In theory, parliamentary elections are a contest between political parties whose leaders do not have a separate identity from their party in the public eye. This case study of Britain shows that this theory no longer holds; the dynamics of parliamentary elections have become more 'presidential' in the sense that the leaders of the major parties now figure more prominently on both media coverage of the campaign and in the party that voters choose at the polls. The implications for our understanding of parliamentary democracy are discussed.

Based on archival sources, this study considers political activities in Suffolk's two main constituencies over the course of the 18th century. Mining the records of an unusually rich provincial press, Sommers addresses many key questions of Hanoverian political historiography: the press, popular political expressions, women in politics, deference, and elite behavior. She focuses primarily on the second half of the century, a time marked by an increasingly sophisticated electorate that left considerable documentary evidence, to determine how politics actually developed in East Anglia, as recorded in public and private documents.

In addition to a description of the variety and nature of Suffolk politics, the work elaborates upon a number of important collateral themes. These include the appearance of intense political awareness and enthusiastic participation in popular activities among those not possessing the vote, coupled with a political use of the press that grows dramatically in scope over the course of the century. Other sections detail the sustained development of the independence of the electorate and the connection between religious affiliation and partisan identification locally, as well as that between local and national parties.

Since Nimmo and Savage's groundbreaking work, "Candidates and Their Images" (1976), there has been no book dedicated solely to the examination of political candidate images. This volume adds to the development of the candidate image construct initiated by Nimmo and Savage. It provides a compendium of state-of-the-art theory and research of candidate images and image formation in the U.S. presidential elections. The contributors to this work, among the best-known in the field of political communication, describe and explain how presidential election results hinge on voter perceptions of candidates and how candidates seek to construct images that attract the most votes. The volume integrates issues of voter decision-making, media messages, campaigning, debate effects, and political advertising into the development of political communication theory. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of political communication.

This is a book about a well-known writer, Lewis Carroll, and about a little-known subject, the theory of voting' (from the Editors' Introduction).
This book has been edited from the manuscripts of the late Scottish economist Duncan Black. Shortly after the publication of The Theory of Committees and Elections Black started to collect material for papers and a book on Lewis Carroll's theory of proportional representation. Black's chapter plans made it clear that the book was to be in three parts, written by himself, followed by a reprint of Carroll's Principles of Parliamentary Representation and its main sources. Part I is biographical, introducing Lewis Carroll and giving relevant details of his life. Part II is Black's already published work on Lewis Carroll. Part III comprises the more detailed arguments about Carroll's reasoning, and Part IV contains reprints of rare original material on proportional representation by Carroll, James Garth Marshall, and Walter Baily. Taken together, the editors have provided a complete reference source for the theory of voting and proportional representation.

The research in this book will be of interest to scholars of Congress and campaigns & elections. It follows in a distinguished line of work on candidate emergence and adds new data of interest, and provides in-depth treatment of a central but specialized topic in the congressional elections literature. The book could also find some adoption as a supplementary text for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in elections, although the reviews support the book primarily as a research monograph. Measuring and assessing candidate quality is a challenging feat to accomplish, and the author has undertaken to do this in a fresh and compelling way. To quote from Review E, "This book is by far the best effort I have seen at quantifying CQ, its impact on electoral outcomes, and fluctuations and trends in its incidence." Author is an important and respected scholar of elections in the United States, co-author of Routledge's A Citizen's Guide to U.S. Elections (2015) and editor of Strategy, Money and Technology in the 2008 Presidential Election (Routledge 2011).

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.

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.

This volume is a study of the emergence and consequences of computerized voting advice applications (VAAs) in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In contrast to the European experience of VAAs simplifying vote choices, this research shows that VAAs in East Asia may increase their complexity.

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 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.

This Handbook provides an overview of interdisciplinary research related to social choice and voting that is intended for a broad audience. Expert contributors from various fields present critical summaries of the existing literature, including intuitive explanations of technical terminology and well-known theorems, suggesting new directions for research. Each chapter presents an expository primer on a particular topic or theme within social choice, with the aim of making the material fully accessible to students and scholars in economics, political science, mathematics, philosophy, law and other fields of study. Topics covered include preference aggregation, voting rules, spatial models, methodology and empirical applications. Scholars, graduate students and even advanced undergraduates in a variety of disciplines will find this introductory and relatively non-technical book an indispensable addition to the field. Contributors: J.F. Adams, W.T. Bianco, A. Blais, P.J. Coughlin, K.L. Dougherty, D.S. Felsenthal, T.H. Hammond, C. Hare, J.C. Heckelman, R.G. Holcombe, C. Kam, M.M. Kaminski, M. Machover, B.C. McCannon, I. McLean, N.R. Miller, S. Moser, E.M. Penn, K.T. Poole, R. Ragan, D.G. Saari, I. Sened, R.A. Smyth, N. Tideman

This book examines the structures and processes of political decision-making and governance in Nigeria. Since Nigeria returned to elected government in 1999, it has been observed that several factors account for the differences between the design of statutory structures and processes of political decision-making and how they operate in reality. In other words, there are wide gaps between statutes and practice of political decision-making. However, the nexus between the two remains largely understudied by political scientists. Instinctively, political scientists assume that informal influences in political decision-making are aberrations, episodic or temporary. This book is designed to interrogate the nexus between the formal and non-formal dimensions of the dynamics of political decision making in Nigeria and also provide evidence about the actual functioning of governmental structures in Nigeria. The thesis of the book is that the non-formal dimension of political decision making as evidenced in rising ethno-political patronages, religious sentiments, clientelism and factionalism, are interacting with formal decision-making structures in ways that largely undermine the latter and, by extension, the democratic system. The book pursues this thesis by examining the roles of actors and institutions including, electoral choices made by voters, legislations, which perhaps is the most fundamental form of political decision-making, policies made by the executive and administration, as well as decision making within political parties, since parties are sites for articulating and aggregating issues on which decisions are to be made.

