Abstract: We model and compare three different processes by which political parties nominate candidates for a general election: nominations by party leaders, nominations by a vote of party members, and nominations by a spending competition among potential candidates. We show that in equilibrium, non-median outcomes can result when two parties compete using nominations via any of these processes. We also show that more extreme outcomes can emerge from spending competition than from nominations by votes or by party leaders. When voters (and potential nominees) are free to switch political parties, then median outcomes ensue when nominations are decided by a vote but not when nominations are decided by spending competition.

Abstract: The authors analyse the results of the 2006 US midterm elections and evaluate strategies that may dominate the presidential nomination contests for Democratic and Republican candidates in 2008.

Abstract: Chapter 1 I The Front-Loading Problem Chapter 2 II Financing Presidential Nomination under the BCRA Chapter 3 III The Basic Dynamics of the Contemporary Nomination Process: An Expanded View Chapter 4 IV How Incumbent Presidents Run for Reelection Chapter 5 V From Resistance to Adaptation: Organized Labor Reacts to a Changing Nomination Process Chapter 6 VI The Net and the Nomination Chapter 7 VII Only a Lunatic Would Do This Kind of Work: A Journalist's Perspective on the Perspective of Journalists Chapter 8 VIII The Perils of Polling in New Hampshire Chapter 9 IX The Emerging International Trend toward Open Presidential Primaries: The American Presidential Nomination Process in Comparative Perspective

Abstract: Parties throughout Latin America have recently addressed two distinct kinds of electoral reforms: primary elections and national-level gender quota laws. This study examines how these reforms interact, their mutual compatibility, and their effect on the nomination of men compared to that of women. It develops a series of hypotheses about this relationship by analyzing the 2003 legislative elections in Mexico, a case in which the three main parties relied on both gender quotas and primaries to select their candidates. Although the percentage of women elected to the Mexican Chamber of Deputies rose, the Federal Electoral Institute interpreted the gender quota law in a way that weakened its effect on women and limited the degree of openness in the primaries that were held.

Abstract: When George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election, Richard Nixon's landslide victory buried more than an insurgent campaign. In resurrecting the largely forgotten story of McGovern's remarkable presidential bid, Bruce Miroff reveals how his crushing defeat produced an identity crisis for liberals torn between their convictions and the political calculations required to win elections - a dilemma for Democrats that has never gone away. Miroff follows the campaign from its surprising rise to its catastrophic fall to remind us how a dark-horse candidate captured the nomination - and then disastrously chose a running mate with a hidden past. Drawing on interviews with dozens of participants - including McGovern himself - who share a wealth of anecdotes and insights, Miroff traces the insurgency to the political struggles of the sixties, explores McGovern's ideology, and assesses the Republican attack politics that linked McGovern to "acid, amnesty, and abortion." Miroff shows how the transformative election of 1972 signaled a major shift in the Democratic base - from urban blue-collar New Dealers to suburban, issue-oriented activists (feminists and gay rights advocates among them) - as the party shed its Cold War past and embraced an antiwar orientation. He also illuminates how the McGovern campaign mastered the new game of presidential primaries and explores the formative experiences of a generation of talented young political actors, including campaign manager Gary Hart, political newcomer Bill Clinton, and future party strategists Bob Shrum and John Podesta. In excavating the 1972 landslide, he follows the subsequent careers of the young McGovernites and describes the loss' effects on later Democratic presidential campaigns. By tracing the transformation of American liberalism and sixties idealism from their political crash in 1972 to the muddled centrism of the twenty-first century, "The Liberals' Moment" shows what the McGovern insurgency has to teach us today - and identifies what Democrats must do in order to reassume the mantle of progressive change.

