Covering key issues ranging from education to political mobilization to racial stratification, this book provides a comprehensive examination of the Obama Presidency. President Barack Obama's election and subsequent reelection represent a critical paradigm shift in American political history. But will there be lasting effects of the election of an African American to the highest office in the land in terms of the United States' economic, educational, political and social realities? A valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, state and federal policymakers, and general readers, this book poses critical questions and offers insightful answers from expert contributors, provides a balanced critique of President Obama's accomplishments and challenges, and considers the national and international impact President Obama's tenure had on politics. The numerous contributors to this book provide a range of perspectives on President Obama's presidency that question conventional thinking, covering key issues that include health care, education, political mobilization, gender, racial stratification, voting patterns, and criminal justice. Readers will come away with a heightened comprehension of the complex relationships between political structures, economic policies, and minority interests; how Congress, traditional and contemporary activists, and domestic and international issues all shaped the Obama Presidency; and how micro and macro issues such as voting rights, voting patterns, and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) initiatives are connected.

First Published in 1968. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book analyzes how AKP's embedded intellectuals operate as media spin doctors, exploring their transformation from passionately engaged intellectuals into apparatchiks. This project adapts a post-Soviet geography approach to the media, intelligentsia, and political discourse as derivative of authoritarian regimes to the Turkish context. It offers a fresh look at the Turkish political and intellectual scene and a comparative study of the populist-authoritarian politics of Turkey. Situated in the literature on the post-Soviet authoritarian regimes and their ways of governing, as well as their manipulation of public opinion, the book analyzes AKP-aligned intellectuals as apparatchiks. Gurpinar explores the different constellations of pro-AKP intellectuals vindicating the AKP regime from various angles, including: liberal/progressive intellectuals who initially supported the party for its liberal vistas but continued their support by twisting their progressive rhetoric; Islamist intellectuals blending their Islamism with populism; and national security intellectuals who joined after the AKP came to propagate a national security agenda. The book also provides an overview of the mechanisms of political technology, including the media landscape and its running by the AKP, intellectuals themselves as operators of political technology, and the problem of "cultural power." The book will be of interest to those studying comparative authoritarian politics, populism, political communication, and scholars of Middle East and Eastern Europe.

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.

Blood, Sweat, and Toil is the first scholarly history of the British working class in the Second World War. It integrates social, political, and labour history, and reflects the most recent scholarship and debates on social class, gender, and the forging of identities. Geoffrey Field examines the war's impact on workers in the varied contexts of the family, military service, the workplace, local communities, and the nation. Extensively researched, using official documents, diaries and letters, the records of trade unions and numerous other institutions, Blood, Sweat, and Toil traces the rapid growth of trade unionism, joint consultation, and strike actions in the war years. It also analyses the mobilization of women into factories and the uniformed services and the lives of men conscripted into the army, showing how these experiences shaped their aspirations and their social and political attitudes. Previous studies of the Home Front have analysed the lives of civilians, but they have neglected the importance of social class in defining popular experience and its centrality in public attitudes, official policy, and the politics of the war years. Contrary to accounts that view the war as eroding class divisions and creating a new sense of social unity in Britain, Field argues that the 1940s was a crucial decade in which the deeply fragmented working class of the interwar decades was 'remade', achieving new collective status, power, and solidarity. Employing a contingent, non-teleological conception of class identity and indicating the plural and shifting mix of factors that contributed to workers' social consciousness, he criticizes recent revisionist scholarship that has downplayed the significance of class in British society.

The demise of the French Communist Party (PCF) has been a recurrent feature of overviews of the Left in France for the past two decades, and yet the Communists survive. This study examines the factors that undermined the position of the PCF as the premier party of France, but also highlights the challenges that the party faces in a society disillusioned with politics, and the new strategies that it is developing in order to revive its fortunes.

This is the first ever major study examining of the views of the Conservative Party towards the key aspects of Anglo-German relations from 1905 to 1914. Drawing on a wide variety of original sources, it examines the Conservative response to the German threat, and argues that the response of the Conservative Party towards Germany showed a marked absence of open hostility towards Germany. Overall, this important new study provides a powerful and overdue corrective to the traditional depiction of the Conservative Party in opposition as 'Scaremongers' and the chief source of Germanophobic views among the British political parties.

