accessible account of the historical experience of European parliaments ? why different electoral systems were adopted, how they have functioned, how they have affected the development of political parties, and in what respects they have been found over time to be either suitable or unsatisfactory. The book begins with a summary of the main electoral systems, analysing and re-assessing each in the light of historical experience. The core of the book, however, is a country-by-country account of the systems which have operated in each of the main West European countries, in the context of their own constitutional, political and social developments.

The "secret garden of politics", where some win and others lose their candidate selection bids, and why some aspirant candidates are successful while others fail have been enduring puzzles within political science. This book solves this puzzle by proposing and applying a universally applicable multistage approach to discover the relationship between selection rules, selectors' biases, aspirants' attributes, and selection outcomes. Rare party and survey data on winning and losing candidates and insider views on what it takes to win a selection contest at multiple selection stages are compared and used to reveal the inner workings of the secret garden. With a primary focus on the British Labour party over several elections, the findings challenge many long-held assumptions about why some aspirant candidate types are successful over others and provides real-world and controversial solutions to addressing women's and other marginalised groups' descriptive underrepresentation. As such, it provides a much-needed fresh look at party selection processes and draws new conclusions as to why political underrepresentation occurs and should inform policies to remedy it. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of gender and ethnicity in politics, political parties and candidate selection, and more broadly to the study of political elites, comparative politics, sociology, labour studies, gender, race, and disability studies, and to practitioners.

The book extends research on the territorial structure of party systems (party nationalisation) to 20 post-communist democracies. It explains party nationalisation as a consequence of ethnically oriented politics, and shows how party nationalisation can increase our understanding of electoral systems.

Goes beyond European confines and gives a comprehensive view of religious party strength, exploring different regions and religions, over a long period of time. Presents a theoretically robust critique of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.

"Political Communications" offer a unique insight into the 2005 British General Election from the perspectives of those responsible for organizing, reporting, and understanding the campaign. It contains definitive accounts of what happened from those most intimately involved in preparing the main party strategies as well as leading academic, media and polling experts.

An intriguing analysis of the economy's influence on popular support for the incumbent American presidents in the post World War II period.

The unmissable inside story of the most dramatic general election campaign in modern history and Theresa May's battle for a Brexit deal, the greatest challenge for a prime minister since the Second World War. By the bestselling author of All Out War, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2017. This is the unmissable inside story of the most dramatic general election campaign in modern history and Theresa May's battle for a Brexit deal - the greatest challenge for a prime minister since the Second World War. Fall Out tells of how a leader famed for her caution battled her bitterly divided cabinet at home while facing duplicitous Brussels bureaucrats abroad. Of how she then took the biggest gamble of her career to strengthen her position - and promptly blew it. It is also a tale of treachery where - in the hour of her greatest weakness - one by one, May's colleagues began to plot against her. Inside this book you will find all the strategy, comedy, tragedy and farce of modern politics - where principle, passion and vaulting ambition collide in the corridors of power. It chronicles a civil war at the heart of the Conservative Party and a Labour Party back from the dead, led by Jeremy Corbyn, who defied the experts and the critics on his own side to mount an unlikely tilt at the top job. With access to all the key players, Tim Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller, exploring how and why the EU referendum result pitched Britain into a year of political mayhem.

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.

Until the Brexit referendum, there was widespread doubt as to whether English nationalism existed at all, at least beyond a small fringe. Since then, it has come to be regarded an obvious explanation for the vote to Leave the European Union. Subsequent opinion polls have raised doubts about the extent of continuing English commitment to the Union of the United Kingdom itself. Yet even as Englishness is apparently reshaping Britain's place in world and perhaps, ultimately, the state itself, it remains poorly understood. In this book Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones draw on data from the Future of England Survey, a specially commissioned public attitudes survey programme exploring the political implications of English identity, to make new and original arguments about the nature of English nationalism. They demonstrate that English nationalism is emphatically not a rejection of Britain and Britishness. Rather, English nationalism combines a sense of grievance about England's place within the United Kingdom with a fierce commitment to a particular vision of Britain's past, present, and future. Understanding its Janus-faced nature - both England and Britain - is key not only to understanding English nationalism, but also to understanding the ways in which it is transforming British politics.

This book looks at various aspects of electoral history in Europe and Latin America, from the late 17th century to 1930, including electoral culture and traditions, electoral participation, electoral fraud, the role of elections in the process of nation-building, and the role of important institutions, such as the Church, in shaping political values and therefore electoral behaviour. There are chapters devoted to the individual experiences of England, Mexico, Ecuador, Ireland, Germany, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Spain.

