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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence
This book examines the geography of partisan polarization, or the Reds and Blues, of the political landscape in the United States. It places the current schism between Democrats and Republicans within a historical context and presents a theoretical framework that offers unique insights into the American electorate. The authors focus on the demographic and political causes of polarization at the local level across space and time. This is accomplished with the aid of a comprehensive dataset that includes the presidential election results for every county in the continental United States, from the advent of Jacksonian democracy in 1828 to the 2016 election. In addition, coverage applies spatial diagnostics, spatial lag models and spatial error models to determine why contemporary and historical elections in the United States have exhibited their familiar, but heretofore unexplained, political geography. Both popular observers and scholars alike have expressed concern that citizens are becoming increasingly polarized and, as a consequence, that democratic governance is beginning to break down. This book argues that once current levels of polarization are placed within a historical context, the future does not look quite so bleak. Overall, readers will discover that partisan division is a dynamic process in large part due to the complex interplay between changing demographics and changing politics.
Foregrounding street art in the capital cities of Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, this book argues that Antillean street artists diagnose the "impossible state" of the arrested present (colonized, occupied, or under dictatorship) while simultaneously imagining liberated futures and fully sovereign states. Jana Evans Braziel launches a comparative study of art, politics, history, urban street cultures, engaged citizenships, and social transformations in three Antillean capital cities-Havana, Cuba; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; and San Juan, Puerto Rico-of the Greater Caribbean. The book includes a photo documentary archive of street art, murals, and installations by key muralists in these cities: Yulier Rodriguez Perez, "Jerry" Rosembert Moise, and Colectivo Morivivi (Chachi Gonzalez Colon, Raysa Rodriguez Garcia, and Salome Cortes). Braziel offers art historical and geopolitical analyses of the urban street art in their cities of production, underscoring street art as political, economic, and environmental engagements (and not as exclusively aesthetic ones) with urban space and street life. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Caribbean studies, Latin American studies, and urban studies.
No previous volume has collected as interesting and broad a collection of essays on Canadian discourse and culture. This volume of representative case studies reflects the Canadian experience in terms of discourse, society, and public culture, linking its discussions to larger political and social issues and theories. Topics include: Constitutional controversies Cultural sovereignty Feminist voices Globalization Internet issues Marginalized communities Nationalism Nativity Multidisciplinary perspectives from a mix of established and emerging Canadian studies scholars converge in a highly readable, engaging, and unique book that offers a distinctive portrait of a nation not nearly as well understood as its proximity to the United States might suggest.
O'Shaughnessy, Henneberg, and their contributors examine how the theory and practice of marketing has been and can be applied to politics. Particular attention was paid to the theory of political marketing, with conceptual definitions developed to better facilitate communication between marketing professionals and political science researchers. Political marketing is about the making and unmaking of governments in a democracy. Despite its growing importance, the marketing academic profession has shown very little interest in the political ramificaitons of their discipline, while political scientists often come to political marketing with the view that it is cosmetic, if not trivial. O'Shaughnessy, Henneberg, and their contributors examine how the theory and practice of marketing has been and can be applied to politics. As they show, elections are a persuasion task writ large, most especially with the demise of inherited class loyalties. Following elections, governments can employ marketing techniques to build support for their actions, while opposition parties can press the government and its supporters through similar marketing approaches. Of particular interest to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with politics, political communication, and the making of public policy.
Migrants have, for some time, engaged in the politics of their homelands from a distance, but, as this book argues, politicians are increasingly looking beyond their national boundaries for electoral and political support. While migrants rarely cast decisive votes in homeland elections, they are not marginal to homeland politics. Courting Migrants looks at how extraterritorial outreach by homeland states and parties alters the boundaries of political membership and intersects with migrant agency to transform politics at home. It addresses three specific questions: under what conditions and in what ways do homeland authorities reach out to migrants? How do these migrants respond? And, to what extent does their response affect homeland governance? Katrina Burgess argues that globalization and the spread of democracy since the 1970s have encouraged politicians in the Global South to reach out to migrants in search of economic resources, foreign policy support, and/or electoral advantage. They do so by cultivating feelings of loyalty that induce some kinds of migrant engagement while discouraging others. Whether or not these politicians succeed depends on where migrants are located, how many resources they have, what kinds of identities they value, and why they left their homeland in the first place. This interaction between outreach and engagement has implications, in turn, for how migrants are responding to the current wave of populism and authoritarianism around the globe. The book is based on in-depth research on state-migrant relations in four high-migration countries: Turkey, Dominican Republic, Philippines, and Mexico.
