This volume explores the conflict between two forces: party polarization and party factionalism. The major change in America's two political parties over the past half-century has been increased polarization, which has led to a new era of heightened inter-party competition resulting in stronger and more cohesive parties. At the same time, elections, particularly primaries, often reveal deep internal factional divisions within both the parties, and the 2020 election was no different. The Democratic coalition typically pits moderate or establishment candidates against progressive activists and candidates, while the Republican Party in 2020 was, at times, polarized not only between moderates and conservatives but between those willing to criticize President Trump and those who would not. How did these two opposing forces shape the outcome of the 2020 election, and what are the consequences for the future of American party politics and elections?

Discontent with politics and politicians has lead to calls for term-limiting elected legislators to a specified period of service - in the belief that new faces would bring new perspectives and the influence of monied special interests would decrease. This innovative volume examines the effects of term limits by combining statistical analysis of the effects of term limits on electoral competition, campaign contributions, and the activities of the Michigan legislature with in-depth interviews with legislators. The book thus sheds important light on the political, institutional and individual effects of term limits. The authors find many surprises that neither advocate nor oppose anticipated, included shifts in the balance of power, changes within and between political parties, and new career paths for politicians.

Our Masters Have Gone Crazy Again chronicles the tenure of one of Africa's most dreaded dictators and terrorists, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, a.k.a, IBB. It details the political, social, and economic policies of the former ruler of Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria. A self-described "evil genius," Babangida led Nigerians through a tortuous and deceptive political and economic transition that ended in a coup d'etat. Perhaps because of his craftiness, it wasn't until the end of his military career that the dictator's ruthlessness and lust for power became obvious. This volume answers most of the unresolved questions about the man known as Maradona by Nigerians. This nickname arose from his widely known skills at cheating and diverting in the same manner as Argentinean soccer genius, Diego Maradona, who infamously cheated to earn victory over England in the 1986 World Cup. Author Abejide Olusegun examines the dictator's purported involvement in the murders of Dele Giwa, Ken Saro Wiwa, Mama Vasta, and many others, along with his frequent detention of late legal luminary, Gani Fawehinmi, and his connection to the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Our Masters Have Gone Crazy Again attempts answer some of the riddles surrounding IBB and raise questions about any role he may have in Nigeria's future.

The New Dominion analyzes six key statewide elections to explore the demographic, cultural, and economic changes that drove the transformation of the state’s politics and shaped the political Virginia of today. Countering the common narrative that the shifting politics of Virginia is a recent phenomenon driven by population growth in the urban corridor, the contributors to this volume consider the antecedents to the rise of Virginia as a two-party competitive state in the critical elections of the twentieth century that they profile.

This book includes up-to-date contributions in the broadly defined area of probabilistic analysis of voting rules and decision mechanisms. Featuring papers from all fields of social choice and game theory, it presents probability arguments to allow readers to gain a better understanding of the properties of decision rules and of the functioning of modern democracies. In particular, it focuses on the legacy of William Gehrlein and Dominique Lepelley, two prominent scholars who have made important contributions to this field over the last fifty years. It covers a range of topics, including (but not limited to) computational and technical aspects of probability approaches, evaluation of the likelihood of voting paradoxes, power indices, empirical evaluations of voting rules, models of voters' behavior, and strategic voting. The book gathers articles written in honor of Gehrlein and Lepelley along with original works written by the two scholars themselves.

Personality Politics? assesses the role that voters' perceptions and evaluations of leaders play in democratic elections. The book presents evidence from an array of countries with diverse historical and institutional contexts, and employs innovative methodologies to determine the importance of leaders in democracies worldwide. Addressing such questions as 'Where do leaders effects come from?', 'In which institutional contexts are leader effects more important?' and, 'To which kinds of voters are leaders a more prominent factor for voting behaviour?', the authors seek to determine whether the roles leaders play enhances or damages the electoral process, and what impact this has on the quality of democracy in electoral democracies today.

