Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> Political Process - Campaigns & Elections

This book analyzes how the behavior of voters, parties, and the mass media in European Parliament elections affects domestic politics and how, in turn, domestic politics affects those behaviors. The contributors discuss election turnout and party choice, the contract between the European Parliament and national elections, the importance of citizens' attitudes toward European integration, the relationship between political parties' domestic policies and their stances on European integration, and the ways in which the mass media and election campaigns affect electoral outcomes. On the basis...

The idea that a radical transformation of the Presidency took place during the FDR administration has become one of the most widely accepted tenets of contemporary scholarship. According to this view, the Constitutional Presidency was a product of the Founders' fear of arbitrary power. Only with the development of a popular extra-Constitutional Presidency did the powerful "modern Presidency" emerge.

David K. Nichols argues to the contrary that the "modern Presidency" was not created by FDR. What happened during FDR's administration was a transformation in the size and scope of the...

That large financial contributions distort American politics and American democracy is an idea that stands as a truism in political debate. It has fired reform movements; it has inspired round after round of efforts to limit who can give to candidates and parties, how much they can give, and how much campaigns can spend. The laws have generated constitutional arguments about free speech, a still inconclusive literature on whether contributions actually shape policy, and a great deal of work for lawyers and financial analysts who monitor compliance. In the wake of Enron's collapse and...

Using a number of states as case studies, especially in New England, Changing Patterns of Voting in the Northern United States explains why large shifts in voter partisan preferences have occurred since the 1950s in that section of the country. In these Northern states, citizens of New England Yankee or Norwegian ancestry and voters with higher educational levels have abandoned historical preferences for the national Republican party to vote in increasing percentages for Democratic presidential candidates in almost every election since 1952. Many of these areas in the past...

Advertising overwhelms news coverage. That is the essence of the point Montague Kern drives home repeatedly throughout her insightful examination of political advertising in the eighties. . . . Any professional interested in political advertising would profit from reading this book. It also would be useful to an undergraduate class on political communication or advertising.

"Journal of Communication"

Kern's work joins a spate of books published in the 1980s on the nature, production, effect, and importance of televised political advertising in US elections. Not, however, old wine in...

This book describes what the authors identify as an emerging political crisis in U.S. politics: the possible winning of the presidency by a candidate with far fewer votes than his or her opponent. David W. Abbott and James P. Levine stress both the irrationality and peculiar nature of the current electoral system, emphasizing recent and current political developments. On the basis of their computer analysis of past elections and modern political realities, the authors predict that within twenty years it is very likely that the United States will produce a wrong winner. In explaining how...

This is the only full-length study to examine how different electoral systems impact the election of women and minorities to public office in the United States. Rule and Zimmerman have brought together leading scholars to show how different systems affect local, state, and national elections. Important demographic changes, new opportunities, and formidable problems are underscored in analyses of the effects of, among many other things, cumulative voting, judicial election systems, multimember and single-member districts, and reapportionment.

This study is unusual in combining an overall...

This revised and updated edition remains the only book-length rhetorical analysis of national political debates from 1960 to the present. The contributors, all rhetorical critics, answer important questions about political debating in the United States, including: Why is the press involved in political debates? Why are debates likely to be an enduring part of our presidential campaigns? Why are some candidates successful as debaters while others are not? Chapter authors offer insight into the goals commonly shared by political debaters and the rhetorical strategies most frequently used by...

Since Nimmo and Savage's groundbreaking work, "Candidates and Their Images" (1976), there has been no book dedicated solely to the examination of political candidate images. This volume adds to the development of the candidate image construct initiated by Nimmo and Savage. It provides a compendium of state-of-the-art theory and research of candidate images and image formation in the U.S. presidential elections. The contributors to this work, among the best-known in the field of political communication, describe and explain how presidential election results hinge on voter perceptions of...

As Dan Nimmo notes in his introduction, "Inside Political Campaigns" endeavors to trace the sources of professional campaign wizardry by encapsulating the theories and concepts that practitioners and scholars alike claim to guide and rationalize consultants' magical weaving of strategies, tactics, and techniques into a 'winning tapestry of political communication.' This study presents the theoretical areas political communication consultants draw upon in making strategic and tactical decisions in political campaigns. And it provides an understanding of what motivates political consultants...

In this volume Rozell and Peterson bring together a collection of new essays exploring the unparalleled impact of Franklin D. Roosevelt on the modern presidency. Of all the modern presidents, FDR looms largest. Indeed, most scholars date the origins of the modern presidency to FDR, and many assert that no one since has achieved his level of greatness in office.

The essays are organized into two broad sections: The first examines FDR's impact on the creation and development of the administrative presidency and the legacy of the New Deal; the second looks at FDR's legacy to presidential...

Zimmerman examines in detail the use of the recall by United States voters to remove elected state and local officials from office. The arguments of recall proponents and opponents are analyzed, and model constitutional and statutory provisions are developed to guide governments considering adoption of the recall or revision of current recall provisions.

This book is the first since 1912 devoted to a national evaluation of the recall. The recall currently is authorized by a constitutional or statutory provision in 26 states and by home rule charters in a number of additional states....

This essay collection examines ethical concerns related to the traditional areas of political communication, including campaigns, media, discourse, and advertising, as well as new technologies, including the Internet. In total, the collection provides one of the few volumes to examine political ethics from an academic perspective rather than from a moralistic or rule orientation.

Bruce Gronbeck provides an assessment of presidential campaigns, arguing that ethical judgments of citizens are based on candidates' actions and motives, character, and competence. Ronald Lee explores...

Interest in voting systems and voting system reform is growing in the United States. Voting systems--the procedures by which we cast votes and elect our public officials--are a crucial part of the democratic election process. The decision to use one kind of voting system rather than another has far-reaching political consequences. Among other things, voting systems help to determine which officials are elected to run our governments, the variety of parties that voters have to choose from at the polls, whether political minorities can win any representation, and whether the majority will...

Interest in voting systems and voting system reform is growing in the United States. Voting systems--the procedures by which we cast votes and elect our public officials--are a crucial part of the democratic election process. The decision to use one kind of voting system rather than another has far-reaching political consequences. Among other things, voting systems help to determine which officials are elected to run our governments, the variety of parties that voters have to choose from at the polls, whether political minorities can win any representation, and whether the majority will...

Presidential campaigns have seen revolutionary changes in the past few decades in the United States and elsewhere. These changes include rapid advances in communications technology and marketing and survey methodology; an increased involvement of non-party groups and campaign professionals in electoral politics; a decreased role for political parties in the recruitment, screening, and nominating of candidates; and dramatic changes in campaign finance laws. While changes in presidential campaigning have not gone unnoticed, analysis of these changes is typically included in general works on...

Rose uses excerpts from advertising campaigns and government documents obtained through access to information legislation and archival data, much of which has been recently declassified and never before published, in this first comprehensive book-length investigation of state advertising. While its focus is on Canada, the book will be of interest to researchers of communications, politics, or advertising in any nation whose government advertises.