'Soft power' is an oft-used term and commands an instinctive understanding among journalists and casual observers, who mostly interpret it as 'diplomatic' or somehow 'persuasive'. 'Hard power' is seen, by contrast, as something more tangible and usually military. But this is a superficial appreciation of a more subtle concept - and one key to Britain's future on the international stage. Britain's Persuaders is a deep exploration of this phenomenon, using new research into the instruments of soft power evident in British society and most relevant to the 2020s. Some, like the British Council or the BBC World Service, are explicitly intended to generate soft power in accordance with governmental intentions; but rather more, like the entertainment industries, sport, professional regulatory bodies, hospitality industries or education sectors have more penetrating soft power effects even as they pursue their own independent or commercial rationales. This book conducts an up-to-date 'audit' of all Britain's principal sources of soft power. Situating its analysis within the current understanding of the 'smart power' of nation states - that desire to employ the full spectrum of policy instruments and national characteristics to achieve policy outcomes, specifically in the context of 'Brexit Britain' where soft power status is certain to loom larger during the 2020s.
This book investigates how political parties from 12 European countries used Facebook to inform, interact with and mobilise voters at the 2019 European Parliament election. Following a joint theoretical framework and method, the results of a content analysis of more than 14,000 Facebook posts are presented. Country specific chapters are followed by analyses of European parties' Facebook campaigning, the spread of populism and the use of Facebook ads by the parties. The final chapter compares all countries showing that campaigns are more strongly shaped by the national than by the European political context. Facebook is used for campaigning as usual; parties inform and persuade but neglect the platform's mobilisation and particularly interactive affordances.
Technological advancements have always influenced politics in society, but never in as strong and direct a manner as in the Internet Age. E-Politics and Organizational Implications of the Internet: Power, Influence, and Social Change charts this influence and describes the unique effect electronic communication has on organizations, communities, nations, and cultures. This book presents the most current research on both the history of these powerful new tools and their preliminary impact both in across the world and in daily life. A thorough understanding of these technologies is necessary to properly navigate this new millennium and this reference is the beginning of that knowledge.
The 1997-1998 edition of the Index to International Public Opinion continues to provide the most comprehensive information available for public opinion data throughout the world. Surveys from 67 countries are included, and 127 countries and regions are referenced in these studies. Data compiled by 235 research firms makes this the one essential source for public opinion research data. As with earlier volumes, all tables contain total sample results and many include breakdowns by various population subgroups such as gender, political party affiliation, age, and level of formal education. Also, poll questions deal with a broad mix of social, political, and economic issues of both contemporary and historical interest. Among the highlights are survey data on values and beliefs conducted in 43 countries, environmental awareness conducted in two Asian countries, extramarital relations conducted in Japan and the United States, and two Eurobarometers conducted twice in 12 European Union countries. This volume and the overall series provide the most comprehensive source for public opinion data available. As such, the volumes are of unusual importance for journalists, scholars, government officials, and business professionals.
The 1995-1996 edition of the Index to International Public Opinion has even greater coverage than earlier volumes in the series. Coverage has been increased to 71 countries where surveys were conducted, and 105 countries and regions are referenced in these studies. Data compiled by 190 research firms results in the most comprehensive collection of public opinion from around the world. The 1995-1996 edition of the Index to International Public Opinion has even greater coverage than earlier volumes in the series. Coverage has been increased to 71 countries where surveys were conducted, and 105 countries and regions are referenced in these studies. Data compiled by 190 research firms results in the most comprehensive collection of public opinion from around the world. As with earlier volumes, all tables contain total sample results, and many include breakdowns by various population subgroups such as gender, political party affiliation, age, and level of formal education. As in the past, poll questions deal with a broad mix of social, political, and economic issues of both contemporary and historical interest. Among the highlights are survey data on atoll nuclear testing, terrorism in Canada and the United States, European business leaders, international relations in the Far East, and the United States bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This volume and the overall series provide the most comprehensive source for public opinion data available. As such, the volumes are of unusual importance for journalists, scholars, government officials, and business professionals.
