Abstract: From Louis Brandeis to Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas, the nomination of federal judges has generated intense political conflict. With the coming retirement of one or more Supreme Court Justices-and threats to filibuster lower court judges-the selection process is likely to be, once again, the center of red-hot partisan debate. In Advice and Consent, two leading legal scholars, Lee Epstein and Jeffrey A. Segal, offer a brief, illuminating Baedeker to this highly important procedure, discussing everything from constitutional background, to crucial differences in the nomination of judges and justices, to the role of the Judiciary Committee in vetting nominees. Epstein and Segal shed light on the role played by the media, by the American Bar Association, and by special interest groups (whose efforts helped defeat Judge Bork). Though it is often assumed that political clashes over nominees are a new phenomenon, the authors argue that the appointment of justices and judges has always been a highly contentious process-one largely driven by ideological and partisan concerns. The reader discovers how presidents and the senate have tried to remake the bench, ranging from FDR's controversial "court packing" scheme to the Senate's creation in 1978 of 35 new appellate and 117 district court judgeships, allowing the Democrats to shape the judiciary for years. The authors conclude with possible "reforms," from the so-called nuclear option, whereby a majority of the Senate could vote to prohibit filibusters, to the even more dramatic suggestion that Congress eliminate a judge's life tenure either by term limits or compulsory retirement. With key appointments looming on the horizon, Advice and Consent provides everything concerned citizens need to know to understand the partisan rows that surround the judicial nominating process.

Abstract: Based on the revised social contact theory, correlates of cross-ethnic friend nomination among 580 African American, 948 Asian-descent, 860 Latino, and 3986 White adolescents were examined. Socioeconomic and academic disparities between ethnic groups differentiated cross-ethnic friend nomination between schools for all groups but African Americans. For all groups, cross-ethnic friend nomination was less likely among students who preferred same-ethnic friends. Academic orientations were associated with cross-ethnic friend nomination positively for African American and Latino, but negatively for White participants. Longer family residence in the U.S. and English language facility was associated positively with cross-ethnic friend nomination for Asian-descent and Latino participants. Results point to the need to differentiate hypotheses by ethnic group, and to consider individual-in-context models in cross-ethnic friend nomination.

Abstract: This paper examines the persuasability of rhetorical value framing within a presidential nominating campaign, in an effort to understand how values and value-laden language may provide useful signals in electoral contexts where partisan cues are absent. Relying on a survey-experiment conducted during the 2000 Republican nomination campaign, I evaluate the relative persuasiveness of arguments framed in either individualistic or egalitarian terms. Drawing upon an “active-receiver” model of framing effects, I posit that Republican primary voters respond more readily to candidates when they use individualistic frames than when they use egalitarian frames, because individualism is a more “chronically accessible” value construct for Republicans. Furthermore, I hypothesize that this dynamic is particularly pronounced among more educated respondents, who have been trained to recognize abstract value cues and automatically apply them to applied political contexts. The experimental findings support these hypotheses.

Abstract: This book explores how the lower federal court appointment process became vastly politicized in the modern era. Scherer develops a theory of "elite mobilization," positing that lower court appointments have always been used by politicians for electoral purposes, but because of two historic changes to American institutions in the 1950s and 1960s-the breakdown of the old party system, and a federal judiciary reception to expanding individuals' constitutional rights-politicians shifted from an appointment system dominated by patronage to a system dominated by new policy-oriented appointment strategies. The use of these new strategies not only resulted in partisan warfare during the nomination and confirmation stages of the appointment process, but also led to party-polarized voting in the lower federal courts. Employing exclusive data of judicial decision-making from the New Deal era through the present, Scherer demonstrates that there was little party-polarized voting in the lower federal courts until the late 1960s, and that once politicians began to use elite mobilization strategies, significant party-polarized voting in the lower federal courts resulted. Accordingly, elite mobilization strategies have affected not only politics in Washington, but also the way justice is distributed across the country.