This book traces the economic ideology of the UK Labour Party from its origins to the current day. Through its analysis, the book emphasises key crises, including the 1926 General Strike, the 1931 Great Depression, the 1979 Winter of Discontent and the 2007/2008 economic crisis. In analysing this history, the ideology of the Labour Party is examined through four core themes: * the party's definition of socialism; * the role of the state in economic decision making; * the party's understanding of inequalities; and * its relationship with the trade union movement. The result is a systematic exploration of the drivers and key ideas behind the Labour Party's economic ideology. In demonstrating how crises have affected the party's economic policy, the book presents a historical analysis of the party's evolution since its formation and offers insights into how future changes may occur.

The Senate of the mid twentieth century, which was venerated by journalists, historians, and senators alike, is today but a distant memory. Electioneering on the Senate floor, playing games with the legislative process, and questioning your fellow senators' motives have become commonplace.
In this book, noted political scientist Sean Theriault documents the Senate's demise over the last 30 years by showing how one group of senators has been at the forefront of this transformation. He calls this group the "Gingrich Senators" and defines them as Republican senators who previously served in the House after 1978, the year of Newt Gingrich's first election to the House. He shows how the Gingrich Senators are more conservative, more likely to engage in tactics that obstruct the legislative process, and more likely to oppose Democratic presidents than even their fellow other Republicans. Phil Gramm, Rick Santorum, Jim DeMint, and Tom Coburn are just four examples of the group that has includes 40 total senators and 22 currently serving senators.
Theriault first documents the ideological distinctiveness of the Gingrich Senators and examines possible explanations for it. He then shows how the Gingrich Senators behave as partisan warriors, which has radically transformed the way the Senate operates as an institution, by using cutthroat tactics, obstructionism, and legislative games. He concludes the book by examining the fate of the Gingrich Senators and the future of the U.S. Senate.

This book examines the rapidly evolving relationship between the British Labour Party and the emerging Irish nationalist forces, from which was formed the first government of the Irish Free State as both metamorphosed from opposition towards becoming the governments of their respective states.

As Jacob Zuma moves into the twilight years of his presidencies of both the African National Congress (ANC) and of South Africa, this book takes stock of the Zuma-led administration and its impact on the ANC. Dominance and Decline: The ANC in the Time of Zuma combines hard-hitting arguments with astute analysis. Susan Booysen shows how the ANC has become centred on the personage of Zuma, and that its defence of his extremely flawed leadership undermines the party’s capacity to govern competently, and to protect its long term future.

Following on from her first book, The African National Congress and the Regeneration of Power (2011), Booysen delves deeper into the four faces of power that characterise the ANC. Her principal argument is that the state is failing as the president’s interests increasingly supersede those of party and state. Organisationally, the ANC has become a hegemon riven by factions, as the internal blocs battle for core positions of power and control. Meanwhile, the Zuma-controlled ANC has witnessed the implosion of the tripartite alliance and decimation of its youth, women’s and veterans’ leagues. Electorally, the leading party has been ceding ground to increasingly assertive opposition parties. And on the policy front, it is faltering through poor implementation and a regurgitation of old ideas. As Zuma’s replacements start competing and succession politics takes shape, Booysen considers whether the ANC will recover from the damage wrought under Zuma’s reign and attain its former glory. Ultimately, she believes that while the damage is irrevocable, the electorate may still reward the ANC for transcending the Zuma years.

This is a must-have reference book on the development of the modern ANC. With rigour and incisiveness, Booysen offers scholars and researchers a coherent framework for considering future patterns in the ANC and its hold on political power.

Coalitions are the commonest kind of democratic government, occurring frequently in most countries of Western Europe. It is usually assumed that political parties came together in a government coalition because they agree already, or can manage to reach an agreement, on the policy it should pursue. This book checks this idea out, in 12 countries of Western Europe plus Israel, using evidence from party election programmes and government programmes. It demonstrates that party policies do influence government programmes, but not to the extent they would if policy-agreement were the sole basis of coalition.

This is the most up-to-date and comprehensive anaysis of the organization of the major political parties of France, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Conceived and framed with a common theoretical approach, four national teams of researchers followed a structural approach to the study of party organization, and they have underlined the various characteristics of the parties. The party analyses are not limited, however, to the usual measures of party organization-number of members, local branches, elected officials-or to their formal rules. Rather, the chapters highlight the power relationships among the various actors, leaders, and factions. This major work will be invaluable to all researchers and scholars dealing with contemporary European politics and party systems.

