The British General Election of 2019 is the definitive account of one of the most consequential and controversial general elections in recent times, when Boris Johnson gambled everything calling an early election to 'Get Brexit Done', and emerged triumphant. Drawing upon cutting-edge research and wide-ranging elite interviews, the new author team provides a compelling and accessible narrative of this landmark election and its implications for British politics, built on unparalleled access to all the key players, and married up to first-class data analysis. The 21st volume in a prestigious series dating back to 1945, it offers something for everyone from Westminster insiders and politics students to the interested general reader.

Britain Votes: the 2019 General Election analyses a remarkable general election contest. Boris Johnson's Conservative Party turned parliamentary stalemate into a decisive overall majority. The Conservatives' victory saw the demolition of much of Labour's 'red wall' of seemingly impregnable seats. This volume explains how and why this happened.

This book provides an analysis of the European Parliament elections 2019 with a focus on East-Central European countries. The authors offer conceptual insights into Euroscepticism and discuss traditionally familiar concepts in a new light, pairing East-Central European Euroscepticism with visions of illiberal democracy, on the one hand, and showing the increasing Europeanisation of Eurosceptic parties in the region, on the other. The book combines a fresh and innovative conceptual treatment with rich and accurate empirical evidence in order to highlight the dynamics of Euroscepticism in "new" EU member states. Students and experts interested in EU politics, within academia and beyond, will find this volume particularly informative.

An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.

This book investigates how political parties from 12 European countries used Facebook to inform, interact with and mobilise voters at the 2019 European Parliament election. Following a joint theoretical framework and method, the results of a content analysis of more than 14,000 Facebook posts are presented. Country specific chapters are followed by analyses of European parties Facebook campaigning, the spread of populism and the use of Facebook ads by the parties. The final chapter compares all countries showing that campaigns are more strongly shaped by the national than by the European political context. Facebook is used for campaigning as usual; parties inform and persuade but neglect the platforms mobilisation and particularly interactive affordances.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of India’s electoral democracy and political system. It provides an in-depth analysis of the 2019 parliamentary elections to explore three crucial facts of India’s political life: the legitimacy of political competition as the only basis of power; elections as the only legitimate basis of political competition; and political parties as the only legitimate agency to conduct political competition. The book argues that the vitality and resilience of India’s electoral democracy remain high owing to large mass participation in elections that are competitive and relatively free and fair. The volume includes key theoretical, empirical, and comparative perspectives on parties and elections from experts, and covers all major political parties of India, along with the performance of many representative regional parties. It discusses themes such as elections and party competition in India; ideology, interest, religion, and gender as they affect social mobilisation and political transaction; economic and politial change, and multiparty democracy; the dynamics of the Muslim vote; fluctuating electoral fortunes; and electoral campaigns and role of social media. This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of political science, political sociology, election studies, Indian politics, South Asian politics, and South Asian studies. It will also interest those in politics, public policy and governance, civil society organisations, media and journalism, and the general reader.