The 2017 general election was supposed to be a walkover for the Conservative Party - but the voters had other ideas. In The Lost Majority, Lord Ashcroft draws on his unique research to explain why the thumping victory the Tories expected never happened. His findings reveal what real voters made of the campaign, why Britain refused Theresa May's appeal for a clear mandate to negotiate Brexit and where the party now stands after more than a decade of `modernisation' . And, critically, Ashcroft examines the challenges the Tories face in building a winning coalition when 13 million votes is no longer enough for outright victory. This is an indispensible guide that will provide food for thought to anyone wishing to examine in detail what really happened on 8 June, 2017, and how this will impact on future elections.

In the months before the 2015 election, Lord Ashcroft Polls conducted focus groups all over the country to find out whether the parties' frenetic campaigning was having any effect on the people it was supposed to impress: undecided voters in marginal seats. The reports, collected here for the first time, show what was going on behind the polling numbers - what people made of the stunts, scandals and mishaps, as well as the policies, plans and promises that constitute the race to Number Ten. As well as shedding light on voters' hopes and fears, the book asks crucial questions: which party leader is like a Chihuahua in a handbag? Which cartoon character does David Cameron most resemble? What would Ed Miliband do on a free Friday night? And is Nigel Farage more like Johnny Rotten or the Wurzels?

With a foreword by Isabel Hardman HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED...how people feel about sleeping with the political enemy? ...whether gambling markets are best at predicting political outcomes? ...who Santa Claus would vote for? Then look no further. More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box brings us another collection of concise chapters penned by leading political experts and delving into the fascinating field of electoral politics. Following on from the success of its bestselling predecessor, this illuminating book shines a light on how we vote in Britain and around the world. You'll learn about the shifting landscape of party politics and the perceptions and misconceptions that shape our opinions of our politicians and of each other. You'll learn about the factors informing voter habits - from class, race and gender to the internet and the weather. You'll also learn which political party has the most sexually satisfied supporters. Forget mind-numbing numbers and difficult demographics. This sharp and frequently hilarious volume is fizzing with accessible facts and figures that are more than just conversation starters - they're unexpected insights into the human condition.

Phone-in programmes on public and commercial radio channels have been a staple of popular Hong Kong politics since the 1990s. In the absence of a fully democratic system, they have played an influential role in channeling and mediating public opinion. This work examines the phenomenon of talk radio in Hong Kong, using as its analytical framework the idea of re-mediation. It argues that the circulation and re-circulation of talk radio content through the mainstream media is crucial in explaining the medium's social prominence and influence. The process has not only widened the dissemination of talk radio content, but has also established talk radio as a channel for free political expression, giving it a role in shaping serious debate not seen in many other societies. Drawing on interviews with radio personnel, analysis of radio and newspaper content, and audience surveys, Talk Radio explores the vital and influential world of Hong Kong's phone-in programmes. The book will be of interest to scholars of politics, media studies, and cultural studies both in Hong Kong and overseas.

Donald Trump's election as President of the United States confounded the pundits and crowned a year of political surprises. In Hopes And Fears, Lord Ashcroft sets out in compelling detail why America sent Trump to the White House. With the rigorous research and analysis that is his hallmark, he argues that - contrary many people's assumptions - the American people made the choice with their eyes wide open. We hear from swing-state voters in their own words as they wrestle with their decision and explain why they, and their country, want change - with all the risks it may entail. Drawing the parallels with the UK's Brexit referendum, the book explores the lessons of 2016 for both parties, the divisions within the American electorate and what they mean for the future. For anyone wondering how America came to choose its new leader, Hopes And Fears has the answers.

Examining the nature of public opinion in democratic societies, this Handbook succinctly illustrates the importance of public opinion as an instrument of popular control and democratic accountability. Expert contributors in the field provide a thorough review of a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of this timely topic. The concise but comprehensive chapters investigate the theoretical value of biological, contextual, psychological, sociological and economic perspectives when exploring public opinion. The Handbook also demonstrates useful insights that can be generated from quantitative or qualitative research designs from both an observational and experimental perspective. Furthermore, its informative assessment of the origins and structure of how public opinion is formed allows for a greater understanding of how policies are developed as a result. Providing a state-of-the-art review, this Handbook will be an excellent study resource for scholars of public opinion in political science, sociology and psychology. Political practitioners, particularly government officials, political operatives and pollsters will also find this informative and illuminating.

New media forums have created a unique opportunity for citizens to participate in a variety of social and political contexts. As new social technologies are being utilized in a variety of ways, the public is able to interact more effectively in activities within their communities. The Handbook of Research on Citizen Engagement and Public Participation in the Era of New Media addresses opportunities and challenges in the theory and practice of public involvement in social media. Highlighting various communication modes and best practices being utilized in citizen-involvement activities, this book is a critical reference source for professionals, consultants, university teachers, practitioners, community organizers, government administrators, citizens, and activists.

European integration has generated a wide array of economic, political, and social opportunities beyond the nation state. European citizens are free to obtain their academic degree in Germany, earn their money in London, invest it in Luxembourg, and retire to Spain. An early theorist of European integration, Karl Deutsch expected this development to promote a collective identity and public support for European integration: by interacting across borders, Europeans would become aware of their shared values and beliefs, and eventually acquire a common 'we feeling'. Experiencing European Integration puts these expectations under scrutiny by developing a comprehensive theoretical model that helps us understand how transnational interactions relate to orientations towards European integration. An extensive analysis of survey data covering the 27 EU member states provides a thorough empirical test of transactionalist hypotheses. Findings show that individual transnationalism indeed strongly and positively influences EU support, but that only a young, wealthy, and highly educated minority take part in cross-border interactions. The book further shows that the effectiveness of transnational interactions in generating EU support is contingent on a number of factors such as their purpose and scope. Importantly, increased transnational interactions result in negative externalities among those who do not become transnationally active themselves. By discussing the implications of transnationalism for the theoretical debate and current policy, this volume will provide a unique analysis of a key dynamic of European integration.