Abstract: We analyze the Supreme Court nomination process in order to provide a general explanation of presidents’ propensity to win confirmation battles even in the face of an ideologically hostile Senate. The analysis serves two purposes. First, we argue that employing the conventional measure of the Senate’s power to constrain the president’s choice of nominees—the median senator—provides an inaccurate picture of this process. In its stead we argue that the filibuster pivot (or the sixtieth most liberal or conservative senator) more accurately captures the Senate’s power over the president (Krehbiel 1998). Second, we argue that even under this more stringent spatial constraint, presidents still have the ability to win most confirmation battles with the Senate. Indeed, our results indicate that presidents often overcome situations where the Senate should reject their nominees, or where it should force them to make a less desirable choice, by invoking political capital.

Abstract: A collaborative nomination algorithm is provided for disseminating information amongst a plurality of collaborating vehicles in an inter-vehicle communication network. The method includes: receiving an incoming vehicle communication message at a recipient vehicle from one of the collaborating vehicles; nominating one of the collaborating vehicles identified in the incoming vehicle communication message to broadcast a subsequent vehicle communication message; and transmitting an outgoing vehicle communication message from the recipient vehicle, where the outgoing vehicle communication message identifies the vehicle nominated to broadcast the subsequent vehicle communication message.

Abstract: The nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court justices has, in recent years, become a battleground like no other. Bruising Senate confirmation hearings for failed nominee Robert Bork and successful nominee Clarence Thomas left the reputation of all branches of government in disarray and the participants-and the nation-exhausted. The Senate's Constitutional prerogative to provide advice and consent to the President's nominations to the highest court in the land has given rise to political grandstanding and ideological battles. Less well known is how other players-interest groups, the news media, and, through their involvement, the general public-also affect the conduct and outcome of the Supreme Court nomination process. Electing Justice reveals how from the late 1960s on, the role of these other players grew in intensity to the point that the nomination process would be unrecognizable to its original devisers, the Framers of the Constitution. Over the past quarter century, live television coverage of Senate hearings, "murder boards" in preparation for those hearings, a flood of press releases, television and radio advertisements, and public opinion polls all characterize nominations. Unlike earlier, more elite-governed processes, the involvement of outside groups has become highly public and their effect on the outcome of some nominations is now widely accepted. How should we respond to this informal democratization of the selection process? The genie, Davis contends, cannot be put back into the bottle and we cannot return to a non-political, elite-driven ideal. Davis concludes with several controversial recommendations that preserve the public role while avoiding the excesses of past controversial nominations. By embracing the public's new role in the examination of nominees we can ensure a democratic process and secure an independent and accountable judicial branch.

Abstract: William H. Riker argued that the most distinctive aspect of federalism is "the consti tutionally assured potential for local governments to disrupt."1 Taken too far, inter governmental conflicts could make policymaking unresponsive and inefficient. Riker argued that such disharmony, when not effectively eliminated by the (^cen tralization of the administrative structure of the state, can be mediated by the central ization of the political party system. His argument focused on two dimensions of the party system: the distribution of partisan loyalties between central and subnational government and the tendency of locally elected politicians to articulate local inter ests. According to Riker, the first dimension of disharmony is more likely to be con trolled where the same party or alliance controls national government and most or all of the subnational units. This argument assumes that national parties are disciplined around partisan brokers who reside at the national level. These conditions are also crucial in reducing the tendency of subnational politicians to articulate local interests to the detriment of their affiliations. Therefore, centralized, disciplined parties with high degrees of concordance in partisan loyalties across the national-subnational divide are able to limit intergovernmental conflict. Riker's theory directly influenced more recent comparative studies of decentral ization that follow his notion that party system structures are the key independent variables in explaining the nature of intergovernmental relations. Most recently, the seminal work by Eliza Willis, Christopher Garman, and Stephan Haggard focuses on the location of party brokers, party leaders who shape the careers of politicians on the national and subnational levels through control over nominations and placement on electoral lists.2 In party systems in which these leaders are located in subnational government, the state is more likely to be decentralized in its policy responsibilities, revenue-raising powers, and expenditures since these resources will flow to the cen ters of power that shape the political interests of national policymakers.3 There is an ongoing tension between national and subnational politicians in which national par tisans, especially those in government, prefer to limit the autonomy of subnational governments in order to maximize their own capacity to distribute resources across a country based on the criteria of need and expected political payoffs.4 Closed elec toral lists empower party leaders who control not only nomination of candidates but

