The 2016 Presidential Election: The Causes and Consequences of a Political Earthquake critically analyzes the 2016 presidential election. The chapters in this book identify key factors behind the election of Donald J. Trump, explore the unconventional campaign, analyze the unexpected election result, evaluate the forecasting models, and speculate on the effect of the election outcome on politics and governance in the Trump Administration.

Understand the theoreticaland practicalaspects of political marketing!Over the past few years political marketing strategies have been refined with the help of new findings in political science research. Campaigns and Political Marketing clearly discusses the most recent political science research studies and theories that political activists and professionals can apply to effectively campaign for an issue or candidate. This text is an invaluable compilation of research, theory, an...

From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, “whistle-blower extraordinaire” (The Wall Street Journal), author of the best-selling The Death and Life of the Great American School System (“Important and riveting”—Library Journal), The Language Police (“Impassioned . . . Fiercely argued . . . Every bit as alarming as it is illuminating”—The New York Times), and other notable ...

One of the most urgent challenges in African economic development is to devise a strategy for improving statistical capacity. Reliable statistics, including estimates of economic growth rates and per-capita income, are basic to the operation of governments in developing countries and vital to nongovernmental organizations and other entities that provide financial aid to them. Rich countries and international financial institutions such as the World Bank allocate their deve...

Political advertising has been called the worst cancer in American society. Ads cost millions, and yet the entire campaign season is now filled with nasty and personal attacks. In this landmark six-year study, two of the nation's leading political scientists show exactly how cancerous the ad spot has become. 16 illustrations.

As the number of women in the U.S. Senate grows, so does the number of citizens represented by women senators. At the same time, gender remains a key factor in senators’ communications to constituents as well as in news media portrayals of senators. Focusing on 32 male and female senators during the 2006 congressional election year, Kim L. Fridkin and Patrick J. Kenney examine in detail senators’ official websites, several thousand press releases and local news stories, and surveys of 18,0...

Barack Obama's stunning victory in the 2008 presidential election will go down as one of the more pivotal in American history. Given America's legacy of racism, how could a relatively untested first-term senator with an African father defeat some of the giants of American politics? In The Obama Victory, Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson draw upon the best voter data available, The National Annenberg Election Survey, as well as interviews with key advisors to eac...

Who Votes Now? compares the demographic characteristics and political views of voters and nonvoters in American presidential elections since 1972 and examines how electoral reforms and the choices offered by candidates influence voter turnout. Drawing on a wealth of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the American National Election Studies, Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler demonstrate that the rich have consistently voted more than the poor for the pas...

Legislative member organizations (LMOs)—such as caucuses in the U.S. Congress and intergroups in the European Parliament—exist in lawmaking bodies around the world. Unlike parties and committees, LMOs play no obvious, predefined role in the legislative process. They provide legislators with opportunities to establish social networks with colleagues who share common interests. In turn, such networks offer valuable opportunities for the efficient exchange of policy-relevant—and sometimes oth...

Becoming a Candidate: Political Ambition and the Decision to Run for Office explores the factors that drive political ambition at the earliest stages. Using data from a comprehensive survey of thousands of eligible candidates, Jennifer L. Lawless systematically investigates what compels certain citizens to pursue elective positions and others to recoil at the notion. Lawless assesses personal factors, such as race, gender and family dynamics, that affect an eligible candidate's likelihood ...

Which get-out-the-vote efforts actually succeed in ethnoracial communities—and why? Analyzing the results from hundreds of original experiments, the authors of this book offer a persuasive new theory to explain why some methods work while others don’t.Exploring and comparing a wide variety of efforts targeting ethnoracial voters, Lisa García Bedolla and Melissa R. Michelson present a new theoretical frame—the Social Cognition Model of voting, based on an individual’s sense of civic...

Campaign contributions are widely viewed as a corrupting influence but most scholarly research concludes that they have marginal impact on legislative behavior. Lynda W. Powell shows that contributions have considerable influence in some state legislatures but very little in others. Using a national survey of legislators, she develops an innovative measure of influence and delineates the factors that explain this great variation across the 99 U.S. state legislative chambers.Powell ...