This volume employs a comparative approach to cast light on representation and representative processes from a communications perspective. It focuses on online constituency communication, aiming to provide a perspective from which to empirically study the changes taking place in the relationship between citizens and their representatives. The (hyper)mediatisation of politics and society is here considered a relevant enabling factor, because it creates the conditions leading to change in the nature of democratic processes. The chapters discuss Podemos, the Lega, Law and Justice, and the Five-star Movement as good examples of this phenomenon. Populist and nationalist forces have emerged as bottom-up and top-down entities aiming to embody the will of the people, or to push for democratic processes to be more inclusive. Until now, however, the intersection between populist and nationalist discourses and the related question of representation have been largely ignored. By analysing the transformations that have taken place in MPs' communication practices in non-election periods, the contributors illuminate how social media is affecting MPs' communication and examine the strains in the relationship between executives and legislatures that populist and nationalist parties exploit.

This book explores Twitter communication about the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK in the run-up to the event. The mixed-method, computational analysis of over twelve million tweets reveals how Twitter worked in shaping political discourse and its potential for fuelling populism in the month leading to the referendum. Our findings show while polarised public opinion was explicitly expressed, populist sentiments were mainstreamed into the debate about the referendum and widely spread on Twitter. Populist politicians, supported by pro-Brexit users, tactically used Twitter to promulgate their populist ideas. In contrast, despite their active use of Twitter, the Remain camp appeared to have misunderstood the mechanisms of Twitter for shaping political discourse. Twitter communication, in this case, showed dangerous potential for reflecting and reinforcing existing social tensions and divisions, being influenced or even manipulated by individuals and interest groups to serve their own interests. It is important to be well aware of this capacity of Twitter for the wellbeing of democracy, especially in the politically turbulent times since 2016 when the UK voted to leave the EU.

The Democracy Manifesto is about how to recreate democracy by replacing elections with government that is truly of, by and for the people. Written in engaging and accessible dialogue form, the book argues that the only truly democratic system of government is one in which decision-makers are selected randomly (by sortition) from the population at large, operating much the way trial juries do today, but 100% online, enabling people to govern together even across great distances. Sortition has a storied history but what sets The Democracy Manifesto apart is its comprehensive account of how it can be implemented not only across all sectors and levels of government, but throughout society as well, including the democratization of mass media, corporations, banks, and other large institutions. The resulting Sortitive Representative Democracy (SRD) is the true heir to ancient Greek democracy, and the only means of ensuring 'we the people' are represented by our fellow citizens rather than by the revolving groups of elites that dominate electoral systems. In the process, the book grapples with myriad hot topics including economic issues, international relations, indigenous rights, environmentalism and more.

This book focuses on the language of two unions (the United Kingdom and the European Union), tracing the emergence of divisive discourses from indyref to Brexit. It explains the background to the creation of these unions and summarizes recent political events that have brought their future into question. It considers which identities (national, supranational, social, ethnic or racial) were invoked during the indyref and EU referendum campaigns, emphasising the crucial role played by language in maintaining these identities, in conceptualizing the nation, to do politics, and its power to unite or divide. Based on analysis of three specialist corpora totaling over 143 million words and comprising multiple text types (newspapers, speeches, Twitter posts, parliamentary debates, party political websites and campaign materials), it interrogates the language used by politicians, the media and the public, uncovering increasingly problematic, scaremongering, xenophobic and incendiary linguistic strategies used to divide us from them.

Insecure temporary employment is growing in Europe, but we know little about how being in such jobs affects political preferences and behaviour. Combining insights from psychology, political science and labour market research, this book offers new theories and evidence on the political repercussions of temporary jobs.