Abstract: Chapter 1 The New Face Of American Politics Chapter 2 The Bush Presidency Chapter 3 The Democratic Nomination Contest Chapter 4 The General Election Campaign Chapter 5 Congressional and State Elections Chapter 6 Electoral Reform and the Future of the Parties

Abstract: One of the challenges that researchers forecasting presidential nominations must overcome is the ability to make their predictions in a more timely manner. Two models successfully forecast wins for Al Gore and George Bush as the respective Democratic and Republican nominees in 2000 (Adkins and Dowdle 2001b; Mayer 2003a). Unfortunately, the lead time of each model was so short that neither was published until well after the party nominations were effectively secured (Democrat Bill Bradley and Republican John McCain both withdrew from contention on March 9). While scholars forecasting the general election employ a variety of measures of presidential approval and indicators of economic performance available many months before the date of the general election, the data in the nomination forecasting models are generally not available until late January or early February of the election year. The principal objective of this research is to investigate whether lead time can be improved by making use of data available well in advance of the beginning of the primary season. A secondary objective of this research is to address methodological issues surrounding the data traditionally used. Polling and fundraising are the two principal sources of data for forecasting presidential nominations. Unfortunately, these data are highly correlated and raise important questions about the validity of forecasting models (Adkins and Dowdle 2000, 2001a, 2001b; Steger 2000; Norrander 2000b). It is reasonable to assume that donors to presidential campaigns are strategic, choosing those who are well-known, well-respected, and viable candidates to win the nomination and general election. Thus, with only a few notable exceptions, such as John Connally in 1980 and Phil Gramm in 1996, fundraising in the early days of the campaign closely mirrors candidate standings in the polls. This research explores whether alternative measures of financial support and data available earlier in the year prior to the election can overcome these issues in forecasting presidential nominations and still produce accurate predictions of the party nominees well before the primary season begins. Forecasting and the Exhibition Season Since the reform movement of the 1970s, both major parties effectively selected their presidential nominees during the primary season held in the months before the conventions (Aldrich 1980). Although considered quite unstable throughout the 1980s, the presidential nomination process settled into a "rhythm" or "pattern" in the 1990s that led to a greater degree of predictability in determining nomination outcomes (see Barilleaux and Adkins 1993; Mayer 1996a). Part of the reason for the stability is the emergence of an "exhibition season" prior to bellwether races such as the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. (1) Before the reforms, very little campaign activity occurred in the year prior to the presidential election. In fact, the dominant paradigm in presidential nominations focused on generating momentum during the primary campaign by winning or finishing "above expectations" in early primaries and caucuses (see Bartels 1988). While frontrunners existed at the start of the primary season, "dark horse" candidates such as George McGovern and Jimmy Carter successfully converted their strong performance into resources that could be used to finance their campaigns in subsequent primaries. Soon after the McGovern-Fraser reforms were implemented, it became apparent that exhibition season campaign activities would significantly impact nomination outcomes (Keech and Matthews 1976; Hadley 1976; Goldstein 1978). The frontloading of primaries earlier in the campaign calendar that began in 1988 stabilized the system as candidates adapted their strategy by raising money and organizing much earlier. At the outset of the year prior to the presidential election aspirants generally have little money, no formal organization, and little national name recognition, but by the end of the year these candidates issue formal declarations of their candidacy, raise millions of dollars, hire hundreds of professional staff, open a dozen or more state offices, and fine-tune their campaign message. …

