Before it was "Populism," the great reform movement of the 1890s was often called "Pefferism" after its most prominent leader, Kansas editor William Peffer. Peffer's Populism, Its Rise and Fall is the only significant memoir by a major Populist figure.

The Populist movement arose as a revolt against the special privileges of industrialism and the American banking system. It spread quickly throughout the Midwest and South and reached its zenith with the founding of the People's party in the early 1890s. William Peffer chaired the national conference that organized the People's party and was the party's first U.S. senator and president of its National Reform Press Association.

Peffer's memoir, written in 1899 but discovered decades later, offers a unique insider's view of the Populist movement. Peffer describes the development of Populism, the political maneuverings and campaign practices of the People's party, the effect of the famous silver movement on the critical election of 1896, and the behind-the-scenes conflicts and disagreements that ultimately led to the dissolution of America's last great third party.

"Populism, Its Rise and Fall" includes the complete text of this singular memoir, transcribed, edited, and annotated by Peter H. Argersinger, a leading scholar of the Populist movement. Argersinger's introductory essay and extensive annotation evoke America at the turn of the century and place Peffer's memoir in the context of the times, at the vortex of the forces that shaped and ultimately destroyed Populism.

"There are other Populist memoirs, but none from such a central figure as Peffer, and none from a key Kansas Populist. This book will be of note to scholars with general interests in the Gilded Age, as well as to specialists in Populism and farm activism."--Tom Isern, author of "Bull Threshers and Bindlestiffs: Harvesting and Threshing on the North American Plains" and coauthor of "Plainsfolk: A Commonplace of the Great Plains."

"Beyond doubt, Peffer was one of the more significant leaders produced by the Populist movement. This memoir is useful in helping us to understand the course he followed, which has remained something of an enigma."--Gene Clanton, author of "Kansas Populism: Ideas and Men."

This edited collection explores how party politics impacts the implementation of gender quotas in political representation across Europe. Contributors identify actors, institutions, and cultural legacies shape how quotas are put into practice. The volume's subtitle, Resisting Institutions, points to the myriad ways in which parties and other institutions in Europe over time have resisted the inclusion of women into politics. As voluntary party quotas and legislative quotas gained prominence, so did strategies to undermine them. At the same time, Resisting Institutions also indicates that gender equality actors have developed ways to counter such blockages and advance the cause of parity in their legislatures. 17 country cases explore the current state of quota implementation and the effects of confronting androcentric institutions.

State takeovers of local governments have garnered national attention of late, particularly following the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. In most U.S. cities, local governments are responsible for decisions concerning matters such as the local water supply and school affairs. However, once a state takes over, this decision-making capability is shuttled. Despite the widespread attention that takeovers in Flint and Detroit have gained, we know little about how such takeovers-a policy option that has been in use since the 1980s-affect political power in local communities. By focusing on takeovers of local school districts, this book offers the first systematic study of state takeovers of local governments. Although many major U.S. cities have experienced state takeovers of their local school districts, we know little about the political causes and consequences of takeovers. Complicating this phenomenon are the justifications for state takeokers; while they are assumedly based on concerns with poor academic performance, questions of race and political power play a critical role in the takeover of local school districts. However, Domingo Morel brings clarity to these questions and limitations-he examines the factors that contribute to state takeovers as well as the effects and political implications of takeovers on racialized communities, the communities most often affected by them. Morel both lays out the conditions under which the policy will disempower or empower racial and ethnic minority populations, and expands our understanding of urban politics. Morel argues that state interventions are a part of the new normal for cities and offers a novel theoretical framework for understanding the presence of the state in America's urban areas. The book is built around an original study of nearly 1000 school districts, including every school district that has been taken over by their respective state, and a powerful case study of Newark, New Jersey.

When Ronald Laone's son was eleven, he asked his father, "What does it mean to be a conservative?" From that simple question came a journey of political enlightenment for father and son, one that culminated in The Republican Party, a history of the Republican Party, leaders, and beliefs.

Beginning with a comprehensive overview of the origins of the Republican Party, Laone examines the various political battles of the nineteenth century and how they shaped the party's establishment in 1854 and its core ideologies. He then profiles each Republican president from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush, offering a short biography and major highlights of each one's presidency.

Laone also reveals the major political firsts of the Republican Party, including the first African-American US senator, the first Hispanic US congressman, and the first female US congresswoman, recording their significant contributions to the conservative movement. A comprehensive bibliography offers titles for further reading.

Thoroughly researched and educational, The Republican Party offers information for those seeking to understand the origins of conservative thinking, values, and beliefs within the American political system.