The Routledge Handbook of Far�Right Extremism in Europe is a timely and important study of the far and extreme right-wing phenomenon across a broad spectrum of European countries, and in relation to a selected list of core areas and topics such as anti�gender, identitarian politics, hooliganism, and ideology. The handbook deals with the rise and the developments of the far�right movements, parties, and organisations across diverse countries in Europe. Crucially it discusses the main topics and features issues pertaining to the far�right ideology and positioning, and considers how central and less central actors of the far�right milieus have fared within the given context. Comprising a wide range of subject expertise, the contributors focus on far-right organisations on the margins of the electoral sphere, as well as street�level movements, and the relationship between them and electoral politics. The handbook spans nearly twenty European country�cases, grouped according to geographical/regional area. It includes case studies where the far right has gained increased momentum, as well as countries where it has been much less successful in mobilising public opinion and electorate. Another important feature is the inclusion of street�level mobilisations, such as football firms, thereby expanding and updating existing research, which is primarily focused on political parties and organisations. Multidisciplinary and comprehensive, this handbook will be of great interest to scholars and students of Criminology, Political Science, Extremism Studies, European Studies, Media and Communication, and Sociology.

Despite any evidence against it, political parties still represent the most important collective actor in a democratic political system. Their role in representing pluralism and their electoral centrality is not undermined, even when it is strongly questioned. As long as political parties can be understood as representative actors articulating political demands, this book focuses on the capacity of Italian political parties to mobilize resources and financial resources in particular. Through the analysis of private financial donations to political parties, a neglected source of information that will be fundamental in the near future, the author assesses their connective capability with specific interests' representatives in the last decades in order to provide evidence of their changing representational role as collective actors.

What I saw during the time I was employed at the Pass Office – I mean the ill- treatment of Africans – affected my heart and stirred my soul ... I would be of some service to my down-trodden people.

Richard Victor Selope Thema was voorsitter van die komitee wat ’n nuwe grondwet vir die South African Native National Congress opgestel het, die eerste redakteur van The Bantu World (nou The Sowetan) en lid van die Native Representative Council (NRC). Thema was in 1919 ook een van die eerste swart mans wat Engeland besoek het om voorspraak te maak vir swart Suid-Afrikaners.

Die boek, in Thema se eie woorde, beskryf sy vroeë lewe en volg sy denke en skryfwerk van radikaal na pasifis – Thema het geglo dat amper enigiets met onderhandeling en gesprek opgelos kan word en nie almal in die ANC het met hom saamgestem nie. Hy is ’n intellektuele voorvader van beide die ANC-jeugliga en die Pan-Afrikane van die 1950’s, en een van die vergete leiers van die ANC.

Political Parties in Palestine is an up-to-date elucidation of the Palestinian political landscape. The book offers vital background information on movements such as Hamas and Fatah, as well as smaller political factions that have defined the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades but, due to lack of available information, have not been subject to academic scrutiny.The book provides a comprehensive discussion of the ideological outlook, historical development, and political objectives of all major political actors in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). A well-informed but accessible overview, it combines analytical introductions with engaging profiles of party founders, interviews with current party leaders, organizational charts, and excerpts from party programs previously unavailable in English.

National and transnational debates in Britain and Germany surrounding the meaning of the word "conservative" continue to have far-reaching political consequences. After 1945, even while the term was an accepted part of the political vocabulary of Great Britain, in the Federal Republic of Germany their young democracy was conflicted due to anti-democratic instability. The Guardians of Concepts analyzes the historical changes in the political languages of conservatism in the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany between 1945 and the early 1980s which plagued intellectuals, politicians, and entire parties. As one of the most difficult concepts in both the political and historiographical vocabulary of the German language, conservatism's analysis takes a linguistically focused path through comprehensive and transnational connection of intellectual history with the history of politics, which are subjects that are otherwise commonly addressed separately from each other.

`The demise of the Cold War requires that we look back to the moment and place of its birth in order to reassess those institutions most affected by it. Politics After Hitler is a significant contribution to this scholarly reappraisal and is must reading for students of German history.' - James F. Tent, The University of Alabama at Birmingham This book concerns the efforts of Britain, France and the United States to reshape German party politics immediately after the Second World War. Based on extensive archival research in the four countries involved, it concludes that interference by the occupiers made a stable and moderate party system in the Federal Republic of Germany much more likely than has been previously assumed. This interference was propelled not by concrete Allied plans for a German political revival, but by fears of reaction, revolution, nationalism and political fragmentation.