Abstract: Abstract The nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court justices has, in recent years, become a battleground like no other. Bruising Senate confirmation hearings for failed nominee Robert Bork and successful nominee Clarence Thomas left the reputation of all branches of government in disarray and the participants--and the nation--exhausted. The Senate's Constitutional prerogative to provide advice and consent to the President's nominations to the highest court in the land has given rise to political grandstanding and ideological battles. Less well known is how other players--interest groups, the news media, and, through their involvement, the general public--also affect the conduct and outcome of the Supreme Court nomination process. Electing Justice reveals how from the late 1960s on, the role of these other players grew in intensity to the point that the nomination process would be unrecognizable to its original devisers, the Framers of the Constitution. Over the past quarter century, live television coverage of Senate hearings, "murder boards" in preparation for those hearings, a flood of press releases, television and radio advertisements, and public opinion polls all characterize nominations. Unlike earlier, more elite-governed processes, the involvement of outside groups has become highly public and their effect on the outcome of some nominations is now widely accepted. How should we respond to this informal democratization of the selection process? The genie, Davis contends, cannot be put back into the bottle and we cannot return to a non-political, elite-driven ideal. Davis concludes with several controversial recommendations that preserve the public role while avoiding the excesses of past controversial nominations. By embracing the public's new role in the examination of nominees we can ensure a democratic process and secure an independent and accountable judicial branch.

Abstract: ADA scores and Nominate scores are used for the first time to examine the influence of spatial voting records on which candidate wins the party’s presidential nomination and on which nominee wins the general election. We find that the most conservative Republican candidate and moderately liberal Democrats were most likely to win their party’s nomination. For general elections we find that the candidate’s spatial record has nearly as much impact on the outcome as economic growth, which has been the focus of most past empirical research. The nominee whose voting record is more moderate is more likely to be elected.

Abstract: Models of presidential success in the judicial appointment process assume that a president selects a nominee who will maximize his influence on the Court. The models assume that the president accurately assesses the preferences of potential nominees. We argue that these perceptions are subject to systematic errors. Specifically, the amount of information available to the evaluator (the president and his staff) of a Supreme Court nominee's policy preferences affects the accuracy of the evaluation. These models assume that the president and/or his staff can accurately predict the policy preferences of the potential nominees. We argue that the precision of these assessments is a function of the information available to the president and his staff. We test this hypothesis using the prior experience of the nominee as a measure of the information available to the president and those members of his staff assigned to investigate potential Supreme Court nominees. Using heteroskedastic probit, we find a significant relationship between the amount of information (measured as prior legislative, executive, judicial, and academic experience) and the accuracy of the assessments of the nominees' preferences. This relationships hold even after controlling for various factors including the salience the president attaches to the issues decided by the justice and the relative relationship between the preferences of the president, Senate, and the remaining sitting justices when the nomination was made. There can be little doubt that presidents draw on a wide variety of powers in an attempt to influence policy. A critical tool in that effort is the appointment power, including the power to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. While most presidential initiatives to influence policy are limited to the president's term in office, the judicial appointment power affords presidents with opportunities to create "an enduring legacy long after their terms are through" (Segal, Timpone, and Howard 2000, 558). To be successful in this endeavor to influence policy, presidents must be successful in securing the appointment of justices with similar policy preferences, and those judicial preferences in turn must then have a major influence on judicial votes. Recent analyses suggest that over the past half century, presidents have in fact been reasonably successful in appointing justices who share their values and subsequently vote in rough concordance with the preferences of the president (Scigliano 1971; Segal, Timpone, and Howard 2000). Nevertheless, a substantial portion of the variance in the voting of the justices is not explained by the measures of presidential preferences used in these or similar analyses (Gates and Cohen 1989; Lindquist, Yalof, and Clark 2000; Segal and Cover 1989; Segal, Timpone and Howard. 2000). These findings are consistent with conclusions of most modern Supreme Court scholars that attitudes are a significant factor in the explanation of the justices' decisions (Epstein and Knight 1998; Maltzman, Spriggs and Wahlbeck 2000; Schubert 1965; Songer and Lindquist 1996). It is also widely believed that all of the major participants in the selection process believe that the justices' attitudes matter (Epstein and Knight 1998; Maltzman, Spriggs and Wahlbeck 2000; Segal and Spaeth 1993; Songer and Lindquist 1996). Consequently, the behavior of presidents, senators, and interest groups all appear to be motivated primarily by their perceptions of the congruence between the nominee's ideological values and their own policy preferences, tempered in part by strategic calculations (Moraski and Shipan 1999; Overby et al 1992; Ruckman 1993; Segal, Cameron and Cover 1992). The present study contributes to both the understanding of judicial voting and the dynamics of judicial selection by exploring the role of information in the assessment of judicial attitudes. Specifically, we test whether the information about the policy preferences of potential nominees to the Supreme Court that is available to the president (and his staff) helps to explain the degree of congruence between the policy preferences of nominating presidents and the policies adopted by the justices they select. …