Abstract: One of the central questions of political psychology is how relatively uninformed citizens can make electoral decisions in a way that allows them to be meaningfully represented. We examine this question in the context of a presidential nominating election, a decision‐making environment complicated by the lack of powerful partisan or ideological cues. We suggest that in such contexts, voters use abstract value priorities as heuristics, without considerable reference to particular issue postures or even general ideological orientations. We further hypothesize that, in contrast to issue‐based or ideological voting, the accurate use of value heuristics is often little affected by voter sophistication, enabling even unsophisticated citizens to cast meaningfully representative votes. A study of vote intention during the 2000 Republican nomination contest provides empirical support for our hypotheses.

Abstract: In 2005, a record nine women served as their state's governor. Of these, eight were elected. A crucial and often difficult step for women to be successful in gubernatorial elections is for them to win the nomination for governor by their political party. From 1976 to 2004, only 79 women have won their party's nomination for governor. The record number of women nominees in a single year is 10, set in 1998 and 2002. Even with these recent successes, women as governors are both fairly rare and an understudied area of political science. In this study, we explore two different explanations for the nomination of women to elected office: the pipeline and sacrificial lamb models. Although some research argues that the sacrificial lamb model is outdated and has been replaced by the pipeline model, we find that both of these models are relevant for the study of female gubernatorial nominations, but in the same way for each political party. By examining gubernatorial election data from 1976 to 2004, we present evidence suggesting that the pipeline model helps to explain the nomination of Democratic women, while the sacrificial lamb model helps to explain the nomination of Republican women. Though preliminary, these findings have important implications for the growing, pro-Democratic, partisan imbalance of women officeholders.

Abstract: We study a model where two parties, one from the left and one from the right, compete for position. The election is to be held in the near future and the outcome is uncertain. Prior to the election, the members of both parties nominate their prime ministerial candidates. Investors care about the outcome since they may invest in irreversible domestic production capital. We find that there is political convergence in the nomination process. In some circumstances, it is only the median voter of the left-wing party that elects a more moderate candidate. In other instances, the members of both parties nominate more "conservative" candidates, but there is still convergence. We also show that a higher probability of the left winning the election increases the degree of convergence, while a more globalised economy (greater capital mobility) reduces it.

Abstract: Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Chapter 1 The Cess Poll: Is the Iowa Caucus a Negative Force in Presidential Politics? Chapter 2 What's a Caucus? Iowa and the Presidential Nomination System Chapter 3 Who Cares About Iowa? The Caucus' Impact on the Nomination Chapter 4 From The "Big Mo" to "e-mentum:" Technology and Early States' Emerging Impact Chapter 5 Explaining What Matters: The Ground War, or the Air War? Chapter 6 Explaining What Matters: Ideological Intrigue or Strategic Voting? Chapter 7 Predicting What Happens: Estimating the Results of the Iowa Caucus Chapter 8 Is This Heaven? Some Conclusions - and Some Beginnings Appendix A: Notes on Data and Variables Used in the Study Notes Bibliography Index

Abstract: With the landmark election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932, decades of Republican ascendancy gave way to a half century of Democratic dominance. It was nothing less than a major political realignment, as the direction of federal policy shifted from conservative to liberal - and liberalism itself was redefined in the process. "Electing FDR" is the first book in seventy years to examine in its entirety the 1932 presidential election that ushered in the New Deal. Award-winning historian Donald Ritchie looks at how candidates responded to the nation's economic crisis and how voters evaluated their performance. More important, he explains how the Democratic Party rebuilt itself after three successive Republican landslides: where the major shifts in party affiliation took place, what contingencies contributed to FDR's victory, and why the new coalition persisted as long as it did. Ritchie challenges prevailing assumptions that the Depression made Roosevelt's election inevitable. He shows that FDR came close to losing the nomination to contenders who might have run to the right of Hoover, and discusses the role of newspapers and radio in presenting the candidates to voters. He also analyzes Roosevelt's campaign strategies, recounting his attempts to appeal to disaffected voters of all ideological stripes, often by altering his positions to broaden his popularity. With the advent of the New Deal, Americans came to enjoy a wide federal safety net that provided everything from old age pensions to rural electricity - government innovations so embraced by voters that even later conservative presidents recognized their importance. Ritchie traces this legacy through the Reagan and Bush years, but he relates how FDR in 1932 was often vague about the specifics of his program and questions whether voters really knew what they were in for with the New Deal. As pundits, politicians, and citizens eye the upcoming 2008 campaign, "Electing FDR" reminds incumbents not to take their party support for granted or to underestimate their opponents - and reminds students of history that understanding the New Deal begins with the 1932's transformative election.

