Upturning the typical view of Turkey's democratic trajectory as a product of authoritarian assault or unfortunate circumstances, this book argues that the AKP, first elected in 2002, has consistently advanced a narrative of democracy as the work of an elite working for the 'National Will'. Beginning with an analysis of the historical processes that led to the AKP's rise at the beginning of the 21st century, the book then focuses on the AKP since 2002. Though Turkey's democratic transition was originally characterised by Western co-operation, the author outlines the gradual deterioration of these relations since the 2010s, as well as the decline of political rights, freedom of expression and the rule of law. However, bringing in theoretical perspectives of democracy, it is argued that the AKP has adopted an alternative definition based on the 'National Will' throughout its rule, resistant to the Western essentialist view. As such, the AKP's story highlights that the root of this crisis lies within democracy itself. The book will appeal to historians and analysts of Turkish politics, as well as to political scientists interested in theories of democracy. Moreover, for those interested in the global contemporary crisis of democracy, the book provides an important case-study.

This timely, insightful and expert-led volume interprets the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election from a geographical standpoint, with a focus on its spatial dimensions. With contributions from leading thinkers, this book highlights the unique circumstances of the election, including the Covid pandemic and a president who falsely alleged that it was a massive fraud, particularly after he lost. The volume offers an introduction and 11 chapters that examine the run-up to the election, the motivations of Trump supporters, the election results themselves, case studies of the battleground states of Wisconsin and Georgia, and the chaotic aftermath. Accompanied with an engaging plethora of figures providing a visual demonstration of data trends, both national and local case studies are considered throughout this book, as well as right-wing radicalization, the role of Cuban-Americans, race, and threats to American democracy. This book is an ideal study companion for faculty and graduate students in fields including geography and political science, sociology, American studies, media studies and urban planning, as well as those with an interest in U.S. politics more generally.

This book presents in-depth analyses of the wave of political protest and unrest that spread throughout Latin America between 2010 and 2015 in order to answer a question that has been challenging social scientists all over the region: why some countries have faced a divorce between their social movements and political parties while others have not? The contributions gathered in this volume intend to show that the logic of political representation in Latin America and its supposed "crisis" is not a common and constant feature for all region. Some countries like Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico seem to have experienced a process of autonomization of its social movements vis-a-vis its institutional political system. However, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Uruguay have not seen such a split between civil society and the political parties. Bringing together eight case studies of the countries mentioned and a general assessment of the situation in the whole region, this book presents some interesting findings that will contribute to the discussions about the political representation crisis in Latin America, providing valuable resources for political leaders, researchers, policy makers and social activists in the region.

In this political history of twentieth-century Mexico, Gladys McCormick argues that the key to understanding the immense power of the long-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is to be found in the countryside. Using newly available sources, including declassified secret police files and oral histories, McCormick looks at large-scale sugar cooperatives in Morelos and Puebla, two major agricultural regions that serve as microcosms of events across the nation. She argues that Mexico's rural peoples, despite shouldering much of the financial burden of modernization policies, formed the PRI regime's most fervent base of support. McCormick demonstrates how the PRI exploited this support, using key parts of the countryside to test and refine instruments of control-including the regulation of protest, manipulation of collective memories of rural communities, and selective application of violence against critics-that it later employed in other areas, both rural and urban. With three peasant leaders, brothers named Ruben, Porfirio, and Antonio Jaramillo, at the heart of her story, McCormick draws a capacious picture of peasant activism, disillusion, and compromise in state formation, revealing the basis for an enduring political culture dominated by the PRI. On a broader level, McCormick demonstrates the connections among modern state building in Latin America, the consolidation of new forms of authoritarian rule, and the deployment of violence on all sides.

This book provides a systematic overview and in-depth analysis of the effects of rebel group inclusion on democracy following the end of conflict across the globe. It examines different types of rebel groups, addressing the subject matter through the lens of three dimensions - democracy, stability and governance - which structure the book and the individual chapters. As such, it affords a rare opportunity to bring together two heretofore separate research traditions - conflict studies and political parties. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party theory, civil wars and peacebuilding, democratization studies and state building and more broadly to comparative politics, development studies, and security studies.

