The author plans to compare the gender gap in Palestine with that in other MENA countries, making this a unique contribution to the existing literature. Expands knowledge of this field beyond the Western context.

This volume considers corruption as a multidimensional, complex phenomenon in which various forms of corruption may overlap at any given time. Extending the seemingly paradoxical notion of "legal corruption" to such settings as the USA, Spain, and the Czech Republic, the book seeks to augment our understanding of corruption in democracies by focusing on conduct that is considered by large segments of the population to be corrupt even though they are not explicitly defined as such by the law or the governing elites. Such behaviors are not often captured by corruption perception indexes or identified by scholars who regard corruption as a single category-usually restricted to bribery. However, they are liable to incur a heavy price both in terms of trust in specific governments and of general system support. As illustrated by developments in Spain, the Czech Republic, and the corrosive presidential campaign of 2016 in the USA, these actions are liable to endanger both the quality and actual viability of democratic orders. This volume looks into the possibilities of legal reforms and anticorruption campaigns aiming to correct the consequences of such corruption on government legitimacy. A comparison between the anticorruption campaigns in the competitive authoritarian context of Russia and the fully authoritarian setting of China helps to identify both the difficulties and the possibilities of such efforts in democratic regimes.

Two remarkable events occurred during 1976: The debut of Saturday Night Live and the Presidential Election pitting Gerald Ford against Jimmy Carter. Both events had profound and enduring influence on shaping the country America is today. When Saturday Night Live premiered, the show's impact was evident very quickly, as it grabbed huge ratings and several Emmy Awards in its first season; made household names of its seven original stars; and had a remarkable influence on popular and political culture with its mix of music, comedy, and live theater. In April of 1976, while he was in the midst of a fight for the Republican presidential nomination and his political survival, President Gerald Ford gave his press secretary, Ron Nessen, permission to become the first politician to guest host NBC's Saturday Night. In addition to Nessen, the President also appeared on the show, via video tape, to introduce his press secretary and to offer a comic counterpunch to Chevy Chase's signature line, "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not," at the beginning of "Weekend Update." Ever since Nessen's and Ford's appearances, it has become a rite of passage for politicians with a national profile, or those with a desire to have a national presence, to appear on Saturday Night Live, and the show's treatment of those politicians and many political topics has had a continuing impact on Americans' feelings and discussions about politics. This book is the first to examine the ground-shaking collision of SNL and Presidential Politics when it all began.

(1) This is a comprehensive book on India's electoral democracy and political system. (2) It contains an in-depth analysis of the crucial 2019 Parliamentary elections in India, with contributions from scholars such as Subrata Mitra, Jivanta Schoettli, Rekha Saxena, Hilal Ahmed, and Arjan H. Schakel. (3) This book will be of interest to departments of South Asian Politics and political and election studies. It will also interest professionals and those in politics, public policy and governance, civil society organisations, media and journalists.

(1) This is a comprehensive book on India's electoral democracy and political system. (2) It contains an in-depth analysis of the crucial 2019 Parliamentary elections in India, with contributions from scholars such as Subrata Mitra, Jivanta Schoettli, Rekha Saxena, Hilal Ahmed, and Arjan H. Schakel. (3) This book will be of interest to departments of South Asian Politics and political and election studies. It will also interest professionals and those in politics, public policy and governance, civil society organisations, media and journalists.

The book reappraises Neil Kinnock's policies, impact, legacy and leadership of the Labour Party 30 years on from his defeat in the 1992 general election. It offers comprehensively fresh perspectives and some first-hand accounts - some friendly, others more critical - from leading academics, journalists, politicians and advisors on various aspects of ideas, policy, elections and party management, including an interview with the man himself as he looks back on his experiences. This timely book will resonate widely with the current challenges to Labour's leadership and the enduring uncertainties on the future of the party. This book will be of key interest to researchers and students in the fields of political studies and contemporary history as well as the interested general reader.

At a time when American political institutions are under intense criticism and facing internal and external pressures, Americans must identify opportunities for changing the status quo. Rather than reject the system as fatally flawed, Niall Guy Michelsen argues that lowering the voting age to 16 will decrease the voting gap between the college and non-college citizens. Increasing voter turnout will make the American electorate more representative of the country and add needed voices to political debates. Dr. Michelsen analyzes the nature of voting habits and concludes that too many citizens start their adult lives as non-voters and become habitual non-voters as a result. Using voter turnout data and demographics, Dr. Michelsen shows that lowering the voting age to 16 would help both college-attending and non-college-attending young adults develop voting habits and raise voter turnout.

This book provides a comparative analysis and a systemic categorization of the Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe. Institutional and socio-economic aspects have transformed the political culture of many modern democracies, leading to the creation of radical left-wing parties who, by combining a strongly populist political offer with the historical demands of the traditional left wing, are capable of electoral success. This book analyzes a range of different Populist Radical Left Parties (PRLPs) in Western Europe through in-depth case studies. The author uses statutes, internal documents, programs, election results, membership data, and international political literature combined with interviews with executives and national secretaries to describe and interpret the main features of PRLPs, their paths of formation and political transformation. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of political science and political sociology, media studies and anyone interested in trying to better understand European populism and the distinctions among its different forms.

