Elections ask voters to choose between political parties. But voters across the UK are increasingly being presented with fundamentally different, and largely disconnected, sets of political choices. This book is about this hollowing out of a genuinely British democratic politics: how and why it has occurred, and why it matters. Electoral choices across Britain became increasingly differentiated along national lines over much of the last half-century. In 2017, for the second general election in a row, four different parties came first in the UK's four nations. UK voters are increasingly faced with general election campaigns that are largely disconnected from each other. At the same time, voters acquire much of their information about the election from news-media based in London that display little understanding of these national distinctions. The UK continues to elect representatives to a single parliament. But the shared debates and sets of choices that tie a political community together are increasingly absent. Separate national political arenas and agendas still have to interact but in some respects the House of Commons increasingly resembles the European Parliament - whose members are democratically chosen but from a disconnected series of separate national electoral contests. This is deeply problematic for the long-term unity and integrity of the UK.

Examines how political parties navigate major election reforms by comparing electoral system changes in Russia and Ukraine at the same time, under different regimes In Party Politics in Russia and Ukraine, Bryon Moraski provides a window into the political landscapes of Russia and Ukraine, two countries that have clashed with each other-and struggled with their own popular revolts-in recent years. Drawing on election outcomes, party nominations, parliamentary voting, and other data, Moraski highlights how ruling parties, incumbent legislators, and others have adapted to major electoral system changes in both countries. Moraski sheds light on how authoritarian regimes-and the ruling parties that support them-have used changing conditions in their countries to consolidate their power, with varying success. Exploring the swiftly changing political arena of Eastern Europe, Party Politics in Russia and Ukraine offers timely insight into the impact of elections in the twenty-first century.

International parliaments are on the rise. An increasing number of international organizations establishes 'international parliamentary institutions' or IPIs, which bring together members of national parliaments or - in rare cases - elected representatives of member state citizens. Yet, IPIs have generally remained powerless institutions with at best a consultative role in the decision-making process of international organizations. Why do the member states of international organizations create IPIs but do not vest them with relevant institutional powers? This study argues that neither the functional benefits of delegation nor the internalization of democratic norms answer this question convincingly. Rather, IPIs are best understood as an instrument of strategic legitimation. By establishing institutions that mimic national parliaments, governments seek to ensure that audiences at home and in the wider international environment recognize their international organizations as democratically legitimate. At the same time, they seek to avoid being effectively constrained by IPIs in international governance. The Rise of International Parliaments provides a systematic study of the establishment and empowerment of IPIs based on a novel dataset. In a statistical analysis covering the world's most relevant international organizations and a series of case studies from all major world regions, we find two varieties of international parliamentarization. International organizations with general purpose and high authority create and empower IPIs to legitimate their region-building projects domestically. Alternatively, the establishment of IPIs is induced by the international diffusion of democratic norms and prominent templates, above all that of the European Parliament. Transformations in Governance is a major academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, and environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states to supranational institutions, subnational governments, and public-private networks. It brings together work that advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

What will happen to American democracy? The nation's past holds vital clues for understanding where we are now and where we are headed. In The Cycles of Constitutional Time, the eminent constitutional theorist Jack Balkin explains how America's constitutional system changes through the interplay among three cycles: the rise and fall of dominant political parties, the waxing and waning of political polarization, and alternating episodes of constitutional decay and constitutional renewal. If America's politics seems especially fraught today, it is because we are nearing the end of the Republican Party's political dominance, at the height of a long cycle of political polarization, and suffering from an advanced case of what he calls "constitutional rot." In fact, when people talk about constitutional crisis, Balkin explains, they are usually describing constitutional rot-the historical process through which republics become less representative and less devoted to the common good. Brought on by increasing economic inequality and loss of trust, constitutional rot threatens our constitutional system. But Balkin offers a message of hope: We have been through these cycles before, and we will get through them again. He describes what our politics will look like as polarization lessens and constitutional rot recedes. Balkin also explains how the cycles of constitutional time shape the work of the federal courts and theories about constitutional interpretation. He shows how the political parties have switched sides on judicial review not once but twice in the twentieth century, and what struggles over judicial review will look like in the coming decades. Drawing on literatures from history, law, and political science, this is a fascinating ride through American history with important lessons for the present and the future.

Donald Trump has forged a unique relationship with American exceptionalism, parting ways with how American politicians have long communicated this idea to the American public. Through systematic comparative analyses, this book details the various ways that Trump strategically altered and exploited the discourse of American exceptionalism to elevate not the nation, but himself personally, professionally, and politically. Jason Gilmore and Charles Rowling call this Trump's Exceptional Me Strategy and they document how it made Trump different from every president in modern American history. Beginning with the 2016 election, the authors show how Trump broke with tradition and instead of championing American exceptionalism, he actively portrayed the nation as an un-exceptional mess in need of a saviour. Placing blame at the feet of politicians-both Democrats and Republicans-for America's decline, Trump set himself up to be seen as the one person who could "Make America Exceptional Again." The authors then document how throughout his presidency and the 2020 presidential election Trump sought to convince Americans that he was the exceptional president, making the case at every turn how American exceptionalism had returned under his presidency and that he, and he alone, was to thank for it. Gilmore and Rowling illustrate how from the outset Trump's conception of American exceptionalism had almost nothing to do with the country's institutions, ideals, or its people.