Abstract: For almost 150 years, two facts about American elections seemed incontrovertible. First, campaigns were an integral part of elections. It is the campaign that conveys information to voters who, in turn, use it to reach individual and collective judgments about the relative merits of candidates. The apparent rationality of election outcomes in the United States – candidates presiding over failing economies or unpopular wars lose, while candidates presiding over economic growth and popular wars win – strongly suggested that political information was reaching the public. Furthermore, it validated the perception that campaigns, as the most obvious conduit of this information, were important institutions. Second, the role of parties in democratic processes was no less critical. The parties developed the capacity to contact individual voters, to advertise through partisan newspapers and pamphlets, to publicize and carry out events such as picnics, carnivals, parades, and rallies, and to print and distribute ballots. These capacities cannot be overemphasized. Candidates were recruited and controlled by parties. It is true, of course, that certain popular individuals had a greater say in how the party handled their candidacy and campaign. But it is equally true that parties dominated the relationship. The perceived importance of campaigns and parties was largely unchallenged by practitioners, pundits, and scholars well into the 20th century. Three developments, however, called the conventional wisdom into question. First, as scholars collected data from surveys in the 1940s and 1950s, they began to realize that the American public was not nearly as informed about or interested in politics as they had assumed. This finding shook the broader assumption of voters as attentive observers of the day-to-day events and policy pronouncements of the election campaign. Second, the development of broadcast technologies – especially the emergence and proliferation of television – fundamentally changed the way in which information is disseminated. In particular, by the 1960s television had allowed individuals to communicate and to develop personal connections with an audience without the human resources necessitated by face-toface contact. This, obviously, had the potential to empower candidates at the expense of political parties. Third, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the American parties reformed their internal nomination processes to increase democratic input. The direct result was an almost complete reliance on primary elections to determine candidates. The indirect result was a forfeiture of party control over nominating processes. In the words of Alan Ehrenhalt (1991), candidates were asked to ‘nominate themselves’. Furthermore, as candidates began to contest primary elections, they developed campaign organizations and expertise independent of the political party. These candidates not only were not beholden to the party when they won the nomination, but also often had personal campaign organizations and did not need help from the party as they turned their attention to the general election contest. 13

Abstract: Electing Justice: Fixing the Supreme Court Nomination Process. Richard Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 211 pp. $28 hbk. In this timely and thoughtful book, Richard Davis argues that news coverage has so dramatically changed the United States Supreme Court nomination process that the Constitution itself must be altered to reflect reality. Davis' ultimate proposal-that voters select Supreme Court justices through nonpartisan elections-is improbable, if not naive. But his analysis of the news media's impact on the White House, Congress, the Court, and political interest groups could provide rich fodder for discussion in advanced reporting and media ethics courses as well as seminars on news coverage of the law. Davis, professor of political science at Brigham Young University, has previously written, co-authored, or edited six books on American politics and communication media. In this content analysis of news stories in the New York Times, Time, and ABC World News Tonight, he concludes that, after the unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, judicial nominations have become both more common and more prominent topics for news stories. But the strength of Davis' book is not content analysis. Instead, the book is best when it explores how the twenty-fourhour news cycle and contemporary American news values transformed news media from neutral observers of judicial nominations to "external players" with significant impact on the process itself. Journalists played a role in defining Bork, an experienced and intelligent federal judge who was nonetheless not particularly media savvy, as "a wild-eyed radical who lacked understanding of the real world and the effects of his legal views on everyday people." Four years later, the nomination of Clarence Thomas and subsequent sexual harassment allegations by a former female co-worker attracted massive news media attention. Generally a perceptive observer of journalism, Davis lapses into cliche when he attributes this news media interest to the idea that controversy "sells papers and boosts ratings." More likely, the Bork and Thomas nominations became big news stories because they involved issues of genuine public importance as well as multiple traditional news values. Davis documents the branding of recent Supreme Court nominees by the White House. For example, most journalists went along with official portrayals of Thomas as a poor Southern boy made good and Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a champion of gender equity. But sometimes, news media declined to accept the executive branch's branding-Bork became the "wild-eyed radical" as sold to the press by the left rather than the "thoughtful conservative academic and jurist" pitched by President Reagan. …