The Southern Strategy was but one in a series of decisions the GOP made not just on race, but on feminism and religion as well, in what Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call the "Long Southern Strategy." The Southern Strategy is traditionally understood as a Goldwater and Nixon-era effort by the Republican Party to win over disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold of the American South. To realign these voters with the GOP, the party abandoned its past support for civil rights and used racially coded language to capitalize on southern white racial angst. However, that decision was but one in a series of decisions the GOP made not just on race, but on feminism and religion as well, in what Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call the "Long Southern Strategy." In the wake of Second-Wave Feminism, the GOP dropped the Equal Rights Amendment from its platform and promoted traditional gender roles in an effort to appeal to anti-feminist white southerners, particularly women. And when the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention became increasingly fundamentalist and politically active, the GOP tied its fate to the Christian Right. With original, extensive data on national and regional opinions and voting behavior, Maxwell and Shields show why all three of those decisions were necessary for the South to turn from blue to red. To make inroads in the South, however, GOP politicians not only had to take these positions, but they also had to sell them with a southern "accent." Republicans embodied southern white culture by emphasizing an "us vs. them" outlook, preaching absolutes, accusing the media of bias, prioritizing identity over the economy, encouraging defensiveness, and championing a politics of retribution. In doing so, the GOP nationalized southern white identity, rebranded itself to the country at large, and fundamentally altered the vision and tone of American politics.

First published in 2004, this is the fourteenth annual volume published under the auspices of the Elections, Public opinion and Parties (EPOP) specialist group of the Political Studies Association (PSA) of the United Kingdom. The 2003 September Cardiff conference was distinguished by the First Minister for Wales, Rt Hon. Rhodri Morgan AM. This is a collection of twelve papers from the conference and a reference section.

Personal representation is an essential element to achieve a high quality of democracy. Many studies of electoral systems, by focusing on the allocation of seats to parties, have neglected the study of this essential dimension. In democratic countries a huge variety of ballot forms and rules exist to vote for individual candidates and to allocate seats to persons. This book studies different voting procedures and formulas for personal representation, their origins and consequences, their compatibility with party representation and the strategies and normative criteria for electoral system choice. This book provides: - a ground-breaking study of voting procedures and formulas ballot forms and rules to allocate seats to persons; - a discussion on the relationship between party representation and personal representation; - new empirical data on voting forms; - an innovative classification of electoral systems; - reproductions of ballots from different countries; - comparative and single-case studies of different rules for candidate selection and for voting for individual candidates.

This volume brings together a number of essays that citizens, academics, election officials, policy makers, and other stakeholders can read to become better informed about procedures that used today to audit elections and election administration, and to learn more about new approaches to improve existing election audit procedures.

These volumes provide an essential comprehensive work of reference for the annual municipal elections that took place each November in the 83 County Boroughs of England and Wales between 1919 and 1938. They also provide an extensive and detailed analysis of municipal politics in the same period, both in terms of the individual boroughs and of aggregate patterns of political behaviour. Being annual, these local election results give the clearest and most authoritative record of how political opinion changed between general elections, especially useful for research into the longer gaps such as 1924-29 and 1935-45, or crisis periods such as 1929-31. They also illuminate the impact of fringe parties such as the Communist Party and the British Union of Fascists, and also such questions as the role of women in politics, the significance of religious and ethnic differentiation and the connection between occupational and class divisions and party allegiance. Analysis at the ward level is particularly useful for socio-spatial studies. A major work of reference, County Borough Elections in England and Wales, 1919-1938 is indispensable for university libraries and local and national record offices. Each volume has approximately 700 pages.

When voter turnout is high, Democrats have an advantage-or so the truism goes. But, it is true? In The Turnout Myth, Daron Shaw and John Petrocik refute the widely held convention that high voter participation benefits Democrats while low involvement helps Republicans. The authors examine over 50 years of presidential, gubernatorial, Senatorial, and House election data to show that there is no consistent partisan effect associated with voter turnout in national elections. Instead, less-engaged citizens' responses to short-term forces-candidate appeal, issues, scandals, and the like-determine election turnout. Moreover, Republican and Democratic candidates are equally affected by short-term forces. The consistency of these effects suggests that partisan conflict over eligibility, registration, and voting rules and regulations is less important for election outcomes than both sides seem to believe. Featuring powerful evidence and analytical acumen, this book provides a new foundation for thinking about U.S. elections.

Voting paradoxes are unpleasant surprises encountered in voting. Typically they suggest that something is wrong with the way in dividual opinions are being expressed or processed in voting. The outcomes are bizarre, unfair or otherwise implausible, given the expressed opinions of voters. Voting paradoxes have an important role in the history of social choice theory. The founding fathers of the theory, Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda, were keenly aware of some of them. Indeed, much of the work of these and other forerunners of the modern social choice theory dealt with ways of avoiding paradoxes related to voting. One of the early paradoxes, viz. that bearing the name of Condorcet, has subsequently gained such a prominent place in the literature that it is sometimes called the paradox of voting. One of the aims of the present work is to show that Condorcet's is but one of many paradoxes of voting. Some of these are pretty closely interrelated making it meaningful to classify them. This is the second main aim of this book. The third objective is to suggest ways of dealing with paradoxes. Since voting is and has always been an essential instrument of democratic rule, it is of some in terest to find out how voting paradoxes are being dealt with by past and present methods of voting. Of even greater interest is to find ways of minimizing the probability of occurrence of various paradoxes. By their very nature some paradoxes are unavoidable."