The Palgrave Handbook of Gender, Sexuality, and Canadian Politics offers the first and only handbook in the field of Canadian politics that uses 'gender' (which it interprets broadly, as inclusive of sex, sexualities, and other intersecting identities) as its category of analysis. Its premise is that political actors' identities frame how Canadian politics is thought, told, and done; in turn, Canadian politics, as a set of ideas, state institutions and decision-making processes, and civil society mobilizations, does and redoes gender. Following the standard structure of mainstream introductory Canadian politics textbooks, this handbook is divided into four sections (ideologies, institutions, civil society, and public policy) each of which contains several chapters on topics commonly taught in Canadian politics classes. The originality of the handbook lies in its approach: each chapter reviews the basics of a given topic from the perspective of gendered/sexualized and other intersectional identities. Such an approach makes the handbook the only one of its kind in Canadian Politics.

The need for American presidential candidates and sitting presidents to connect with citizens has led to the adoption of diverse media strategies that include traditional news initiatives with established journalists, face-to-face interaction with small groups of supporters, and visits to traditionally non-political entertainment-based venues. The American Presidency and Entertainment Media: How Technology Affects Political Communication examines the recent embrace of entertainment forums for political purposes. Featuring interviews with White House insiders and late night talk show veterans, this book analyzes the major moments in the presidency's increasingly cozy relationship with entertainment-based television shows and the major factors leading individual administrations and campaigns to take chances to reach largely non-political audience. It offers a new theoretical underpinning for this phenomenon, predicts how future campaigns will operate in this regard as media technology and American political culture evolve, and connects the marriage of politics and televised entertainment to the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency.

This book examines the seismic impact of Brexit on the British political system, assessing its likely long-term effect in terms of a significantly changed political and constitutional landscape. Starting with the 2015 general election and covering key developments up to "Brexit Day", it shows how Brexit "transformed" British politics. The unprecedented turmoil - two snap elections, three Prime Ministers, the biggest ever defeat for the Government in Parliament, an impressive number of rebellions and reshuffles in Cabinet and repeated requests for a second independence referendum in Scotland - as a result of leaving the EU, calls into question what sort of political system the post-Brexit UK will become. Taking Lijphart's "Westminster model" as its reference, the book assesses the impact of Brexit along three dimensions: elections and parties; executive-legislative relationships; and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Based on a wealth of empirical material, including original interviews with key policymakers and civil servants, it focuses on the "big picture" and analytically maps the direction of travel for the UK political system. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Brexit, British politics, constitutional, political, and contemporary history, elections and political parties, executive politics, and territorial politics as well as more broadly related practitioners and journalists. Chapters one and two of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by the University of Trento and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION AND AFTERWORD FOR THE PAPERBACK EDITION Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett reveals the real story behind Hillary Clinton's deep state collaborators in government and exposes their nefarious actions during and after the 2016 election. The Russia Hoax reveals how persons within the FBI and Barack Obama's Justice Department worked improperly to help elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. When this suspected effort failed, those same people appear to have pursued a contrived investigation of President Trump in an attempt to undo the election results and remove him as president. The evidence suggests that partisans within the FBI and the Department of Justice, driven by personal animus and a misplaced sense of political righteousness, surreptitiously acted to subvert electoral democracy in our country. The book will examine: How did Hillary Clinton manage to escape prosecution despite compelling evidence she violated the law? Did Peter Strzok, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch, and others obstruct justice by protecting Clinton? Why was there never a legitimate criminal investigation of Clinton in the Uranium One case? Are the text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page evidence of a concerted effort to undermine the electoral process? Was there ever any real evidence of "collusion" between Trump and the Russians? Did Trump obstruct justice in the firing of Comey or was he legally exercising his constitutional authority? Did the FBI and DOJ improperly use a discredited "dossier" about Trump to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump associates? Should Muller have disqualified himself under the special counsel law based on glaring conflicts of interest? Was fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn unfairly charged with making a false statement? With insightful analysis and a fact-filled narrative, The Russia Hoax delves deeply into Democrat wrongdoing.