In many elections, candidates frame their appeals in gendered ways-they compete, for instance, over who is more "masculine." This is the case for male and female candidates alike. In the 2016 presidential election, however, the stark choice between the first major-party female candidate and a man who exhibited a persistent pattern of misogyny made the use of gender more prominent than in any previous election in the United States. Presidential campaigns often have an impact on downballot Congressional races, but the 2016 election provided a new opportunity to see the effects of misogyny. While much has been written about the 2016 election-and the shadow of 2016 clearly affected the pool of candidates in the 2018 midterms-this book looks at how the Trump and Clinton campaigns actually changed the behavior of more conventional candidates for Congress in 2016 and 2018. Over the past decade, those who study political parties have sought to understand changes in the relationship between groups and parties and how these changes have affected the ability of parties to develop coherent campaign strategies. The clear need for rapid adjustments in party strategy in the 2016 election provides an ideal means of testing whether today's political parties are more able or less able to respond to unexpected events. This book argues that Donald Trump's candidacy radically altered the nature of the 2016 congressional campaigns in two ways. First, it changed the issues of contention in many of these races. Trump's provocative calls for building a wall along the Mexican border and temporarily prohibiting immigration from Muslim countries inserted issues of race and ethnicity into elections and forced candidates to respond to his proposals. Most consequentially, however, Trump's attacks on women-including television personalities, politicians, and, at times, private citizens-alienated numerous potential supporters and placed many of his supporters (and downballot Republican candidates in particular) on the defensive. Second, expectations that Trump would lose the election influenced how candidates for lower office campaigned and how willing they were to connect their fortunes to those of their party's nominee. The fact that Trump was expected to lose-and was expected to lose in large part because of his misogyny-caused both major parties to direct more of their resources toward congressional races, and led many Republican candidates, especially women, to distance themselves from Trump. This book explores how the Trump and Clinton campaigns used gender as a political weapon, and how the presidential race changed the ways in which House and Senate campaigns were waged in 2016 and 2018.

This book adopts a regional approach to understanding 2020 presidential election outcomes, taking into account the tribalism that has come to define contemporary US politics and building a path to 270 Electoral College votes. The authors employ qualitative and quantitative methods to examine electoral outcomes in the Midwest, Southwest, Southeast, and Northeast, enriching contextual understandings of the national results and illuminating nuances in public opinion, voter behavior, and party politics. From this foundation, the book offers a comprehensive assessment of prominent issues in the 2020 campaign, which fundamentally shaped and reshaped the nature of the election. Scholars examine seven key issues, including multiple crises that unfolded during the campaign, to understand how these issues affected public opinion and the 2020 campaign.

In this comprehensive guide to the language of contemporary American politics, Binning offers clear descriptions of terms such as soft money, gerrymandering, and blanket primary. Examples are frequently offered to help clarify definitions. Particular attention is given to the ever-changing organizational structure of parties and contemporary electoral systems. In addition to defining political terms and systems, however, this encyclopedia explains campaign finance reform laws and the Voting Rights Act. The more significant Supreme Court decisions in these areas are summarized, with an eye to giving readers a greater understanding of how these laws have been interpreted and applied.

This encyclopedia also describes the modern political campaign. Highlighted are the role of the media, the significance of presidential debates, the influence of campaign consultants, and the importance, types, and timing of primaries and caucuses. Brief biographies of important political figures such as presidents, vice presidents, and congressional and party leaders are also included, along with a concise summary of every presidential election since 1789.

Americans have a love-hate relationship with negative campaigning, claiming to despise it and ranting about how it turns off the electorate, while at the same time paying an increasing amount of attention to negative ads and tactics during ever-lengthening campaign seasons. Swint gathers the most compelling of these campaigns from the two "Golden Ages" of negative campaigning--1864 to 1892 and 1988 to the present--in addition to some that fall outside those demarcations, and ranks them in descending order, from No. 25 to No. 1. Mudslingers covers presidential, senatorial, gubernatorial, and mayoral races and chronicles the dirtiest, most low-down campaign tactics of all time. The list includes the presidential campaign of 1800, when the disputed outcome of the race between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had to be decided by the House of Representatives, and the election of 2004, in which George W. Bush beat John Kerry after one of the nastiest showdowns on record. The first round of negative campaigning in American history was driven by post-Civil War politics, the end of Reconstruction, an increasingly corrupt federal government, and a rabid partisan press. The current Golden Age of mudslinging and dirty politics is driven by huge increases in campaign spending, television advertising, decreased civility in public life, and a muckraking mass media. These fascinating stories from the annals of negative campaigning will entertain as well as educate, reminding us, the next time we are tempted to decry the current climate, that it was (almost) ever thus.

