The roots of President Obama's politics and presidential campaign strategy are traced in this up-to-the-minute political biography. The work chronicles his career from his successful run in 1996 to represent Chicago's South Side in the Illinois Senate to his failed challenge in 2000 to the South Side's incumbent in the U.S. House to this partial term as the junior U.S. senator from Illinois beginning in 2004 and finally to his landslide election to the U.S. presidency in 2008. Dupuis and Boeckelman analyze in illuminating detail the critical ways in which the political calculus so...

In recent years, more and more high-profile women candidates have been running for executive office in democracies all around the world. "Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: A Global Comparison of Women's Campaigns for Executive Office" is the first study to undertake an international comparison of women's campaigns for highest office and to identify the commonalities among them. For example, women candidates often begin as front-runners as the idea of a woman president captures the public imagination, followed by a decline in popularity as stereotypes and gendered media coverage kick in...