The two decades since the Watergate scandal have seen an unprecedented focus on ethics in government. The public integrity scandals of the Clinton administration have, once again, focused national attention on ethics in Washington. This work addresses this very topical subject and the authors come to some unusual conclusions. Tracing the origins of the modern public integrity war back to the very birth of the nation, the authors explain how conservatives and progressives have used allegations of unethical conduct in an effort to persuade the American public to accept their respective visions for American society. A cynical public, anesthetized to the distinction between actual wrongdoing and partisan attack, follows ideology and self-interest rather than character, allowing politicians to get away with even the most egregious conduct.
Contrary to most media reports, negative campaigning is actually in decline, but our political system is no better off for it. Or so believes Washington Post political writer Dana Milbank, whose campaign book Smashmouth provides a witty yet ultimately very serious look at the sense and senselessness that occurred during the 2000 presidential campaign. What matters is not whether a campaign claim is positive or negative, but whether the claim is relevant," writes Milbank. "The press should police outright falsehoods, of course, but otherwise let the candidates fight it out." Traveling by bus, plane and motorcade with the candidates, Milbank provides an indelible behind-the-scenes look at the brutal skirmishes that made up this century's first presidential campaign.
This, the seventeenth volume of the Index to International Public Opinion provides data from opinion surveys conducted in 69 countries. Approximately 97 countries and geographical areas are referenced in these studies. The data were contributed by 154 research firms. As has been the case with previous volumes, all tables contain total sample results and many include breakdowns by various population subgroups such as gender, political party affiliation, age, and level of formal education. As in the past, poll questions deal with a broad mix of social, political, and economic issues of both contemporary and historical interest. Volume 17 includes data from polls conducted for the most part during the period Spring 1994 through Spring 1995. In addition, for trend analysis purposes, included are a number of time series tables covering a decade or more. There is also a section entitled Changing Opinions: A 50-Year Retrospective. This part of the Index presents polling data gathered approximately a half century ago from a number of different countries. This volume and the overall series provides the most comprehensive source for public opinion data available. As such the volumes are of unusual importance for journalists, professional scholars, government officials, and business leaders.
After the 2016 and 2020 elections, harsh critiques of polling were blasted everywhere: in news headlines, on social media and among colleagues and friends. But this rush to declare polling irrelevant is misguided-and dangerous. In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris urges readers to recognise how polling shapes and sustains democracy. He illuminates how public opinion polls provide a voice for citizens and influence such crucial matters as a party's selection of presidential candidates. He guides readers through a vibrant history of polling to provide insider context, explains how polls have been misused and misinterpreted and demonstrates how we have underestimated their potential impact. He also candidly acknowledges where polls have fallen short and charts a path for the industry's future where it can truly work for the people. Persuasively argued and deeply researched, Strength in Numbers implores all those who believe in democracy not to give up on polls, but to fully understand them.
Moffitt provides the strategies, decision-making approaches, and the message composition techniques needed to conduct successful public communication campaigns. The book is a practical guide to the step-by-step process of conceptualizing, planning, and executing a public relations, marketing/advertising, political, or social issue campaign. How do professionals plan and execute a public communications campaign? Moffitt provides a detailed step-by-step examination of the conceptualizing, planning, and execution of a public relations, marketing/advertising, political, or social issue campaign. She provides basic theories, concepts, and issues to understand before one can even begin to conduct a campaign, and she examines the research tools and skills needed to investigate the organization, the industry, and the targeted audiences for a campaign. Basic strategies for setting a campaign's goals and objectives are analyzed as are message strategies which determine correct wording and visualization factors. Lastly, Moffitt examines communication selection strategies for choosing the appropriate personal and media channels for delivering the messages. Since the public campaign has emerged as a key model for business communication, professionals as well as students in advertising, marketing, and management will also find the business end of the topic useful. Individuals involved with public relations, speech communication, broadcast and print media will benefit from the strategies and skills applicable to campaign communication.
