The American Election 2012


Book Description

Elections capture a sense of national identity and imply a future direction for the nation. The book seeks to unravel how elections and policies act together dynamically by analyzing parties, strategies, foreign and domestic policies, and the role of religion in political dialogue.




The 2016 Presidential Election


Book Description

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.




The Election of 1860


Book Description

Because of its extraordinary consequences and because of Abraham Lincoln's place in the American pantheon, the presidential election of 1860 is probably the most studied in our history. But perhaps for the same reasons, historians have focused on the contest of Lincoln versus Stephen Douglas in the northern free states and John Bell versus John C. Breckinridge in the slaveholding South. In The Election of 1860 a preeminent scholar of American history disrupts this familiar narrative with a clearer and more comprehensive account of how the election unfolded and what it was actually about. Most critically, the book counters the common interpretation of the election as a referendum on slavery and the Republican Party's purported threat to it. However significantly slavery figured in the election, The Election of 1860 reveals the key importance of widespread opposition to the Republican Party because of its overtly anti-southern rhetoric and seemingly unstoppable rise to power in the North after its emergence in 1854. Also of critical importance was the corruption of the incumbent administration of Democrat James Buchanan—and a nationwide revulsion against party. Grounding his history in a nuanced retelling of the pre-1860 story, Michael F. Holt explores the sectional politics that permeated the election and foreshadowed the coming Civil War. He brings to light how the campaigns of the Republican Party and the National (Northern) Democrats and the Constitutional (Southern) Democrats and the newly formed Constitutional Union Party were not exclusively regional. His attention to the little-studied role of the Buchanan Administration, and of perceived threats to the preservation of the Union, clarifies the true dynamic of the 1860 presidential election, particularly in its early stages.




Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections


Book Description

Why do parties and governments cheat in elections they cannot lose? This book documents the widespread use of blatant and excessive manipulation of elections and explains what drives this practice. Alberto Simpser shows that, in many instances, elections are about more than winning. Electoral manipulation is not only a tool used to gain votes, but also a means of transmitting or distorting information. This manipulation conveys an image of strength, shaping the behavior of citizens, bureaucrats, politicians, parties, unions and businesspeople to the benefit of the manipulators, increasing the scope for the manipulators to pursue their goals while in government and mitigating future challenges to their hold on power. Why Governments and Parties Manipulate Elections provides a general theory about what drives electoral manipulation and empirically documents global patterns of manipulation.




Elections Have Consequences


Book Description




How Dictatorships Work


Book Description

Explains how dictatorships rise, survive, and fall, along with why some but not all dictators wield vast powers.




Election Interference


Book Description

Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election produced the biggest political scandal in a generation, marking the beginning of an ongoing attack on democracy. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Russia was found to have engaged in more “information operations,” a practice that has been increasingly adopted by other countries. In Election Interference, Jens David Ohlin makes the case that these operations violate international law, not as a cyberwar or a violation of sovereignty, but as a profound assault on democratic values protected by the international legal order under the rubric of self-determination. He argues that, in order to confront this new threat to democracy, countries must prohibit outsiders from participating in elections, enhance transparency on social media platforms, and punish domestic actors who solicit foreign interference. This important book should be read by anyone interested in protecting election integrity in our age of social media disinformation.




Competitive Elections and Democracy in America


Book Description

Competition seems to be an inevitable part of present-day elections in the United States. However, recent publications have debated whether we should encourage or discourage competitive elections. In Competitive Elections and Democracy in America, Heather Evans closely examines the debate over competition in elections and questions whether or not they are beneficial for democracy in the US. Evans clearly lays out the basis of the debate over competition and defines what exactly constitutes a competitive election. She then uses an innovative data set that she assembled to analyze the 2006-2010 congressional elections, testing whether the competitiveness of an election affects citizens’ political knowledge, political interest, and opinions of Congress, their representatives, and the governmental system as a whole. She subsequently evaluates the positive effects that competitive elections have on constituencies, and in turn gives equal weight to the negative effects. An examination of the effects "ugly" campaigns have on voters is also incorporated, relevant to today’s oft-used "mud-slinging" campaign tactics. Evans concludes with a thoughtful and analytical assessment of whether competition is valuable for elections, and how to increase competition if it indeed has merit for political campaigns. Through the book’s analyses, Evans demonstrates that competitive elections do have lasting effects on voters that go beyond just the length of a campaign. Her research reinforces the vital role that political competition plays in modern democracies, and offers a careful evaluation of how and why competitive elections affect citizens in the US.




Securing the Vote


Book Description

During the 2016 presidential election, America's election infrastructure was targeted by actors sponsored by the Russian government. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy examines the challenges arising out of the 2016 federal election, assesses current technology and standards for voting, and recommends steps that the federal government, state and local governments, election administrators, and vendors of voting technology should take to improve the security of election infrastructure. In doing so, the report provides a vision of voting that is more secure, accessible, reliable, and verifiable.




Inside the Mind of a Voter


Book Description

An in-depth look into the psychology of voters around the world, how voters shape elections, and how elections transform citizens and affect their lives Could understanding whether elections make people happy and bring them closure matter more than who they vote for? What if people did not vote for what they want but for what they believe is right based on roles they implicitly assume? Do elections make people cry? This book invites readers on a unique journey inside the mind of a voter using unprecedented data from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Africa, and Georgia throughout a period when the world evolved from the centrist dominance of Obama and Mandela to the shock victories of Brexit and Trump. Michael Bruter and Sarah Harrison explore three interrelated aspects of the heart and mind of voters: the psychological bases of their behavior, how they experience elections and the emotions this entails, and how and when elections bring democratic resolution. The authors examine unique concepts including electoral identity, atmosphere, ergonomics, and hostility. From filming the shadow of voters in the polling booth, to panel study surveys, election diaries, and interviews, Bruter and Harrison unveil insights into the conscious and subconscious sides of citizens’ psychology throughout a unique decade for electoral democracy. They highlight how citizens’ personality, memory, and identity affect their vote and experience of elections, when elections generate hope or hopelessness, and how subtle differences in electoral arrangements interact with voters’ psychology to trigger different emotions. Inside the Mind of a Voter radically shifts electoral science, moving away from implicitly institution-centric visions of behavior to understand elections from the point of view of voters.