Abstract: This article examines the prospects and possibilities of presidential power in the event of the election of Obama. A great discourse has ensued about the Obama candidacy for the Democratic nomination because he is the first African American to gain such widespread popular support so soon in the campaign. Indeed, he is the first candidate in history to receive secret service protection so early in the primary campaign because of serious threats against his person by numerous detractors. An Afrocentric examination of the political campaign and presidential prospects of Obama begins with an interrogation of the nature of the political process in relationship to history, location, the American imperium, and the dilemma of power in a racial politic. Any intense interrogation of Obama's concept of himself as an African American locates him in a particular space and time. The overwhelming racial characteristics of American society, even at this date, suggest that should Obama be nominated and elected, he would s...

Abstract: The problem of candidate selection is central to the development of political parties and is a critical feature of France's candidate-centred presidential polity. Reflecting on the political opportunity structure and cleavage basis that arose from the dramatic outcome of the 2002 elections, this paper explores the 2007 presidential nominations of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire and the Parti Socialiste. The focus is on the expected-utility calculus of candidate viability by party members in relation to membership growth and the ascent of mass contingents of ‘instant’ newcomers in both parties. The analysis points out diverging strategies of presidential communication in Sarkozy and Royal, which enacted two definable symbolic trajectories of ideological revision in their respective camps. These differences are addressed in the light of each candidate's intra-party positioning and their relation to organized factions. This review looks simultaneously at how presidential strategies were articulated with party leadership.

Abstract: In the nominally Marxist-Leninist Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), whose political institutions are modelled on those of the former Soviet Union, the most important events of the political calendar are the congresses of the ruling Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP). These congresses take place only every five years, and 2006 was such a year. Party congresses provide opportunities both for the nomination of a new political leadership, and for setting out new policy directions. Thus it was the Fourth Party Congress in 1986 that endorsed the so-called “new economic mechanism”, which introduced a market economy and opened the way for private foreign investment. The Fourth Congress was delayed for nine months while the ideological struggle over policy was waged, with great secrecy, within the Party. That subsequent congresses have been held on schedule (some time in March) suggests a degree of ideological consensus. The 2006 Eighth Party Congress was held on schedule. What party congresses do determine is the leadership of the country for the next five years, so they are preceded by a period of intense political activity. And because of the excessive secrecy that surrounds all intra-party politics in Laos, the lead-up to a party congress is a time of swirling rumour. For a good two years prior to the 2006 congress rumours abounded about the likely composition of the new Political Bureau, and who would get what position in the new government that is formed after each congress. In the lead-up to the Eighth Party Congress there was little serious debate over policy. Some observers claimed to discern differences between “reformers” and “conservatives”, or between “pro-Vietnamese” and “pro-Chinese” groupings within the Party, but there was widespread agreement over key policy issues. These were, broadly, that the country should continue to pursue an open market economy and to attract foreign direct investment to develop industry and resources; that it should continue to accept foreign aid from all willing donors;