Abstract: Despite the contentiousness of advice and consent nominations, the Senate usually rejects a candidate to whom a home senator objects. Using game theory, this article explains the persistence of senatorial courtesy and maps its effects on which candidates succeed. The greater salience of a home nomination allows retaliation and reciprocity in a repeated game to elicit support for a veto, even under adverse conditions. Comparative statics indicate the range of the president's feasible nominees and show which players gain and lose from the practice. Most notably, the president can benefit from an exercise of senatorial courtesy.

Abstract: The article presents information on social scientists who are rarely able to conduct their research under laboratory-like experimental conditions. Two large cities evolve in stable, Westminster-style, parliamentary systems. Each metropolitan area holds roughly 15% of the respective country's total population, and receives annually about half of its new immigrants. The history of social mobilization in one city, London, is colored from time to time by militant protest, often directed against the highly concentrated power of the British unitary state. In the other context, Toronto, civic engagement is for the most part moderate and measured, targeted at multiple levels of Canada's decentralized federal political scheme. In London, central government elites orchestrate a highly contentious mayoral nomination process. They effectively deny the official Labour candidacy to Ken Livingstone, an urban new left veteran who led the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until 1986, when it was shut down by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government.

Abstract: We are fond of putting our judges into neat adjectival boxes, particularly when they sit on the Supreme Court. These typologies often reflect perceived attitudinal or ideological preferences; some Justices are called “liberal” or “conservative” or “moderate,” or occasionally some hyphenated combination thereof. Or the labels might seek to capture variations in jurisprudential philosophy or method, such as “formalist,” “pragmatist,” “originalist,” “textualist,” or “minimalist.” No Justice is immune from this classification game, and the subject of this symposium is an apt example. From the moment of his nomination by President Nixon in 1970, Harry A. Blackmun attracted a bevy of predictive characterizations, many of which now seem almost quaint in their wrong-headedness. Contemporary court-watchers described the new Justice as “consistently . . . on the conservative side of the issues,” a jurisprudential twin of Chief Justice Warren Burger, and, in the ultimate compound taxonomy, a “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Republican Rotarian Harvard Man from the Suburbs.”

Abstract: South Korea has undergone a rapid process of democratization over the past decade. Two factors stand out as forces that have significantly influenced the democratic transition: the growth of citizens’ organizations and the Internet news services that have provided the forum for citizens’ participation in formulating public opinion. The primary purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of Internet politics and citizens’ organizations on the nomination and campaign processes of the 2002 presidential election in South Korea. The two major presidential candidates, Roh Moo Hyun of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) and Lee Hoi Chang of the Grand National Party (GNP), had diametrically opposing characteristics, not only in ideological and political stances, but also in personal and family backgrounds. An important aspect of the 2002 South Korean presidential election was that major parties selected their nominees through presidential primaries, the first time ever in the history of South Korean presidential elections. A citizens’ political fan club (Nosamo) played a critical role in the MDP primaries as well as in Roh Moo Hyun’s winning campaign in the presidential election, by mobilizing young voters as a formidable voting bloc. In addition, the Oh my News, an on-line news service organization, empowered voters to effectively respond to changing conditions in the presidential race and organized a series of antiAmerican candlelight demonstrations that helped to solidify the progressive segment of voters in supporting Roh Moo Hyun. Citizens’ organizations and Internet politics would continue to make significant contributions to the consolidation of democracy in South Korea.