Shadow of Liberation explores in intricate detail the twists, turns, contestations and compromises of the African National Congress’ (ANC) economic and social policy-making, particularly during the transition era of the 1990s and the early years of democracy.

Padayachee and Van Niekerk focus on the primary question of how and why the ANC, given its historical anti-inequality, redistributive stance, did such a dramatic about-face in the 1990s and moved towards an essentially market-dominated approach. Was it pushed or did it go willingly? What role, if any, did Western governments and international financial institutions play? And what of the role of the late apartheid state and South African business? Did leaders and comrades ‘sell out’ the ANC’s emancipatory policy vision?

Drawing on the best available primary archival evidence as well as extensive interviews with key protagonists across the political, non-government and business spectrum, the authors argue that the ANC’s emancipatory policy agenda was broadly to establish a social democratic welfare state to uphold rights of social citizenship. However, its economic policy framework to realise this mission was either non-existent or egregiously misguided. With the damning revelations of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture on the massive corruption of the South African body politic, the timing of this book could not be more relevant. South Africans need to confront the economic and social policy choices that the liberation movement made and to see how these decisions may have facilitated the conditions for corruption– not only of a crude financial character but also of our emancipatory values as a liberation movement – to emerge and flourish.

This book offers a comparative, theory-grounded study of Maghrebi political parties since the Arab uprisings, specifically focused on Tunisia and Morocco in the first decade after the 2011 watershed elections. Based on primary sources, including in-depth interviews and updated party statutes and bylaws, the author introduces four case studies of key Islamist and anti-Islamist parties, exploring their organisational standing, internal working, and legitimating assets. By dwelling into a topic long neglected, the author provides insight into the "hybrid" nature of political parties in the Maghreb, oscillating between juxtaposed traditional and modern discourses and ambivalent sources of political authority. As such, it is hybridisation that shapes parties’ organisational choices and development and accounts for differences within parties. In the wake of political liberalisation, the author argues that political parties have become increasingly distant from society, distrusted by a large part of the citizenry. Ultimately, the Tunisian and Moroccan cases invite reflection on similar phenomena taking place within the Middle East and North Africa region, and even outside of it. Bridging disparate disciplines, including comparative politics, area studies, and contemporary Middle Eastern history, the book will be of interest to a broad range of graduate-level students and academics.

The Scottish independence debate has consequences for Scotland, British politics, the future of the UK - and internationally. In Scotland Rising, Gerry Hassan addresses the key questions in this debate with a deep dive into its history, beyond the usual references to Thatcherism, Toryism and Westminster, by analysing the relative decline of the UK, the nature of the British state, its capitalist economy and politics that underpin it. At the same time, a distinctive, autonomous Scotland has emerged beyond Nichola Sturgeon's SNP and independence that has demanded more self-government. Scotland Rising highlights the importance of culture, stories and collective voices in reshaping how people see Scotland, both in during the first referendum in 2014 and again today. This debate is of relevance to everyone in the UK, including England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Can politics and democracy liberate people from the wreckage of Westminster? And if the Scots can, could it inspire others? Scotland Rising is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the future of Scotland and the UK.

How do you start an electoral earthquake? Head to the Red Wall and you might just find out. Covering some sixty seats stretching from the Midlands up to the north of England and across to Wales, the wall is constructed of the old coal, steel and manufacturing constituencies that were the bedrock of Labour victories for years. Assumed to be a stuck-in-their-ways, loyal-to-a-fault foundation for Labour, the Red Wallers changed all that on 12 December 2019 when they elected Boris Johnson, turning their constituencies blue. Here, renowned pollster and commentator Deborah Mattinson takes the issue by the horns, asking why these proudly working-class voters were tempted by the 'posh party' and questioning if they will ever again make their way back to the Labour fold. With brand-new research, including expansive interviews with Red Wall constituents, Mattinson guides us through the lives of the left-behind, finally giving them the opportunity to speak for themselves. Written at one of the most turbulent periods in modern memory, this is a timely, far-reaching analysis of how we got to this point and where we can go next. One thing is certain: the Red Wallers have the power to change history.