In June 2016, the United Kingdom shocked the world by voting to leave the European Union. As this book reveals, the historic vote for Brexit marked the culmination of trends in domestic politics and in the UK's relationship with the EU that have been building over many years. Drawing on a wealth of survey evidence collected over more than ten years, this book explains why most people decided to ignore much of the national and international community and vote for Brexit. Drawing on past research on voting in major referendums in Europe and elsewhere, a team of leading academic experts analyse changes in the UK's party system that were catalysts for the referendum vote, including the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the dynamics of public opinion during an unforgettable and divisive referendum campaign, the factors that influenced how people voted and the likely economic and political impact of this historic decision.

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.

This book contributes to and expands on the major international Comparative Policy Agendas Project. It sets the project in context, and provides a comprehensive assessment of the changing policy agenda in Australia over a forty-year period, using a unique systematic dataset of governor-general speeches, legislation and parliamentary questions, and then mapping these on to media coverage and what the public believes (according to poll evidence) government should be concentrating upon. The book answers some important questions in political science: what are the most important legislative priorities for government over time? Does the government follow talk with action? Does government attend to the issues the public identifies as most important? And how does media attention follow the policy agenda? The authors deploy their unique dataset to provide a new and exciting perspective on the nature of Australian public policy and the Comparative Policy Agendas Project more broadly.

Donald Trump won a significant victory in Iowa in 2016. Although Iowa was carried by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump won the popular vote in 93 of its 99 counties, 32 of which were carried by Obama in 2012. What explains this significant victory, in which a third of Iowa's counties were flipped? Through a mixed-methods approach, this volume demonstrates that Trump's electoral victory was shaped by three key factors: firstly, the electorate's desire for "change" in Washington, D.C.; secondly, Trump's successful appeals to both the Republican base and white, working-class voters who had previously supported Barack Obama; and thirdly, Iowa's conservative ideological tendency regarding immigration and race. While contributing to emerging literature on the 2016 presidential elections, this book also serves to aid educators with a published resource on Iowa's electoral politics.

This book focuses on the U.S. presidential election spectacle, from the primaries through to the November 2020 election and the subsequent events leading up to the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president. A follow-up to Political Marketing in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election,it uniquely focuses on the political marketing and branding strategies of presidential candidates, with particular attention to how those strategies have changed since the 2016 election. The 2020 election was as much about a continuous strategy of targeting and maintaining voter enthusiasm as it was about swaying undecided voters in the electorate, distinguishing it from the horserace and implications of vote targeting in 2016. Donald Trump had a base of support that was unwavering. Likewise, Joe Biden and the Democrats counted on the same proportion of the electorate to vote against Trump. The election was also a harbinger of major new branding and marketing strategies, including innovative uses of social media and direct appeals to voters. This book presents diverse scholarly perspectives and research, with practitioner-relevant content on practices and discourses that will advance our current understandings of political marketing theories.

This edited volume maps the development of the use of political campaigning and marketing techniques in countries of the former Communist Bloc over the last thirty years. Focusing on the shift from propaganda to political marketing, and from manipulation to persuasion, the book consists of a series of case studies of countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Balkans that outline the history, development and current state of political marketing in each country. The authors explore political parties and their behaviour ahead of elections, and show the changes in political culture and practices that parties have undergone in order to create more or less successful campaigns.

This book investigates complex regressive dynamics in contemporary Western democracies. They include not only severe polarization in domestic politics, but also efforts by external autocratic powers to co-opt the increasingly digitalized political processes in the West. The discussion on democratic vulnerability and regression has rarely been historically and theoretically reflective. The aim is to fill this relative void by drawing on classical sources to inform about the political anxieties and agitations of our present time as the Western world moves towards new critical elections. The key concept of the analysis, a Thucydidean brink, refers to a critical point where the attraction felt towards an outside geopolitical competitor becomes stronger than the political affinity felt towards one's domestic political opponent. As political polarization, societal decomposition and the collusive tendencies grow in strength, political factions and political candidates in western societies can be(come) drawn to autocratic actors. Perhaps most alarmingly, the resulting nexus between democracies and autocracies can further intensify mutual regression and form downwards-sloping spirals that are not ultimately under any strategic control. This book draws from the experiences of recent elections in major Western democracies to illustrate the widening and deepening underlying regressive tendency.

The state of New Hampshire has played a pivotal role in Donald Trump's rise. This volume examines how the Granite State incubated Trump's political ambitions as early as the 1988 campaign cycle, how Trump's return to the state in 2014 presaged his 2016 candidacy, and how the state rescued his ambitions after his defeat in the Iowa caucuses. The book also examines how Trump lost the state to Hillary Clinton in the general election, and how the state has in many ways been a microcosm of national politics since Trump's election, as a Republican governor and legislature attempt to pursue their long-deferred agenda in the face of Democratic opposition and as Democrats racked up victories in special and off-year elections. Finally, this book examines what Trump's impact will be on the 2020 presidential primaries.