Abstract: One of the central debates on the Israeli political scene in 2005 was the public controversy between the President of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, and the Minister of Justice, Tzipi Livni, on the nomination of three new justices to the Supreme Court. This controversy focused on Law professor Ruth Gavison, whose nomination Barak opposed because of her vehement criticism of the political orientation and judicial activism of the Supreme Court, which many observers attribute to Barak himself....

Abstract: This conference (and its associated proceedings) is auspicious in two regards---first, it marks the tenth anniversary of the first CSCL conference held at Indiana University in 1995 and, second, it represents the first CSCL conference to be held in the Asia/Pacific region. The latter is, of course, important because of the opportunity it affords for expanding both the CSCL community itself and the base of ideas upon which it operates. The former is even more important, however, because it provides an occasion for reflection on how the field has changed in the intervening decade and where it needs to move in the one to come.The collection of papers comprising this volume is impressive! They range from theoretical proposals to meta-analytic reviews to methodologically diverse empirical pieces. They draw upon a variety of disciplines including communication studies, computer science, education, psychology, and sociology. Among the authors are many leaders of their respective fields, and as a group they represent all regions of the world in which relevant research is being conducted. In total, 252 papers were submitted for this conference, of which exactly 100 were accepted for presentation at the meeting and publication in this volume. Papers were accepted in two publication formats: full or short. Of the 166 full paper submissions, 31% were accepted in that category. Many papers received nominations for either the Best Paper award or the Best Student Paper award. Those papers receiving two or more nominations are marked with BPN (Best Paper Nomination) or BSPN (Best Student Paper Nomination) in the Table of Contents.

Abstract: PART I: THE NOMINATION A Campaign To Remember PART II: THE ISSUES It was the Economy, Mostly The Foreign Policy Election That Wasn't Searching for the Social Issue PART III: THE REGIONS The Northeast: Blue, Deep Blue The South: Winking at Dixie The Midwest: Middle America's Margins The West: On the Electoral Frontier

Abstract: Analyses of the decision to run for the U.S. House are generally based on the self-reported motivations of a sample of candidates or potential candidates. In this article we take a different approach. We use a quasi-experimental design to model the decision of a losing candidate to initiate or reject an immediate repeat match-up against the person to whom they lost in the general election of the previous cycle. Of these potential repeaters we look at “strong” challengers—those who lost but secured more than 40 percent of the vote. We find the decision to repeat to be shaped at least somewhat by evaluations of the candidate’s chances of winning the party’s nomination and her personal desires and abilities. However, when we examine only “strategic” potential repeaters—those who lost in an open seat contest the first time around—we find the decision to repeat to be driven largely by broader political or partisan trends that affect the candidate’s evaluation of her chances of winning the general election. Thi...

Abstract: As has been the case with respect to many political and social institutions in American society, diversity has been demanded, and at times pursued, in the nomination and appointment of state and federal judges. Nonetheless, commentators have long lamented the lack of diversity among judges in the United States. U.S. Supreme Court appointments epitomize the glaring lack of diversity on the federal judiciary. Not until 1967 did President Lyndon Baines Johnson appoint the first African American Justice, Thurgood Marshall, to the Court. Since then, a more diverse group of judges has served on the state and federal courts than throughout much of U.S. history. Work remains to be done, however. No Latina/os, Asian Americans, or Native American have ever served on the U.S. Supreme Court. Relatively few African Americans, Latina/os, and Asian Americans, and no Native Americans serve on the federal bench today. Scholars rarely analyze what concrete impact diversifying the judiciary may have on the operation of the courts, including judicial decision-making and the public's perception of the justice system. Even if advocating greater diversity among judges, few observers have been particularly clear about the concrete benefits to be gained by appointing and nominating a more diverse cadre of judges. This article, which is part of a symposium on judicial selection, explores the substantive impacts that increased racial diversity of judges might have on the decision-making process as well as in how the general public views the courts, as fair and impartial tribunals or not. This article brings to bear fundamental tenets of Critical Race Theory - specifically, the concept of a "voice of color" - on the analysis of the possible impacts of greater racial diversity on the courts. It further analogizes the judges to juries and contends that, as diversity among juries does, pulling a group of judges from a cross section of the community may both benefit the decision-making process and improve public perceptions of the impartiality of judicial decision-making. Importantly, a more diverse judiciary is more likely to be an independent judiciary. To the extent that judges are racial minorities, they can be expected to be more independent than other judges.