He is a most unlikely revolutionary: a middle-aged, middle-class former grammar schoolboy who honed his radicalism on the mean streets of rural Shropshire. Last summer, this little-known outsider rode a wave of popular enthusiasm to win the Labour Party leadership by a landslide, with a greater mandate than any British political leader before him. This new edition of the critically acclaimed biography brings the Jeremy Corbyn story fully up to date, setting out how this very British iconoclast managed to snatch the leadership of a party he spent forty years rebelling against and, despite rebellion from within his own ranks, managed to galvanise millions to vote for him in the 2017 general election. Engaging, clear-sighted and above all revealing, Comrade Corbyn explores the extraordinary story of the most unexpected leader in modern British politics.

There has been a noticeable shift in the way the news is accessed and consumed, and most importantly, the rise of fake news has become a common occurrence in the media. With news becoming more accessible as technology advances, fake news can spread rapidly and successfully through social media, television, websites, and other online sources, as well as through the traditional types of newscasting. The spread of misinformation when left unchecked can turn fiction into fact and result in a mass misconception of the truth that shapes opinions, creates false narratives, and impacts multiple facets of society in potentially detrimental ways. With the rise of fake news comes the need for research on the ways to alleviate the effects and prevent the spread of misinformation. These tools, technologies, and theories for identifying and mitigating the effects of fake news are a current research topic that is essential for maintaining the integrity of the media and providing those who consume it with accurate, fact-based information. The Research Anthology on Fake News, Political Warfare, and Combatting the Spread of Misinformation contains hand-selected, previously published research that informs its audience with an advanced understanding of fake news, how it spreads, its negative effects, and the current solutions being investigated. The chapters within also contain a focus on the use of alternative facts for pushing political agendas and as a way of conducting political warfare. While highlighting topics such as the basics of fake news, media literacy, the implications of misinformation in political warfare, detection methods, and both technological and human automated solutions, this book is ideally intended for practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the current surge of fake news, the means of reducing its effects, and how to improve the future outlook.

Leaders without Partisans examines the changing impact of party leader evaluations on voters' behavior in parliamentary elections. The decline of traditional social cleavages, the pervasive mediatization of the political scene, and the media's growing tendency to portray politics in "personalistic" terms all led to the hypothesis that leaders matter more for the way individuals vote and, often, the way elections turn out. This study offers the most comprehensive longitudinal assessment of this hypothesis so far. The authors develop a composite theoretical framework - based on currently disconnected strands of research from party, media, and electoral studies - and test it empirically on the most encompassing set of national election study datasets ever assembled. The labor-intensive harmonization effort produces an unprecedented dataset pooling information for a total of 129 parliamentary elections conducted between 1961 and 2018 in 14 West European countries. The book provides evidence of the longitudinal growth in leader effects on vote choice and on turnout. The process of partisan dealignment and changes in the structure of mass communication in Western societies are identified as the main drivers of personalization in voting behavior.

This thought-provoking collection of essays analyses the complex, multi-faceted, and even contradictory nature of Stalinism and its representations. Stalinism was an extraordinarily repressive and violent political model, and yet it was led by ideologues committed to a vision of socialism and international harmony. The essays in this volume stress the complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory nature of Stalin, Stalinism, and Stalinist-style leadership, and. explore the complex picture that emerges. Broadly speaking, three important areas of debate are examined, united by a focus on political leadership: * The key controversies surrounding Stalin's leadership role * A reconsideration of Stalin and the Cold War * New perspectives on the cult of personality Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism is a crucial volume for all students and scholars of Stalin's Russia and Cold War Europe.

At factory gates and cottage doors, co-operative guilds and trade union branches, the radical suffragists of turn-of-the-century Britain took their message to women at the grassroots level in order to advance demands for equal pay, educational opportunities, better birth control, child allowances, and the right to work. Their strength lay in their democratic approach: opposed to violence, they felt that the vote was the key to wider rights for women.

One Hand Tied Behind Us draws from a wealth of unpublished material, local newspaper accounts. diaries, handwritten minute books, forgotten biographies, and interviews. It creates a vivid and moving portrait of the women who, almost 100 years ago, envisaged freedoms that are not secure even today. Widely acclaimed, it has become a suffrage classic, and to mark its twenty-first anniversary, Rivers Oram presents this revised edition with a new introduction by Jill Liddington.

In the crucible of the 2017 general election, a small group of progressive activists set about trying to change British political life for the better. Armed with the conviction that the old politics was irretrievably broken, the progressive alliance set itself the task of breaching the walls of Britain's tribal political culture. Over the seven weeks of the campaign, even as the struggle between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn built up to a stunning and utterly unexpected climax, the progressive alliance fought its own battle. Its aim was to bridge divides, start conversations and forge alliances on the ground between progressives - socialists, social democrats, liberals, Greens, Welsh and Scottish nationalists - working together against their common foe instead of competing self-destructively against one another. Based on first-hand testimony, All Together Now tells the dramatic story of how the progressive alliance helped shape the story of the 2017 election - and why its aims, its methods and above all its values will shape the future of 21st century politics.