Everyday People provides a comprehensive assessment of Trump supporters including white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, the Christian right, and cult followers and offers students a discussion of how this group is a symptom of a much larger social issue and movement in the United States. McNamara examines the appeal of Trump as a president and explains why so many people voted for him in the first place. The text reviews the most recent and relevant literature on Trump supporters and their makeup including historical documents, government reports, research studies, and media sources, to unpack and understand the issues in an objective and empirical way. Students will understand the source and substance of the controversies surrounding Trump and his followers and understand how fear and complacency causes people to suspend rational thinking and to develop misguided loyalties.

The central argument of this book explores the disillusionment that Australians feel with regard to the way politics is conducted. The book explores causes of that disillusionment, and argues that because these are ultimately traceable to defects in the constitution, it is only through constitutional reform that government can be improved. This book argues that the current approach to constitutional debate suffers from the flaw of being anti-theoretical, in the sense that it is not grounded in any set of values, and is afflicted by a tendency to consider practical objections to reform before considering the moral case for it. This book argues that instead of accepting the constitution as it is, it is time we began to discuss how it ought to be, taking human dignity as the fundamental value upon which a constitution should be based. It then puts the case for change in a number of areas, including reform of the electoral system, enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, the inclusion in the constitution of a full bill of rights, the abolition of the federal system, realisation of the rights of Indigenous people, codification of constitutional conventions either in conjunction with or separately from an Australian republic, reform of the rules of standing in constitutional matters and, finally, the need to improve civics education. This book is designed to be provocative in the way that it directly challenges current academic orthodoxy. This book also outlines a proposed draft new constitution. This book will be of interest to anyone who is concerned about how Australia is governed and why it has been so difficult to achieve constitutional reform.

An original and comprehensive study of the sociological and psychological forces driving individual choices in French Presidential elections. Based on a unique comparative analysis of four French presidential contests over the last two decades, this book presents a rigorous examination of long-term and short-term voter motivations.

In developing democracies, political parties built around charismatic personalities, coupled with populist campaigns, often ascend to power. This tactic has long been effective in Latin America, and has resulted in parties that rely heavily on personalistic appeals and vote-buying. The predominant view is that ethnic parties are an exception to this rule; they behave differently from traditional populist parties by attracting voters based on the expectation that they will create policies to provide for the groups that they represent. In Candidate Matters: A Study of Ethnic Parties, Campaigns, and Elections in Latin America, Karleen Jones West shows that under certain conditions, niche parties-such as ethnic parties-are not that different from their mainstream counterparts. Through a detailed examination of the Pachakutik party in Ecuador, she shows that the characteristics of individual candidates campaigning in their districts shapes party behavior. Ethnic parties that are initially programmatic can become personalistic and clientelistic because vote-buying is an effective strategy in rural indigenous areas, and because candidates with strong reputations and access to resources can create winning campaigns that buy votes and capitalize on candidates' personal appeal. Why do niche parties in developing democracies struggle to maintain programmatic and meaningful platforms? West argues that when candidates' legislative campaigns are personalistic and clientelistic in their districts, niche parties are unable to maintain unified programmatic support. By combining in-depth fieldwork on legislative campaigns in Ecuador with the statistical analyses of electoral results and public opinion, she demonstrates the importance of candidates and their districts for how niche parties compete, win, and become influential in developing democracies.