This book examines the seismic impact of Brexit on the British political system, assessing its likely long-term effect in terms of a significantly changed political and constitutional landscape. Starting with the 2015 general election and covering key developments up to "Brexit Day", it shows how Brexit "transformed" British politics. The unprecedented turmoil - two snap elections, three Prime Ministers, the biggest ever defeat for the Government in Parliament, an impressive number of rebellions and reshuffles in Cabinet and repeated requests for a second independence referendum in Scotland - as a result of leaving the EU, calls into question what sort of political system the post-Brexit UK will become. Taking Lijphart's "Westminster model" as its reference, the book assesses the impact of Brexit along three dimensions: elections and parties; executive-legislative relationships; and the relationship between central and devolved administrations. Based on a wealth of empirical material, including original interviews with key policymakers and civil servants, it focuses on the "big picture" and analytically maps the direction of travel for the UK political system. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of Brexit, British politics, constitutional, political, and contemporary history, elections and political parties, executive politics, and territorial politics as well as more broadly related practitioners and journalists. Chapters one and two of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by the University of Trento and the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

This book explores the "Turkish paradox" - women's lower representation in local politics than in parliament. By analyzing life stories of 200 female municipal councilors and party representatives, it offers a comprehensive assessment of what makes local politics in Turkey particularly inaccessible to women. It places women's pathways within the cycles of exclusion, starting by political socialization, going through the candidate recruitment process and continuing after the election. The research presented here brings together gender studies and political sociology and offers novel applications of concepts including intersectionality and biographical availability. It covers all major political parties and diverse local configurations in Turkey, and reveals political strategies of women in conservative parties as well as the reasons behind the exceptionally high representation of women within the pro-Kurdish political parties. The book further sheds some light on the intricate relationship between women's political activity and regime change in the context of democratic backsliding.

Covers an extraordinary political event of having four national elections in two years. The book relies on empirical analysis, including extensive use of the Israel National Election Studies data; on theoretical rigor; and on the contextualization of the elections from comparative and long-term perspectives. Ideal for students and researchers of Israeli politics and society, electoral studies and the crisis of democracy more generally.

First published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The British general election of 1931 marked the culmination of a period of political and economic crisis, and has long been regarded as a watershed in twentieth-century British history. In the summer of 1931 a struggling Labour government collapsed; its leader, Ramsay MacDonald, stayed on to form a National government supported mainly by Conservatives and Liberals. Within six weeks the decision to call an election was taken, and in the ensuing contest the Nationals won an overwhelming victory. Labour was left with a rump of 46 MPs, a decade in opposition, and an enduring sense of betrayal. Andrew Thorpe argues that, while 1931 changed much, the general trends towards Conservative hegemony and two-party politics were little disturbed by the crisis. He traces the background to the events of 1931, and examines their implications in detail. His scholarly analysis is the first full-length study of the election to benefit from unrestricted access to contemporary documents, and will be of value to all students of twentieth-century British politics.

This book explores how experienced party organisers in the UK work to recruit and to retain party activists for local campaigning. Local door-to-door campaigning is widely regarded as being a key element in a successful election campaign. However, for door-to-door campaigning to work, a large number of volunteer activists are required. The question then is: How can parties identify, recruit and retain such volunteer activists? Based on interviews with highly experienced campaigners, original party documents, the wider campaigning and volunteering literature, numerous informal conversations and the author's own experience of local campaigning over a 20 year period, this book provides an answer to that question. It shows how potential activists are identified, encouraged to become active and supported through their initial encounter with local campaigning. The author also shows how local parties can encourage activists to remain active by creating a 'retention enhancing campaigning environment' and what that involves.