Abstract: Introduction. The Right to Vote. The Mechanism of Voting. Nomination of a Candidate. Election Expenses. Challenging the Result of an Election. The Problem of Marketized Politics and a Possible Solution

Abstract: List of Tables and Figures Preface Part I: The Context 1. The Bush Presidency: Establishing the Agenda for the Campaign, William Crotty 2. Constituencies and the Consequences of the Presidential Vote, Richard J. Powell and Mark D. Brewer Part II: The Presidential Campaign and Congressional Races 3. Political Participation in the 2004 Presidential Election: Turnout and Policy Consequences, M. Margaret Conway 4. The Inevitable Unanticipated Consequences of Political Reform: The 2004 Presidential Nomination Process, Christine L. Day, Charles D. Hadley, and Harold W. Stanley 5. Financing the 2004 Presidential Election, William Crotty 6. The Presidential Race of 2004: Strategy, Outcome, and the Mandate, Patricia Conley 7. Incumbency, Politics, and Policy: Detour or New Direction? Jerome M. Mileur 8. The 2004 Congressional Races, John S. Jackson, III. Part III: Conclusions 8. Holy Owned Subsidiary: Globalization, Religion, and Politics in the 2004 Election, Thomas Ferguson 9. The Armageddon Election, John Kenneth White 10. Armageddon, Just Another Campaign, or Something In-Between? The Meaning and Consequences of the 2004 Election, William Crotty Appendix: Presidential Elections and Party and Candidate Success The Contributors Index.

Abstract: The 1925 election to the Irish senate was unique in the history of electoral systems: the whole territory of the Irish Free State was used as a single, nation‐wide constituency for the election of 19 senators, by means of the single transferable vote system of proportional representation, from a general electorate. The procedure used was widely seen at the time as a failure, and the experiment was never repeated. This article, based on a reconstruction of the results of the election, revisits two important issues. First, it reassesses the character of the mechanism used in this election, and concludes that its critics overstated their case. Second, it evaluates the election against one of its originally declared yardsticks: its capacity to ensure that Ireland’s small ex‐unionist (and largely Protestant) minority would have a powerful voice in the second chamber. Although the election was not a success in this second respect (a failure that was in part due to the nomination process), it neverthele...

Abstract: This PhD researches the development of political parties in Egypt between 1981 and 2000 under the presidency of Husni Mubarak. The starting point of this investigation is the failure of Egypt's parties to develop into politically-relevant organisations with strong constituency support in society. What we find instead are parties that - since the inception of multipartism in 1977 - remain characterised by their marginal role within the polity and politics of the state, that are little entrenched in society and that expose an underdeveloped and oftentimes fragmented internal structure. What is more, not only have these parties remained persistently weak, but since the early 1990s they experienced a further weakening of their position in the Egyptian polity. Essentially, this weakening was evident at both the electoral and parliamentary level. In both these domains of politics parties were far more vocal and visibly present during the 1980s than during the 1990s. During the latter decade, in fact, the country's main parties had become entirely marginalized actors in the electoral and parliamentary arenas. This PhD argues that the marginalisation of Egypt's parties was critically influenced by the 1990 reform of the parliamentary electoral law. This reform entailed a shift from a PR list- based regime to an absolute majority two-round system. Following the electoral connection literature, it is demonstrated that this particular inter-system change, rather than supporting the development of strong mass-based organisations, actually contributed to the further weakening of Egypt's parties as collective actors in the electoral arena. This was the case because the new electoral law created an institutional environment that adversely affect the capacity of party headquarters to control the nomination and placement of candidates and the willingness of party candidates to pursue a party over a personal reputation-seeking strategy in the elections. Both these factors together, it is maintained, severely undermined the capacity of parties to enhance levels of internal unity and visible representation in the electoral arena, and as such contributed to their observed marginalisation in the Egyptian polity.