Abstract: Judicial performance review in Colorado is the most sophisticated method in the nation for providing information to voters in judicial retention elections. (1) Colorado has had a commission-based appointive system for judges--with the judges subject to periodic non-contested retention elections--for forty years. In the mid-1980s, some in Colorado thought that retention elections did not provide voters with enough information to hold judges accountable, and they sought to return the selection of judges to contested partisan elections. The performance review concept was a response to the call for more public accountability. But public accountability in Colorado--advanced by a commission without partisan balance--may encroach on judicial independence. (2) This Article focuses on the role of judicial performance commissions that provide information to voters before non-contested retention elections for appointed judges. A performance commission might serve as a substitute for retention elections, But given the political climate in Colorado, where judges are subject to frequent public criticism, it is highly unlikely that retention elections, enshrined in the state constitution, will be replaced with periodic commission review. Questions that this Article will address include the following: 1. Who appoints the members of a judicial performance commission and should partisan balance be required? 2. What should commission members' qualifications be? 3. What are the appropriate criteria for evaluation of a judge's performance? 4. How does a commission obtain information about a judge? 5. What is done with the information obtained by the commission? 6. Should performance review include retired judges or magistrates who serve as-needed? 7. What kind of staffing and training is available for commissioners and who pays for it? 8. Does a performance review get rid of bad judges and assist voters in retaining good judges? 9. Should judges be subject to term limits? 10. To what degree does any performance evaluation limit judicial independence? I. AN OVERVIEW OF THE COMMISSION-BASED JUDICIAL SELECTION PROCESS IN COLORADO Before discussing the role of judicial performance commissions, this Article describes the initial selection process for most judges in Colorado. (3) In 1966, Colorado voters adopted an amendment to the state constitution that provides an appointive process to select state court judges, replacing their direct election. (4) The appointive process (called a "modified Missouri Plan" (5)) consists of a statewide appellate judicial nominating commission ("the supreme court nominating commission") and nominating commissions for county and district court trial judges in each judicial district ("the district nominating comissions"). (6) For each judicial vacancy, a nominating commission sends two or three names selected from those who have applied for the position to the governor, who makes the final selection. (7) The supreme court nominating commission consists of a lawyer and a lay person from each congressional district (8) and an additional lay person, (9) with the chief justice as the ex officio chair. (10) The district nominating commissions each have three attorney members and four lay members, all of whom reside in the judicial district, with one of the six justices of the state supreme court acting as the ex officio chair. (11) The governor, the attorney general, and the chief justice select the lawyer members of each commission by majority vote, and the governor selects the lay members. (12) No more than one-half of the commission members plus one can be members of the same political party (13) and all commission members serve a term of six years. (14) The commissions rely on staffing from the supreme court and the state court administrator's office, and receive some training provided by the state court administrator. …

Abstract: Contrary to findings that show the contemporary nomination process, regardless of party, favoring early frontrunners, this article shows that the eventual Democratic nominee is typically different from and often travels a different path to victory than the eventual Republican nominee. Since 1972, the eventual Democratic winners began as relatively unknown candidates with single-digit support who emerge as the frontrunner late in the process, sometimes just before the voting begins in Iowa and New Hampshire and sometimes just after the first votes are cast. John Kerry is only the latest Democratic example. In contrast, Republican winners have been national figures and have consistently been the early favorites a year before any votes were cast or large sums of money raised. To date, the accuracy of partyless models is driven largely by Republican successes. These models may be better at predicting Republican nominees than predicting Democratic nominees.

Abstract: The requirements of presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominees present two anomalies: under what circumstances can ideologically extreme nominees win confirmation and, given political polarization and the possibility of a filibuster, how are any nominees successful? This paper employs a simple unidimensional spatial model to explore these anomalies. The principal results show that little change in Court policy is possible with a single appointment, and this fact interacts with certain contexts to give the president a relatively free hand in choosing extreme nominees. Less firm conclusions are reached about the second anomaly, but the analysis sets the stage for further work on that aspect.