This book is a comparative study of liberal parties in Western Europe, examining the role and development of liberal parties within individual countries; their internal party structure and organization; electoral audiences; coalitions and government participation; party programmes and strategies; and international and cross-national links. It not only tries to fill a gap in the study of political parties cross-nationally, but also to highlight the important role liberal parties play in the political systems of Western Europe. Whilst it is undeniable that most liberal parties in Western Europe are small and as a result are not able to dominate any government in which they participate, they have sometimes been in a position to exert influence which bears little relation either to their voting base within the electorate as a whole or their parliamentary strength. This is most obviously true in the case of the Free Democrats (FDP) in the Federal Republic of Germany, with the party long being able to play a crucial pivotal role.

A specific description of why USA is ripe for "soft dictatorship." How Hillary can make it happen.

This edited collection builds directly upon the recently published book by Harmel, Svasand, and Mjelde (Institutionalisation (and De-Institutionalisation) of Right-Wing Protest Parties: The Progress Parties in Denmark and Norway) and applies their conceptual framework to a wide range of additional cases. Employing a common conceptual framework throughout, the chapters cover a broad range of cases and make important contributions toward building theories on why some parties succeed in institutionalising while others fail. The book is primarily about the status some parties achieve as an 'institution', the means by which parties may acquire that status, and some of the obstacles that stand in their way.

Never has the Left held power in so many advanced economies, yet the difference this makes to economic policy proves hard to specify. This book is the first to examine in detail the successes and failures of governments across Europe and Australasia to chart distinctive courses in the face of the neoliberal backlash against state intervention, the welfare state, and guaranteed full employment.

This book addresses the changing electoral and political circumstances in which American political parties found themselves during the 2016 election, and the strategic adaptations this new pressure may require. The respective establishments of both major political parties have found themselves facing serious challenges. Some observers wondered if realignment was in progress, and whether the parties could survive. Both grounded in research and accessible to more than just academics, this book provides important insights into how political parties can move forward from 2016.

This path-breaking book uncovers the important, under-appreciated role of armed opposition groups turned political parties in shaping long-term patterns of politics after war. Based on an empirically grounded and theoretically informed retrospective on nearly thirty years of post-conflict democratic state-building efforts, it examines whether this practice has contributed to peace and finds that engaging post-rebel parties in electoral politics has proven to be a viable long-term strategy for bringing political stability, that disparate post-rebel parties from different political contexts invest heavily in electoral politics and that few post-rebel parties actively seek return to civil conflict as a solution after becoming a political party. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in democracy, governance, elections, political parties, post-conflict peacebuilding, and more broadly to international relations, comparative politics, and regional politics.

How do Democratic and Republican party leaders react after their party has lost a presidential election? Is there a pattern of response to defeat that reflects the distinctive cultures of the two parties? This book answers these questions by examining how the two national party organizations have responded to presidential election defeats between 1956 and 1993. Drawing on party documents, interviews with party officials, and contemporary accounts, Philip Klinkner provides detailed case studies of opposition party politics. He shows that Republican national committees have reacted to losses by making organizational changes to improve campaign technology and fundraising and that losing Democrats have sought to refine or make more democratic their internal procedures for selecting delegates to the national convention or for choosing presidential candidates. Klinkner suggests that the reasons for these reactions stem from the historical development of the parties. The organizational response of the Republican party is the result of its long-term relationship with business, its homogeneity and hierarchical structure, and its minority party experience. The Democrats' emphasis on participation and representation for its constituent elements is based on its characteristic composition of social and economic out-groups, its heterogeneity and decentralization, and its tradition as the majority party.

This volume explores the development of political parties in nineteenth-century United States of America through an extensive analysis of the official statements by a party in an election, the party platforms, and their connection with political elites and voters. Platforms indicate how party leaders reconciled local, state, and national conflicts and articulated their electoral appeals to various constituencies by showing discussions of their respective policies. Thus, party platforms are a valuable vehicle to assess electoral strategy and party development. By focusing on the platforms of the major political parties-Democrats, Whigs, and Republicans-at the state and national levels in presidential elections from 1840 to 1896, the author identifies three salient patterns. First, platforms reference economic policy more frequently and to a greater degree than other policy areas. Second, national policies are discussed more than state policies. And third, over time, the content of the platforms becomes more similar, reflecting the nationalization of the party system. This examination of nineteenth-century American party platforms traces political party development as a dynamic process involving partisanship, the presentation of internally coherent and consistent messages to voters, and polarization, the existence of conflicting policy positions across parties.

In Political Dynamics of Grassroots Democracy in Vietnam, Hai Hong Nguyen investigates the correlation between independent variables and grassroots democracy to demonstrate that grassroots democracy has created a mutually empowering mechanism for both the party-state and the peasantry.