This book provides an analytical guide to the modern political campaign, chronologically covering key federal, state, and local campaign laws, election commission rules, and the court decisions interpreting them. While the media and the public tend to focus on the personalities and foibles of the candidates and the horse-race elements of political campaigns, election outcomes often depend as much on the rules that limit candidates' activities and advertising as on the candidates' platforms and personal appeal. How much money may candidates raise? From whom can they accept money? When and how may they spend their campaign funds? What are they allowed to say in their ads? Informed voters who understand the constraints under which campaigns operate can see past the headlines and the hype to assess the quality of the candidates' campaign decisions and their management skills. The approximately 100 documents gathered in this reference guide put the essential information in readers' hands. After introducing 18th- and 19th-century efforts to regulate American election campaigns, this book examines the 20th-century evolution and refinement of election campaign laws in era-by-era chapters and concludes with a chapter on 21st-century developments. Each chapter opens with a short essay highlighting politically relevant historical events of the era to place the subject matter in context. Analytical essays and suggested print and electronic resources accompany every documentary entry

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 presents the main results of an electoral panel survey, one not only unique and innovative in French electoral research but also among the most detailed panel studies in Europe. The survey was conducted among a sample of 1,846 French voters interviewed in four waves during the 2007 presidential and legislative elections in the context of Nicolas Sarkozy's victory. The analysis provides an understanding of how decisions on voting are made, the process of electoral decision-making, and the mechanisms used by voters to make choices, and attempts to identify the social, political, and psychological factors at play.

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.

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.

Citizens, journalists, and scholars have shown increased interest in candidate violations of democratic norms, ranging from former President Trump's campaign rhetoric to the Capitol riot. But how unusual are the former President's actions on the campaign trail? And to what extent do norm violations benefit - or harm - presidential candidates? Other campaign strategies involve social norms around non-elites. For example, some campaign messages emphasize group norms in order to influence turnout and correct misinformed beliefs. How do communications based on group behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes affect voters during presidential campaigns? Chapters in this edited volume explore the communications of the President, and other actors, including groups promoting turnout and fact-checking candidate statements. It uses the historic 2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign to explore the relationship between campaign messages and democratic norms, as well as the potential of social norms to shape election-year behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions among voters. This volume highlights different features of the changing role of democratic and group norms in presidential elections. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Marketing.

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.

Landing Votes explores the conditions under which democratic Latin American governments address persistent political and economic inequities. The book points out a surprising 'coincidence': nearly every extension of suffrage to the rural poor occurred at the same time as land reform. Politicians did not merely react to peasants' demands rather, they sought political power by extending the right to vote while redistributing land. The book concludes that party institutionalization enhanced the prospects for reforms by holding politicians accountable. More significant reforms occurred which benefited more of the rural poor where institutionalized parties competed for their votes. MARKET 1: Latin American Studies; Latin American Politics

The book identifies the impact of misinformation in the context of referenda. While the notion of misinformation is at the centre of current events and is the subject of several studies, it has rarely been addressed in the context of referenda or from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective. This book fills this gap. Different legal orders have been chosen because of their extensive referendum practices (California and Switzerland); a recent legislative process on the issue of misinformation (Germany, France, and Canada); or recent experience with a vote during which it was considered that false information had been disseminated (Brexit, Catalan independence, and Italian constitutional referendum of 2016). By bringing together authors from the political and legal sciences, the book focuses on combining the expertise of researchers from different backgrounds and origins in order to propose innovative solutions. In this regard, the book is characterized by the fact that it does not aim to combat misinformation per se, but develops suggestions meant to guarantee the conditions of formation of the political will during referenda. The book will be an invaluable resource for legal scholars, political scientists, and specialists of political communication. Outside the world of academia, the book may draw the attention of policy-makers, practitioners, and journalists confronted with the challenges of misinformation or disinformation.

The book reappraises Neil Kinnock's policies, impact, legacy and leadership of the Labour Party 30 years on from his defeat in the 1992 general election. It offers comprehensively fresh perspectives and some first-hand accounts - some friendly, others more critical - from leading academics, journalists, politicians and advisors on various aspects of ideas, policy, elections and party management, including an interview with the man himself as he looks back on his experiences. This timely book will resonate widely with the current challenges to Labour's leadership and the enduring uncertainties on the future of the party. This book will be of key interest to researchers and students in the fields of political studies and contemporary history as well as the interested general reader.

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.