Abstract: Of all the systems used to select judges in the United States, appointment systems are the most widely used. (1) An appointment system is one in which the state's governor, with or without the input of a nominating commission, chooses candidates to fill initial and interim vacancies on a court. (2) Today, a majority of the states use appointment systems to select their supreme court judges. (3) There are many important differences in the institutional arrangements and procedures that these appointment systems use, however, and no research has been done to see if these differences affect the outcome of cases. This Article presents the results of a study conducted to see whether state supreme courts selected in states with dissimilar appointment systems differ in the way they decide criminal appeals. Comparing the criminal decisions of courts selected with different appointment systems may also suggest something about how different appointment systems impact judicial independence. I. APPOINTMENT: THE FALL AND RISE OF A JUDICIAL SELECTION SYSTEM As of 1846, appointment was second the most common way of selecting justices of the states' highest courts. (4) Of the twenty-nine states that entered the union prior to that date, fourteen used appointment systems to select supreme court justices. (5) Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, the proportion of states that used appointment systems for their highest courts dropped sharply as many new states entered the union with different selection systems (typically partisan elections) and as states already in the union switched to different selection methods. (6) The change away from appointment toward partisan election of justices was, among other things, prompted by the belief that elected judges would exercise their duties more independently than judges who owed their appointments to the governor or to the legislature. (7) The change was also spurred by the belief that elections would prevent the judiciary from being filled with judges who owed their appointments to political connections rather than to personal qualifications. (8) Defenders of judicial selection systems that combined appointment and life tenure retorted that elections would undermine judicial independence by subjecting judges to the will of the people and to manipulation by political party leaders; but these arguments did not prevent the adoption of judicial elections in most states during the period. (9) By 1909, thirty-five of the forty-six states in the union used partisan elections to select supreme court justices. Partisan elections, which some viewed as a means of assuring judicial independence from the other branches of government, came under renewed criticism for being detrimental to judicial independence. Critics claimed that elected judges were indebted to the political parties upon whom the judges depended for electoral support and that party leaders could use their patronage powers to influence the judiciary. (10) Critics also pointed out that elected judges frequently heard cases involving attorneys and litigants who had contributed to their campaigns, which further undermined public confidence in the courts' independence. (11) Interest in appointment as a judicial selection method enjoyed a revival during the 1910s in response to the previously-mentioned problems. (12) Prominent proponents of a return to appointment during this period included Roscoe Pound, John Wigmore, and Albert Kales. (13) Furthermore, the effort to encourage judicial selection reform provided one of the driving forces behind the creation of the American Judicature Society in 1913. (14) In 1914, Kales proposed an appointment plan eventually known as merit selection, which many reformers of the era supported. (15) Kales's idea sparked the revival of interest in appointment as a judicial selection system. Although various states considered several versions of Kales's proposal throughout the 1930s, Missouri was the first state to adopt a merit selection plan in 1940. …

Abstract: To what extent do parties in Africa behave in ways similar to parties in new democracies elsewhere in the world? Although a complete answer to this question is far beyond the intended scope of this piece, this article seeks to examine one important aspect of party behavior in one sub Saharan country – the candidate nomination behavior of the two major opposition party formations in Ethiopia. I examine the nomination behavior of the main opposition parties using a binary logistic regression technique. Th is paper finds that the primary Ethiopian opposition parties, the CUD (the Coalition for Unity and Democracy) and UEDF (the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces) were quite different in their nomination behavior, and that the CUD (more than the UEDF), exhibited nomination patterns similar to party nomination behavior in other new democracies.

Abstract: Many States, including the United Kingdom, continue to attach paramount importance to the qualities of the candidates in deciding for whom to vote, and by extension in deciding in respect of whom they are prepared to enter into deals. But this is not necessarily the case with all of the electorate. The focus of this chapter is on the domestic nomination stage, and in particular recent British practice in relation to certain courts and tribunals. There are three main stages to be considered in the election of international judges: the qualifications; the national selection procedures; and the election or appointment procedures. The Centre for International Courts and Tribunals at the Faculty of Laws of University College, London is currently undertaking a three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded study entitled "Process and Legitimacy in the Nomination, Election and Appointment of International Judges". Keywords: international court; international judicial office; international law; national selection procedures; nomination of candidates; tribunals