On February 10, 2007, Barack Obama stood before the Illinois capital building and announced his potentially historic presidential bid. The next day, he was in Iowa Falls, campaigning. He was far from the first--Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, and Mitt Romney were already swarming the Hawkeye State, seeking votes behind every hay bale.
Why Iowa?
After all, in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential primary, both Iowa and New Hampshire have come under significant fire--as usual. Critics like Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) have charged that these early contests dominate the nomination process, yet are badly out of step with the ideology and demographics of the party and the country writ large. However, while New Hampshire has suffered a serious setback, Iowa has once again emerged as the first presidential primary contest, in part by arguing that its Precinct Caucus was a time-honored tradition that helped winnow the field with good old retail politicking and grassroots activism.
This debate comes to a head this coming Winter, when tens of thousands of Iowans will troop to libraries and churches, prepared for an hour or more of party business. Each of these party meetings, or "caucuses," will hold straw polls, the results of which will be broadcast around the world. One analysis found that the Caucus generates 143 times as much media coverage as other presidential primary contests, controlling for the date and size of the contest. In other words, being first thrusts the Iowa Caucus onto a towering public stage with extraordinary public interest.
Both of these factors--the normative public debate and the empirical public frenzy--demonstrate the need for a veryclose look at the Caucus, in all its warts and beauty. Grassroots Rules" was written to provide just such a study.

Explores who votes for Radical Left Parties in contemporary Western Europe, and why. Analyzes the radical left electorate in 17 West European countries for a period of 18 years (2000-2018). Considers not only voter characteristics, but also the characteristics of the parties themselves and of the political and economic context in which they compete for votes.

What role does the concept of political knowledge have in democratic theory? What according to democratic theorists should the ordinary citizen know about politics? What do empirical studies about political knowledge teach us? And why should we care what people know about politics in the first place?
By asking these important questions, this book offers the reader a quick yet comprehensive overview of the steps that have been taken toward understanding the concept of citizen knowledge in democratic theory over the past several decades. The book summarizes and explains the essentials of a vast body of literature while the empirical studies offer data on a number of Western democracies. Furthermore, the reader is taken through the theoretical foundations of political knowledge from Ancient Greece to modern representative democracy. Clear and concise, the book offers a cutting edge insight into our current understanding of citizen knowledge in democratic theory.

Since 1952, the social bases of the Democratic and Republican parties have undergone radical reshuffling. At the start of this period southern Blacks favored Lincoln's Republican Party over suspect Democrats, and women favored Democrats more than Republicans. In 2020 these facts have been completely reversed. A Tale of Two Parties: Living Amongst Democrats and Republicans Since 1952 traces through this transformation by showing: How the United States society has changed over the last seven decades in terms of regional growth, income, urbanization, education, religion, ethnicity, and ideology; How differently the two parties have appealed to groups in these social cleavages; How groups in these social cleavages have become concentrated within the bases of the Democratic and Republican parties; How party identification becomes intertwined with social identity to generate polarization akin to that of rapid sports fans or primitive tribes. A Tale of Two Parties: Living Amongst Democrats and Republicans Since 1952 will have a wide and enthusiastic readership among political scientists and researchers of American politics, campaigns and elections, and voting and elections.

This book argues that it is now the generational gap that is key to understanding and defining contemporary American politics, with an individual's age cohort being one of the most important predictors of difference in political behavior. Utilizes quantitative data in the form of American National Election Studies, the 2020 national Election Pool exit polls, A.P Votecast surveys, and numerous Pew research Center surveys to demonstrate findings. One of the first books to factor in the arrival of Generation Z into the electorate during the 2020 election, identifying how they differ to previous generations, includign millenials.

This book explores how the United States institutions of democracy have affected a citizen's ability to participate in politics. The 2000 election and the ensuing decade of research demonstrated that that the institutions of elections vitally affect participation. This book examines turnout and vote choice, as well as elections as an institution, administration of elections and the intermediaries that affect a citizen's ability to cast a vote as intended. Kropf traces the institutions of franchise from the Constitutional Convention through the 2012 election and the general themes of how institutions have changed increasing, democratization and production federal growth over time in the United States.