Taking Our Country Back presents the previously untold history of the uptake of new media in Democratic electoral campaigning over the last decade. Drawing on open-ended interviews with more than fifty political staffers, fieldwork during the 2008 primaries and general election, and archival research, Daniel Kreiss shows how a group of young, technically-skilled internet staffers came together on the Howard Dean campaign and created a series of innovations in organization, tools, and practice that have changed the campaign game. After the election, these individuals founded an array of consulting firms and training organizations and staffed prominent Democratic campaigns. In the process, they carried their innovations across Democratic politics and contributed to a number of electoral victories, including Barack Obama's historic bid for the presidency. In revealing this history, the book provides a rich empirical look at the communication tools, practices, and infrastructure that shape contemporary online campaigning. Through a detailed history of new media and political campaigning, Taking Our Country Back contributes to an interdisciplinary body of scholarship from communication, sociology, and political science. The book theorizes processes of innovation in online electoral politics and gives readers a new understanding of how the internet and its use by the Dean campaign have fundamentally changed the field of political campaigning. Kreiss shows how these innovations, exemplified by the Dean and Obama campaigns, were the product of the movement of staffers between industries and within organizational structures. Such movement provided a space for technical development and incentives for experimentation. Taking Our Country Back is a serious and vital analysis, both on-the-ground and theoretical, of how a small group of internet staffers transformed what campaigning means today and how cultural work mobilizes and motivates supporters to participate in collective action.

This book analyzes how mainstream and new parties are building their digital platforms and transitioning from traditional (offline) organizations into the digital world. The authors present an innovative empirical exploration of the democratic consequences and technical challenges of the digitalization of party organizations from a comparative perspective. They provide an original account of how party digital platforms are regulated and used, and a crucial discussion of the main technological and democratic issues that political parties face in their digital transition. Further, the authors assess the consequences of these digitalization processes for political participation and party membership, as well as the impact on party organizational models and electoral campaign potential. The book looks into one of the less-studied aspects of digital democracy, also presenting empirical evidence and case studies. It presents different parties and their adoption of digital participation platforms, from the Pirate Parties in Northern Europe to Podemos in Spain, La France Insoumise in France, the Five Stars Movement in Italy, or the German Greens. Therefore, the book is a must-read for scholars of political science, policy-makers, and practitioners, interested in a better understanding of the transition of political parties into the digital world.

The use of referendums around the world has grown remarkably in the past thirty years and, in particular, referendums are today deployed more than ever in the settlement of constitutional questions, even in countries with little or no tradition of direct democracy. This is the first book by a constitutional theorist to address the implications of this development for constitutional democracy in a globalizing age, when many of the older certainties surrounding sovereignty and constitutional authority are coming under scrutiny. The book identifies four substantive constitutional processes where the referendum is regularly used today: the founding of new states; the creation or amendment of constitutions; the establishment of complex new models of sub-state autonomy, particularly in multinational states; and the transfer of sovereign powers from European states to the European Union. The book, as a study in constitutional theory, addresses the challenges this phenomenon poses not only for particular constitutional orders, which are typically structured around a representative model of democracy, but for constitutional theory more broadly. The main theoretical focus of the book is the relationship between the referendum and democracy. It addresses the standard criticisms which the referendum is subjected to by democratic theorists and deploys both civic republican theory and the recent turn in deliberative democracy to ask whether by good process-design the constitutional referendum is capable of facilitating the engagement of citizens in deliberative acts of constitution-making. With the referendum firmly established as a fixture of contemporary constitutionalism, the book addresses the key question for constitutional theorists and practitioners of how might its operation be made more democratic in age of constitutional transformation.

In May 2019, Narendra Modi won the world's largest election. Defying expectations, he led his Bharatiya Janata Party to a resounding victory, with the highest vote share for any party in thirty years, and was re-elected as India's Prime Minister. What accounts for the scale of Modi's win? Why, despite economic hardship and social strife, did Indians vote so overwhelmingly for him and the BJP? This book explains the economic, social and cultural processes that shaped political passions in India during the spring and summer of 2019. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together a stellar team of economists, political scientists, sociologists, historians and geographers to explain Modi's win. Together, the contributors compel us to take seriously the 'structures of feeling' in politics. Love him or hate him, Modi secured for himself a decisive re-election as India's Prime Minister. Passionate politics is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how that happened. -- .

America Afire is the powerful story of the election of 1800, arguably the most important election in America's history and certainly one of the most hotly disputed. Former allies Adams and Jefferson, president versus vice president, Federalist versus Republican, squared off in a vicious contest that resulted in broken friendships, scandals, riots, slander, and jailings in the fourth presidential election under the Constitution.