Voting Advice Applications - VAAs - have become a widespread online feature of electoral campaigns in Europe, attracting growing interest from social and political scientists. But until now, there has been no systematic and reliable comparative assessment of these tools. Previously published research on VAAs has resulted almost exclusively in national case studies. This lack of an integrated framework for analysis has made research on VAAs unable to serve the scientific goal of systematic knowledge accumulation. Against this background, Matching Voters With Parties and Candidates aims first at a comprehensive overview of the VAA phenomenon in a truly comparative perspective. Featuring the biggest number of European experts on the topic ever assembled, the book answers a number of open questions and addresses debates in VAA research. It also aims to bridge the gap between VAA research and related fields of political science.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
The Oxford Handbooks of American Politics are a set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of scholarship on American politics. Each volume focuses on a particular aspect of the field. The project is under the General Editorship of George C. Edwards III, and distinguished specialists in their respective fields edit each volume. The Handbooks aim not just to report on the discipline, but also to shape it as scholars critically assess the scholarship on a topic and propose directions in which it needs to move. The series is an indispensable reference for anyone working in American politics.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Based on cutting-edge research, this edited volume examines how citizens and political elites perceive the legitimacy of regional integration in Europe and the Americas. It analyses public opinion and political discourse on the EU, NAFTA and MERCOSUR, arguing that legitimation patterns shape the development of regional governance.

Those of us on the lookout for insights into social behavior must be impressed when a book strikes us as being powerful enough to shake firmly held beliefs in a single reading. Even as we explore the vagueness of social science, we unveil bias that prejudices how we think, what we teach. One bias in the social sciences derives from the influence of `cognitive dissonance' invoking thoughts of message reinforcement, not opinion change, and suggesting minimal effects of the press. Author David Fan goes far in dissuading those of us who have fallen under the minimalist spell. His clear examination of the power of the American press on public opinion provides compelling evidence for the profound impact the press has on our thinking. Fan, a cellular biologist, parades an impressive array of data to support his contention that opinion can be measured by the application of his mathematical model to the content of national news reports. His findings confirm a clear connection between the content of national news and the results of national opinion polls. Public Relations Review This incisive examination of the power of information in society uses a new mathematical model, ideodynamics, to describe social responses to information and suggests that public opinion can be swayed in a predictable fashion by messages acting on the populace. In addition to mathematical modeling, this book also introduces a new method for computer content analysis able to score text for its support of different viewpoints. The method is highly flexible and adaptable, yielding great precision for any topic in any language. Although previous work has indicated that the press is able to set the agenda with regard to public opinion, this book is unique in demonstating that the press also is able to mold opinion within that agenda. Fan begins with a presentation of ideodynamics followed by an examination of the ability of the mathematical model to incorporate previous theories. He then considers data applications and discusses the conclusions to be drawn from the work. The empirical testing uses the ideodynamic equations and scores from the text analysis to predict time trends of public opinion which correspond strikingly well with actual poll measurements.

The controlling idea for this study, and a major theme in classical and modern social analysis, is the distinction between public and private sectors in liberal societies. Professor Rusciano's purpose is to consider how the common ground defined by the use of the notion public in public opinion and public choice can lead to a revitalization of the term in modern social analysis. In Chapter 1, the author shows that no public choice procedure may distinguish consistently between public and private issues, public and private goods, and public and private decision rules. He also shows that no procedure may consistently define the public realm implied by the term public choice. To illustrate this problem, the author scrutinizes three paradoxes of public choice: ArroW's General Possibility theorem, Olson's logic of collective action, and Barry's problem of legitimizing responsive choice procedures. Succeeding chapters discuss the definition of public advanced in Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory of public opinion; elaborate on the notion of public and the Arrow problem; and apply the theorems derived from Noelle-Neumann's theory to the three paradoxes of public choice. Chapter 5 theoretically applies the argument developed in previous chapters to economic behavior through a critique of Fred Hirsch's Social Limits to Growth and to the problem of collective action. The chapter concludes with a formal model and three hypotheses which are tested in Chapters 6 and 7 through empirical analyses of classic problems in collective action and choice, and as models of a revised notion of social preference. Finally, the revised notion is illustrated by observations about consumer behavior, conventions of language, and the definitions and functions of social and state institutions. Isolation and Paradox evolved from lectures and seminars delivered while Professor Rusciano was Visiting Professor at the Institut fur Publizistik at the University of Mainz, the German Federal Republic. Political and social scientists, as well as students in political theory, contemporary political analysis, comparative politics, public opinion, and political methodology will find this careful, logical study and its full complement of tables and charts necessary and informative reading.

This book provides readers with the first comprehensive study of South Africa's foreign policy conducted in a multilateral setting, by placing on record over 1000 of South Africa's votes at the United Nations over a 20 year period. The study investigates consistency in terms of South Africa's declared foreign policy and its actual voting practices at the United Nations. Democratic South Africa's Foreign Policy: Voting Behaviour in the United Nations offers a compendium of South Africa's United Nations behaviour during a poignant transitional period in the country's recent history. In setting out a framework for analysing the conduct of other countries' voting behaviour in parallel with this study, it can be used to advance the field as a useful comparative tool. This book presents the material needed for International Relations scholars and practitioners in the field to make a reasoned and reflective assessment of this dimension of South Africa's foreign policy.