Propaganda is thousands of years old. But it came of age in the 20th century, when the development of mass media (and later multimedia communications) offered a fertile ground for its dissemination, and the century's global conflicts provided the impetus needed for its growth. Put simply, propaganda is the dissemination of ideas intended to convince people to think and act in a particular way and for a particular persuasive purpose. But it takes many forms, is fluid and indeed is constantly developing, most fervently in our own digital era. Terms such as 'fake news', 'post-truth', 'gate-keepers' and 'asymmetrical warfare' were unknown a decade ago yet today are now commonplace, and often cynically derided, in daily media communications. In this timely and fully international book, David Welch has selected fifty images to highlight the continuities and dis-continuities of mass-communication throughout history, be they via images, events, films or by 'propaganda by deed'. Such an approach demonstrates how changing technological innovations (such as television and the internet) have continued to shape the propaganda narrative but also demonstrate how tried and trusted forms of propaganda - such as the humble leaflet - can still prove highly effective. The fifty images included are not all necessarily the most striking - rather they have been chosen because they illustrate recurring themes and devices (such as humour) and different mediums employed by propagandists - from early Egyptian coins eulogizing Alexander the Great to the psychological warfare used in the war against terrorism following the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, and the use of social media employed so widely in the current Covid pandemic.
Public opinion and the media form the foundation of the United
States' representative democracy. They are the subject of enormous
scrutiny by scholars, pundits, and ordinary citizens. This Oxford
Handbook takes on the "big questions" about public opinion and the
media--both empirical and normative--focusing on current debates
and social scientific research. Bringing together the thinking of a
team of leading academic experts, its chapters provide a cutting
assessment of contemporary research on public opinion, the media,
and their interconnections. Emphasizing changes in the mass media
and communications technology--the vast number of cable channels,
websites and blogs, and the new social media, which are changing
how news about political life is collected and conveyed--they
describe the evolving information interdependence of the media and
public opinion. In addition, TheOxford Handbook of American Public
Opinion and the Media reviews the wide range of influences on
public opinion, including the processes by which information
communicated through the media can affect the public. It describes
what has been learned from the latest research in psychology,
genetics, and studies of the impact of gender, race and ethnicity,
economic status, education and sophistication, religion, and
generational change on a wide range of political attitudes and
perceptions. The Handbook includes extensive discussion of how
public opinion and mass media coverage are studied through survey
research and increasingly through experiments using the latest
technological advances.
Michael L. Young's dictionary defines the most important terms in contemporary public opinion research. About 400 words mark out the field, words needed if one wants to understand the language of polling and to claim literacy in the field. This reference is designed for professionals working in the survey research field, for pollsters and those who produce polls, and for students and scholars concerned with public opinion. Journalists, political professionals, elected officials, and federal, state, and local officials will also find this guide to practice and usage in the field extremely valuable. A general introduction assesses the key literature dealing with polling, and a longer bibliography appears in the back of the book. The key terms are arranged alphabetically and a general index enables readers to trace subjects, themes, and ideas discussed under the various entries.
How our national identity has changed in significant and unexpected ways since the attacks of 9/11 Beautifully written and carefully reasoned, this bold and provocative work upends the conventional wisdom about the American reaction to crisis. Margulies demonstrates that for key elements of the post-9/11 landscape-especially support for counterterror policies like torture and hostility to Islam-American identity is not only darker than it was before September 11, 2001, but substantially more repressive than it was immediately after the attacks. These repressive attitudes, Margulies shows us, have taken hold even as the terrorist threat has diminished significantly. Contrary to what is widely imagined, at the moment of greatest perceived threat, when the fear of another attack "hung over the country like a shroud," favorable attitudes toward Muslims and Islam were at record highs, and the suggestion that America should torture was denounced in the public square. Only much later did it become socially acceptable to favor "enhanced interrogation" and exhibit clear anti-Muslim prejudice. Margulies accounts for this unexpected turn and explains what it means to the nation's identity as it moves beyond 9/11. We express our values in the same language, but that language can hide profound differences and radical changes in what we actually believe. "National identity," he writes, "is not fixed, it is made."
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the peculiarities of the current presidential election system not yet addressed in other publications. It argues that any rules for electing a President that may have a chance to replace the current ones should provide an equal representation of states as equal members of the Union, and of the nation as a whole. This book analyzes the National Popular Vote plan and shows that this plan may violate the Supreme Court decisions on the equality of votes cast in statewide popular elections held to choose state electors. That is, the National Popular Vote plan may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The book proposes a new election system in which the will of the states and the will of the nation as a whole are determined by direct popular elections for President and Vice President in the 50 states and in D.C. This system a) would elect President a candidate who is the choice of both the nation as a whole and of the states as equal members of the Union, b) would let the current system elect a President only if the nation as a whole and the states as equal members of the Union fail to agree on a common candidate, and c) would encourage the candidates to campaign nationwide. The second edition has been updated to include a proposal on how to make established non-major party presidential candidates and independent candidates welcome participants in national televised presidential debates with the major-party candidates.