This book examines how social media have transformed politics in established democracies. Specifically, the authors examine the influence of the unique qualities of social media on the power balance between and within parties. They present a general theory as well as an in-depth case study of the Netherlands and compare it to the US and European democracies. The authors show how and why social media's introduction leads to equalization for some and normalization for others. Additional to national politics, Jacobs and Spierings investigate often-overlooked topics such as local and European politics and the impact on women and ethnic minorities.

This book explores contemporary populist politics through the lens of ontological security theory. It shows that the 'divisionary politics of populism' is fostered by narratives of crisis and insecurity surrounding the imagined Self that gives shape to 'the people' that populism claims to represent. The loss of faith in mainstream political parties and moderate electoral candidates seems characteristic of the Zeitgeist in much of the Western world and beyond. Politicians and agendas propped up by a discourse that antagonizes established political elites on behalf of a reified, and homogenized people has become a trend in the politics of several countries. This book has brought together a team of worldwide renowned specialists on ontological security to grapple with the contemporary populist challenge through the conceptual lens of ontological security theory. From crises of democracy in the West, to backlashes against democratization in the Global South, this collection not only unveils fundamental structures underpinning these significant and current phenomena. It also provides us with the analytical tools to understand other occurrences of populist politics that are gaining traction across the globe. This book will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers, and academics in Politics, International Relations and Security. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

Indian party politics, commonly viewed as chaotic, clientelistic, and corrupt, is nevertheless a model for deepening democracy and accommodating diversity. But if these perspectives are contradictory, they do have one thing in common: the perception of Indian politics as non-ideological in nature. In Ideology and Identity, Pradeep K. Chhibber and Rahul Verma argue that the Western European paradigm of what constitutes an ideology is not entirely applicable to many multiethnic countries in the twentieth century. In these more diverse states, the most important ideological debates center on statism-or the extent to which the state should dominate society, regulate social norms, redistribute private property, and accommodate the needs of various marginalized groups. Using survey data from the Indian National Election Studies (NES) and other studies along with evidence drawn from the Constituent Assembly debates, this book shows how education, the media, and religious practice transmit the competing ideas that lie at the heart of the ideological debates in India.

This book examines the impact that nostalgia has had on the Labour Party's political development since 1951. In contrast to existing studies that have emphasised the role played by modernity, it argues that nostalgia has defined Labour's identity and determined the party's trajectory over time. Jobson outlines how Labour, at both an elite and a grassroots level, has been and remains heavily influenced by a nostalgic commitment to an era of heroic male industrial working-class struggle. This commitment has hindered policy discussion, determined the form that the modernisation process has taken and shaped internal conflict and cohesion. More broadly, Labour's emotional attachment to the past has made it difficult for the party to adjust to the socioeconomic changes that have taken place in Britain. In short, nostalgia has frequently left the party out of touch with the modern world. In this way, this study offers an assessment of Labour's failures to adapt to the changing nature and demands of post-war Britain and will be of interest to both students and academics working in the field of British political history and to those with a more general interest in Labour's history and politics. -- .

As the last decade has shown, ideological polarization in Congress has reached historic levels. Yet, spatial theory has become increasingly important for how scholars understand Congress and legislative elections. In spatial models, candidates select positions along an ideological spectrum, and voters choose candidates based on those locations. However, the central tendency of these models is for the candidates to converge to the location of the median voter, so polarization has become increasingly problematic for spatial theory, even as scholars have come to rely increasingly on these models. In Incremental Polarization, Justin Buchler provides a unified spatial model of legislative elections, parties, and roll call voting to explain the development of polarization in Congress. His model moves beyond elections and factors in legislators' roll call voting, where a different but related spatial process operates. By linking these models, Incremental Polarization fills a critical gap in our understanding of the strategic, electoral, and procedural roots of polarization-and the role that parties play in the process.

During a long period of the twentieth century, stretching from the Great Depression until the Reagan years, defeat generally characterized the electoral record of the Republican party. Although Republicans sometimes secured victory in presidential contests, a majority of Americans identified with the Democratic party, not the GOP. This book investigates how Republicans tackled the problem of their party's minority status and why their efforts to boost GOP fortunes usually ended in failure. At the heart of the Republicans' minority puzzle was the profound and persistent popularity of New Deal liberalism. This puzzle was stubbornly resistant to solution. Efforts to develop a Republican version of government activism met little success. The same was true of conservative strategies that stressed a more fundamental rejection of the Democrats' arguments. Technocratic initiatives to improve party organization and communications similarly failed to facilitate an electoral breakthrough. Only the Democratic party's decline eventually created opportunities for Republican resurgence. This book is the first to offer a wide-ranging analysis of the topic, which is of central importance to any understanding of modern U.S. political history.