The impact of religion on the 2004 presidential election results provoked widespread consternation and surprise. In fact, religion and faith have played a vital role in American elections for some time, and here, Green explores the links and how they have changed over time.Green posits that an old religion gap describing longstanding political differences among religious communities has been supplanted by a new religion gap revealing political divisions based on religious behavior and belief. He puts the differences into context and documents the changing role of religion in politics over the last 60 years. The impact of religion on the 2004 presidential election results provoked widespread consternation and surprise. Given the intensity and closeness of the results, however, the role of religion should not have come as a shock. In fact, religion and faith have played a vital role in American elections for some time, and here, Green explores the links and how they have changed over time. Specifically, he concludes that there was an old religion gap that described longstanding political differences among religious communities, which has been supplanted by a new religion gap that shows political divisions based on religious behavior and belief. Green puts the differences into context and documents the changing role of religion in politics over the last sixty years. Covering three areas of religion that tend to influence election outcomes, Green illuminates the meaning of religious belonging, behaving, and believing in current political context. Each of these aspects of religion affects the way people vote and their views of issues, ideology, and partisanship. He reviews the importance of moral values in the major party coalitions and discusses the role religious appeals have in presidential campaigns. In addition, he compares the influence of religion to other factors such as gender, age, and income. Given the emphasis on the influence of religion on American politics and elections in recent years, this book serves as a cogent reminder that the situation is not new, and offers a careful analysis of the real role faith plays in the electing of government officials.

This volume investigates the reasons behind voter turnout inequalities in contemporary Europe. It looks at the socioeconomic factors that can inhibit electoral participation at the individual level, and how these factors interact with the institutional constraints regulating access to the electoral arena, and considering the changes affecting the class system and occupational opportunities. The volume also reflects on the long-term effects of the 2008 Great Recession on the stability of democracy and the individual lives of voters, who are often deprived of institutional representation and left with the choice between anti-system protest and disengagement from politics.

The world of policy represents the confluence of a number of intellectual strands in which the clinician brings science together with intuition, and uses his or her experience to interpret the evidence and make recommendations for treatment. This important volume brings together leading scholars to explore the "how" of thinking about policy--the questions, values, judgments and experience the analyst brings to bear.

This volume is the fifth in a series of analyses of elections in the South beginning with the 1984 general elections and continuing in 1988, 1992, and 1996. While the presidential election has been the focus, other important aspects of contemporary Southern electoral politics have also been examined, including congressional and state elections as well as the overall status of party development and competition in each Southern state.

Steed and Moreland continue the general organization plan of the previous publications in this volume, beginning with an introductory chapter on general issues and background, a chapter on presidential primaries, an examination of the particular issues of the 2000 presidential election, and a look at religion and Southern politics. Experts on the individual states then analyze the contests in each state, and the volume concludes with a summary of the lessons to be gained from the 2000 election cycle. An definitive work for all scholars, students, and researchers involved with contemporary Southern politics and presidential elections.

From the beginning of the Republic to the controversial outcome in 2000, election day has been a time of great importance-the climax of a multifaceted drama that has escalated and intensified for several months. Yet studies of the election process rarely devote space to the day itself. This book tells the story of how election day has evolved over the centuries, using contemporary documents to provide a sense of its past and present flavor. The words of participants-voters, candidates, election officials-foreign travelers, reporters, and historians illuminate the elaborate celebrations of the early republic, the virtues and abuses of the system, the exclusion and eventual inclusion of African Americans, women, and Native Americans, and recent innovations in methods and technology.

Arranged in chronological sections, this book opens with an introductory survey of election day's evolution. Each section begins with a brief introduction to the period and places each document into historical context with a short discussion of the subject's significance. With special consideration of the controversial presidential contest of 2000, this book also raises questions about how election day is likely to evolve in the future.

Seib examines the ethical issues underlying the volatile relationship between journalists and politicians. It provides an inside look at how reporters and candidates do their jobs. From the screening process news organizations use to decide which candidates to cover, to the truth-testing of political ads, to the controversies surrounding election night projections, this work articulates crucial ethical questions and helps readers in their search for answers. As a political communications text, "Campaigns and Conscience" looks at the many facets of political journalism: what reporters need to know before covering a campaign; how to approach the character issue; how to keep up with the frantic pace of a campaign; why campaign ads should be covered as news; the allure and dangers of polls, projections, and endorsements; and the responsibility of the press to cover one of the most powerful quasi-political institutions--the press itself.