Abstract: Over the last decade, much new research has appeared on the subject of the Great Irish Famine but, remarkably, a major political event during the famine – the 1847 general election – has received virtually no mention Recent work on politics in this period has tended to concentrate on political reaction in Britain rather than Ireland The aim of this article is to examine the response of Irish politicians to the famine during the general election of 1847 The main source has been the political addresses and nomination speeches of most of the 140 candidates The evidence from this material shows that, although the famine was an important matter in many constituencies, it was not the dominant issue countrywide Various proposals to deal with the famine emerged, but there was an absence of agreed, practical measures to deal with immediate problems The parties in Ireland failed to create a common platform to challenge the government over its efforts Ideological constraints played an important part

Abstract: Award in English: Literature. College: Computing and Information Sciences. Program: Copmuter Science. Course: Latin American Literature. Professor: Sandra Saari. Student Honor Awardees are selected by the faculty who teach courses in these areas of Liberal Arts and by the Kearse Awards Committee. Twenty-Seventh Kearse Distinguished Lecture Award Ceremony, nomination for Matthew Campbell, 2007.

Abstract: This brief Essay suggests a structural reform to the judicial nomination and confirmation process, designed to reduce the role of partisanship and special interest politicking. Though this proposal is aimed primarily at preventing logjams when the President and Senate are of different parties, it is likely to be beneficial even where that is not the case, to the extent that the opposition party is prone to filibuster nominees.

Abstract: The protracted and interrupted process of securing a durable, if interim, political accord in Northern Ireland seems, finally, to have been secured by means of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.1 Following the acceptance of its requirements, all of Northern Ireland’s parties agreed to give power-sharing devolved governance another try. On 8 May 2007 Dr Ian Paisley, the Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), accepted the nomination as First Minister in the reconvened Northern Ireland Assembly, and Martin McGuinness, the deputy leader of Sinn Fein (SF), accepted the nomination as Deputy First Minister.The modern process of seeking an accord dates back to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, by which a devolved power-sharing assembly, accompanied by a North-South Ireland Ministerial Council and an East-West British-Irish Council, was established. Given the history of Northern Ireland, and the continuing divisions between unionist and nationalist-republican communities and politicians, one might have expected the very establishment of stable devolved governance to be a major achievement in itself. So it has proved, marking out Northern Ireland as entirely distinctive in the politics of devolution in the UK.

Abstract: List of Figures and Tables Preface by Paul Heywood Acknowledgements Introduction: When All the Dust Has Been Swept Away Twentieth Century Development: Spain's Path to Democracy Constructing the Framework: Analysis of Suitable Approaches The Nomination of Juan Carlos: An Unexpected Successor The Nomination of Adolfo Suarez: A Valuable Asset in Place The Reform of the Cortes: Knight to King Four The Attempted Military Coup: Democracy Held Hostage Conclusion Bibliography Index.

Abstract: AS I WRITE my last comment as a member of the ACS presidential succession, I want to thank you for allowing me to serve as your president. I have always felt that I was the members’ president since I was nominated through the petition route. I could have entitled this comment, “If it’s not broke why do we need to fix it?” For I believe that the petition process works and it works for the benefit of the members. Even the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution specifically addresses the citizen’s right to petition. Why should ACS be different? We have a process in place, which allows members to choose candidates for the board by petition, but unfortunately there are some who would like to take this right away from you. Nomination by petition is a sacrosanct provision of any democratic organization. Why is this important in our society? While in local sections and divisions ...

Abstract: The National Book Award nomination in October for Eat the Document, a novel about the Weather Underground by Dana Spiotta, came at a time when several other strong novels addressed similar themes. Russell Banks's The Darling, Susan Choi's American Woman, and Neil Gordon's The Company You Keep, alongside Eat the Document, suggest a renewed interest in imagining what we might call "the Weatherman temptation." It arises when young activists are drawn toward violent tactics, out of despair for democracy—especially in the early seventies, when the Vietnam War seemed endless—and maybe again today, when the Iraq War and the war on terror also seem endless.