"Manipulation of the American Voter" is a research-based examination of the theoretical and practical reasons for successful political advertising. It provides the means necessary to analyze political commercials, and by presenting the motives behind advertising strategies and tactics used in contemporary politics, the authors seek to free their readers from the inherent manipulation in political advertising. By analyzing political advertising as both a science and an art form, the authors unlock the mysteries of how millions of voters are manipulated each campaign season. This study, therefore, offers scholars and students of the electoral process the knowledge to see through the veil of political advertising and participate more fully in the political system.
This bold venture into political theory and comparative politics combines traditional concerns about democracy with modern analytical methods. It asks how contemporary democracies work, an essential stage in asking how they can be justified. An answer to both questions is found in the idea of the median mandate. The voter in the middle - the voice of the majority - empowers the centre party in parliament to translate his or her preferences into public policy. The median mandate provides a unified theory of democracy - pluralist, consensus, majoritarian, liberal, and populist - by replacing each qualified 'vision' with an integrated account of how representative institutions work. The unified theory is put to the test with comprehensive cross-national evidence covering 21 democracies from 1950 through to 1995. This exciting book will be of interest to specialists and general readers alike, representing as it does a reaffirmation of traditional democratic practice in an uncertain and threatening world. Comparative Politics is a series for students and teachers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. The General Editors are Max Kaase, Professor of Political Science, Vice President and Dean, School of Humanities and Social Science, International University, Bremen, Germany; and Kenneth Newton, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Southampton. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research.
Taking the reader through a long view of American history, What Happened to the Vital Center? offers a novel and important contribution to the ongoing scholarly and popular discussion of how America fell apart and what might be done to end the Cold Civil War that fractures the country and weakens the national resolve. In What Happened to the Vital Center?, Nicholas Jacobs and Sidney Milkis tackle a foundational question within American political history: Is current partisan polarization, aggravated by populist disdain for constitutional principles and institutions, a novel development in American politics? Populism is not a new threat to the country's democratic experiment, but now insurgents intrude directly on elections and government. During previous periods of populist unrest, the US was governed by resilient parties that moderated extremist currents within the political system. This began to crumble during the 1960s, as anti-institutionalist incursions into the Democratic and Republican organizations gave rise to reforms that empowered activists at the expense of the median voter and shifted the controlling power over parties to the executive branch. Gradually, the moderating influence that parties played in structuring campaigns and the policy process eroded to the point where extreme polarization dominated and decision-making power migrated to the presidency. Weakened parties were increasingly dominated by presidents and their partnerships with social activists, leading to a gridlocked system characterized by the politics of demonization and demagoguery. Executive-centered parties more easily ignore the sorts of moderating voices that had prevailed in an earlier era. While the Republican Party is more susceptible to the dangers of populism than the Democrats, both parties are animated by a presidency-led, movement-centered vision of democracy. After tracing this history, the authors dismiss calls to return to some bygone era. Rather, the final section highlights the ways in which the two parties can be revitalized as institutions of collective responsibility that can transform personal ambition and rancorous partisanship into principled conflict over the profound issues that now divide the country. The book will transform our understanding of how we ended up in our current state of extreme polarization and what we can do to fix it.
The southwest Virginia murder trials of a young schoolteacher named Edith Maxwell made her a cause celebre of the 1930s. No newspaper reader or radio listener could avoid hearing of her case in 1935 or 1936, and few magazines neglected to run at least one story on the case. In the media attention that it received, the Maxwell case rivaled the Scopes monkey trial of the 1920s, and for some it seemed to involve many of the same sociological issues--the conflict between modernism and tradition, between urban and rural values, between the sexes, and between generations. Feminist organizations like the National Women's Party and other women's business and professional organizations rallied to Edith's defense because women were not allowed on criminal juries in Virginia in the 1930s.
This book explores how new governments and societies deal with a legacy of past repression, in Portugal, Spain, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Germany after reunification, as well as Russia, the Southern Cone of Latin America and Central America, as well as South Africa. It looks at official truth commissions, trials and amnesties and purges and unofficial social initiatives to deal with the past. The book also assesses the significance of forms of reckoning with the past for a process of democratic deepening as well as the importance of international actors in shaping policies to deal with past legacies in some of the countries examined. |
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