The Rise of the Radical Right in the Global South is the first academic study—adopting an interdisciplinary and international perspective—to offer a comprehensive and groundbreaking framework for understanding the emergence and consolidation of different radical-right movements in Global South countries in the twenty-first century. From deforestation and the anti-vaccine movement in Bolsonaro’s Brazil to the massacre of religious minorities in Modi’s India, the rise of the radical right in the Global South is in the news every day. Not long ago, some of these countries were globally celebrated as emerging economies that consolidated vibrant democracies. Nonetheless, they never overcame structural problems including economic inequality, social violence, cultural conservatism, and political authoritarianism. Featuring case studies from Brazil, India, the Philippines, and South Africa, and more generally from Africa and Latin America, this book analyses future scenarios and current alternatives to this political movement to the radical right. It proposes a shift of focus in examining such a trend, adopting a view from the Global South; conventional theoretical tools developed around the experience in Global North countries are not enough. The authors show that the radical right in the Global South should be analysed through specific lenses, considering national historical patterns of political and economic development and instability. They also warn that researching these countries may differ from contexts where democratic institutions are more reliable. This does not mean abandoning a transnational understanding of the radical right; rather, it calls for the opposite: the chapters examine how the radical right is invented, adapted, modified, and resisted in specific regions of the globe. This volume will be of interest to all those researching the radical right and the politics of development and the Global South.

This book analyzes the major post-unification developments that have tested and shaped the "new Germany" from a multilevel perspective. The authors argue that domestic transformation and a heightened role in international politics are consequences, often unintended, of unification, Europeanization, and globalization. Informed by the authors' intimate knowledge of Germany, this book offers a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of a pivotal global player at a critical economic, political, social, and environmental juncture.

Newly accessible communist archives in Britain and Moscow have given us a fuller and richer picture of the membership of the British Communist Party than of any other British political party, and indeed of most other communist parties. This project presents the fullest and most authoritative details of the Communist Party in Britain yet assembled. It tracks down British communists: who they were, where they came from, how their allegiances were forged and sustained, how communist identities were created and dissolved, the diverse roles party members played in British society. A truly collaborative project led by academics with sustained research experience, this book will not simply deepen our understanding of one of the key social movements of the twentieth century, it will provide a social history of left-wing activism in Britain, from the social ferment and grassroots militancy of the interwar period to the cultural politics and 'designer socialism' of the 1980s.

Politics and Government in South Africa introduces readers to all aspects of government and politics in South Africa, from local, to provincial, national, and on to international considerations. The perfect guide for students and general readers, this textbook explains how South Africa's key institutions are governed and interact with each other, and how important issues such as economics, gender, race, and class shape relations between citizens and government. Grounded in history and leading theories and debates, the book also brings in alternative perspectives from artists, writers, and popular culture, to demonstrate the diverse ways in which issues of politics and social justice are engaged with within South Africa. Written with the needs of students at the forefront, each chapter includes: Review and discussion questions Key terms and further resources Fun facts in a Did you know? section Supplementary sources and quotations in a The Past as Present section Interactive and engaging, Politics and Government in South Africa invites readers to consider what they would do in tackling issues such as land distribution, peacekeeping, South Africa's role in the African Union, and military engagement abroad. It is an essential read for undergraduate students studying Political Science, International Relations, and African Studies, and for anyone looking to develop a deeper understanding of South Africa.

This book explores and reconstructs how the principal parliamentary parties in Britain confronted and responded to events that unfolded during the Falklands War in the spring of 1982. The author begins by situating the Falklands Crisis within the wider context of the breakup of the British Empire and discusses the fluid political situation in Parliament at the time. Following this, the book examines in detail each of the parties - the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the SDP-Liberal Alliance - and their actions during the crisis. The chapters focus on each party in turn and follow a chronological narrative to reconcile the evolution of the diplomatic and military picture with the internal political one.

In Counter Realignment, Howard L. Reiter and Jeffrey M. Stonecash analyze data from the early 1900s to the early 2000s to explain how the Republican Party lost the northeastern United States as a region of electoral support. Although the story of how the 'Solid South' shifted from the Democratic to the Republican parties has received extensive consideration from political scientists, far less attention has been given to the erosion of support for Republicans in the Northeast. Reiter and Stonecash examine who the Republican Party lost as it repositioned itself, resulting in the shift of power in the Northeast from heavily Republican in 1900 to heavily Democratic in the 2000s.