This book looks at issues on Gender and LGBTQ matters in political elections in both institutional and communication contexts. Examining wins and losses in elections and assessing accountabilities in those results this broad and international collection analyses how the issue of gender and LGBTQ identity is both factored into, and determines electoral success, not only in consolidated democracies such as the United States, New Zealand, and Norway, but also in a country facing an undemocratic turn such as Poland. . Does raising the subject of gender and LGBTQ issues affect electoral processes? Are there countries where gender and LGBTQ issues are more likely to be instrumentalised in the electoral process? Can common patterns between countries be detected? This book seeks to answer these questions and center gendered issues through a range of topics including party loyalty, voter participation, gendered media coverage, and discourses on electoral defeat, and leadership. This book is suitable for students and scholars in LGBTQ Studies, Politics, Social Sciences and Gender Studies.

This book explores the emergence of identity politics and violence at the forefront of political life in an Indian state. Through a close reading of everyday politics in West Bengal, India, which until recently boasted of the longest-serving elected communist government in the world, the volume presents unique observations on Indian politics and its trajectories. One of the first ethnographic studies of religious polarisation and its interface with politics in West Bengal, this book: Offers a fresh perspective, both theoretically and empirically, by using longitudinal, multi-site ethnography, to explain the mechanisms by which identity issues have re-emerged; Studies key policy changes, political practices and series of invented traditions during periods of political transition; Examines intricate details of the micro-dynamics of the formulation and expansion of Hindu and Islamic fundamentalism and their political counterparts, which carry a capacity to push away secular, democratic forces from the existing political spectrum; Sheds light on the mechanisms of riots, its design, organisational bases and mechanisms of spread; Includes key observations from the 2021 elections in the state. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, social and cultural anthropology, sociology and South Asian studies.

Across Western Europe, the global financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath not only brought economic havoc but also, in turn, intense political upheaval. Many of the political manifestations of the crisis seen in other Western and especially Southern European countries also hit Spain, where challenger parties caused unprecedented parliamentary fragmentation, resulting in four general elections in under four years from 2015 onwards. Yet Spain, a decentralised state where extensive powers are devolved to 17 regions known as 'autonomous communities', also stood out from its neighbours due to the importance of the territorial dimension of politics in shaping the political expression of the crisis. This book explains how and why the territorial dimension of politics contributed to shaping party system continuity and change in Spain in the aftermath of the financial crisis, with a particular focus on party behaviour. The territorial dimension encompasses the demands for ever greater autonomy or even sovereignty coming from certain parties within the historic regions of the Basque Country, Catalonia and, to a lesser extent, Galicia. It also encompasses where these historic regions sit within the broader dynamics of intergovernmental relations across Spain's 17 autonomous communities in total, and how these dynamics contribute to shaping party strategies and behaviour in Spain. Such features became particularly salient in the aftermath of the financial crisis since this coincided with, and indeed accelerated, the rise of the independence movement in Catalonia.

Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections:Trailblazing Candidates in Gubernatorial, Congressional, and Mayoral Campaigns examines barrier-breaking figures across various types of elective offices and constituent groups. The moment in which historic firsts enter the electoral arena, and the unique campaigns that ensue, are shown to be symbolically empowering. These change agents on the campaign trail become lighting rods for more liberal policies, and their candidacies are tied to questions of representation, electability, and performance. The distinctive combinations of race, ethnicity, and gender identities represented here translate into voter excitement to go to the polls and participate in other ways. Original chapters by respected scholars and practitioners consider how recent breakthrough elections are similar to yet different from past elections for gubernatorial, congressional, and mayoral offices. The shadow of Donald Trump's wildly unconventional U.S. presidency looms over this groundbreaking analysis, linking local to national level politics. For students of politics across the curriculum, this book expands the theoretical capacity of intersectionality research and links it to voter mobilization and electoral success.

This is a book about European integration and mainstream parties of the left, the main underlying question driving it being: Given that the communist left was fatally wounded by the collapse of the Berlin Wall; given that, since then, the terms 'left' and 'right' have not infrequently been attacked (especially by populists) as being no longer useful for making sense of politics; given that social democracy, understood as 'national Keynesianism' no longer appears to be viable (as reflected in its long-term electoral decline), what does it mean to be on the left in the early 21st century and what can be done to revive its fortunes? Its answer is that being on the left means embracing principles of equality and international solidarity, and that since the nation state is too small to respond effectively to climate change and the other most pressing issues of the present, no viable strategy for left-wing revival in Europe can dispense with European integration as a central element, of which European democratisation is a core component.

In The Gun Gap, Mark R. Joslyn advances gun owners as a new classification for understanding political behavior and attitudes. He demonstrates a "gun gap," which captures the differences between gun owners and non-gun owners, and shows how this gap improves conventional behavioral and attitudinal models. The gap represents an important explanation for voter choice, voter turnout, perceptions of personal and public safety, preferences for gun control policies, and support for the death penalty. Moreover, the 2016 presidential election witnessed the largest recorded gun gap in history. The Gun Gap thus affords a new and compelling vantage point to evaluate modern mass politics.