The Presidential Election of 2020: Donald Trump and the Crisis of Democracy places the election of 2020 within the context of the Trump presidency, a chaotic and tense time in American politics and a dangerous one. The election is analyzed in depth and its meaning for the state of American society is made clear. A major theme in the book is a critique of Donald Trump's leadership, his incompetence in office, his appeal to followers and the danger this has proven to represent. Among other things, he was accused of mental instability during his presidency. Yet he received the second highest vote total in American history, exceeded only by winning candidate Joe Biden's. Trump was impeached twice for his actions in office but both times not held responsible for what he had done by a Republican-controlled Senate. The election is placed in an on-going context. It was followed by strenuous attempts by Trump and associates to have states reverse their results and declare him the winner and by the Trump-organized seditious assault on the Capitol in which five people died. The objective was to force Vice President Mike Pence, who was chairing a Joint Session of Congress, normally a formality, to instead reject the Electoral College vote outcome. Pence would not do it. His life and that of Speaker Nancy Pelosi were threatened by the rioters. The threat of a coup, a new development in American politics, and one led by Trump and others who share his views, remains. Meanwhile President Joe Biden in his efforts to reconstruct America has introduced the most ambitious policy agenda since the New Deal.

This book considers how we reveal ourselves in the language we employ and the action in which we engage. Maria-Ionela Neagu argues that our conceptualization of the world via metaphor should no longer be taken for granted. On the contrary, it must be critically challenged and evaluated, steering argument towards a particular line of action. This book places political discourse at the crossroads of cognitive linguistics and transpersonal psychology to highlight the role of conceptual metaphors in and as arguments. Exploring the interface between argumentation theories and cognitive semantics, Neagu integrates the analysis of conceptual metaphors into the framework of practical reasoning, arguing that political discourse bridges the mental void engendered by people's needs and frustrations. This empirical investigation is centred on the corpus of the American Presidential debates in 2008, as well as Barack Obama's 'State of the Nation' (2009), and 'State of the Union Address' (2010, 2011).

In light of the growing support for populist political actors, this book examines political party behavior and political positions towards the integration process in the European Union. It explores the correlation between eurosceptic success and mainstream party behavior. Presenting both an indepth empirical investigation of electoral campaigns and the politics of party leaders, as well as applying various theoretical models, the author analyses different eurosceptical trends and circumstances and dynamics of eurosceptic contagion. In particular, he addresses the following questions: Do Europe's mainstream parties maintain their standard discourse and policy positions unaltered, or are they forced to qualify their typical pro-integration stances when eurosceptic challengers are successful at the ballot box? Are some parties or party systems more susceptible to eurosceptic "contagion" than others? These are just some of the timely questions that are examined by the author. The book argues that political parties at the ideological center of their party systems use the electoral success of eurosceptic parties as indications of changes in the public's political preferences. In order to avoid losing voters to these parties, moderate parties will qualify their positions on the issue of EU integration. The author explores these dynamics and discusses their implications for the future of European integration.

This book explains the development of the Conservative Party's immigration policy during the seven decades since 1945, up to today. By bringing together existing theories from the fields of political science and migration studies, this book offers a new model of party policy-making, which could be modified and tested in other contexts. Grounded in rigorous scholarship, but of interest to general readers as well as specialists and students, this book provides a thoughtful and engaging account of the making of modern Britain. The book draws on 30 interviews with figures who were at the heart of policy-making, from Kenneth Clarke and Douglas Hurd, to Damian Green and Gavin Barwell, to reveal that the 'national mood' often has more impact on policy-making than the empirics of the situation. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and readers interested in British politics; immigration and migration studies; Conservative Party politics; and, more broadly, public policy, political parties and European and comparative politics.