This book provides a detailed analytic history of direct legislation—the initiative and referendum—in California from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the present day. California was one of the first states to implement mechanisms for direct legislation, and these mechanisms have been used with growing frequency as the entire process has become professionalized (from signature-gathering through fund-raising to legal challenge and defense). The author studies this important political device in terms of voter interest and behavior, its role in public issues, and how it has affected the state’s politics and government. The book first analyzes how and why direct legislation came to California, seeing it as a typical example of the disconnected nature of progressive era reforms. It then studies selectively, from among the 300 propositions that have been on California ballots, those propositions that have been most relevant to the major issues of their time, have generated the highest levels of voter interest and participation, and have shaped the development of state politics and government. The author pays particular attention to the explosion of direct legislation, in frequency and consequence, since the Proposition 13 “property tax revolution” of 1978. He also describes how California’s contemporary direct legislation experience—from tax rebellion to harsher criminal justice to controversial ethnic issues—has had national ramifications. The book concludes with a careful analysis of the current state of the initiative and referendum in California: voter attitudes toward the process, its role as a “fourth branch” of government, and arguments for and against changes in the procedure. Based on extensive research in campaign documents, manuscript collections, the contemporary press, and other primary sources, the book also makes extensive use of voting data, public opinion polls, and official filings of campaign expenditures. All in all, it is the most comprehensive study ever made of a political process that is used today in twenty-seven states.

"An understanding of the relationship between the product and the process in election polling is often lost. This edited volume unites ideas and researchers, with quality playing the central role." —J. Michael Brick, PhD, Director of the Survey Methods Unit, Westat, Inc. Elections and Exit Polling is a truly unique examination of the specialized surveys that are currently used to track and collect data on elections and voter preferences. Employing modern research from the past decade and a series of interviews with famed American pollster Warren Mitofsky (1934-2006), this volume provides a relevant and groundbreaking look at the key statistical techniques and survey methods for measuring voter preferences worldwide. Drawing on the most current studies on pre-election and exit polling, this book outlines improvements that have developed in recent years and the results of their implementation. Coverage begins with an introduction to exit polling and a basic overview of its history, structure, limitations, and applications. Subsequent chapters focus on the use of exit polling in the United States election cycles from 2000–2006 and the problems that were encountered by both pollsters and the everyday voter, such as how to validate official vote count, confidentiality, new voting methods, and continuing data quality concerns. The text goes on to explore the presence of these issues in international politics, with examples and case studies of elections from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Finally, looking to the upcoming 2008 U.S. presidential election, the discussion concludes with predictions and recommendations on how to gather more accurate and timely polling data. Research papers from over fifty eminent practitioners in the fields of political science and survey methods are presented alongside excerpts from the editors' own interviews with Mitofsky. The editors also incorporate their own reflections throughout and conclude each chapter with a Summary Observations section that highlights notable concepts and trends. The appendix features sample questionnaires from actual exit polling scenarios and an extensive bibliography directs the reader to additional references for further study. Combining wisdom from one of the most notable names in the field along with findings from modern research and insightful recommendations for future practices, Elections and Exit Polling is an excellent supplement for political science and survey research courses at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also a one-of-a-kind reference for pollsters, survey researchers, statisticians, and anyone with a general interest in the methods behind global elections and exit polling.

The Middle East captured front pages worldwide for the alleged Arab Spring in 2011. Large segments of the populations of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria took to the streets to voice their protest against autocratic regimes and to demand democracy. Violent uprisings followed, but the prospects of liberal democracy are still uncertain and distant. No wonder. Democratization took a couple of centuries in the West. And even today, well-established Western democracies are under pressure from globalization and regionalization, and many claim representative democracy is in need of renewal. This collection of essays focuses on a number of theoretical issues associated with democracy and democratization. Divided into three parts, the first part analyzes how democracy may be understood, explained and measured. The second part deals with issues of democracy, international stability, and development in fragile and developmental states and regions. The third part of the book looks at representative democracy in old democracies and its potential for development.

Should citizens be allowed to propose legislation? Should they even be allowed to recall politicians if they do not live up to their expectations? These questions and many others form the subject of this timely book. In addition to presenting an up to date review of the empirical literature, Direct democracy provides a survey of the political philosophers who have theorised about this subject. It is the central tenet in the book that the demand for direct democracy is a consequence of the demand for more consumer choices. Like consumers want individualised products, so voters want individualised and bespoke policies. Described by the BBC as "The world’s leading expert on referendums", the author, Matt Qvortrup, draws on his experience as a political advisor to the US State Department, as well as his extensive academic knowledge of direct democracy.

In the historical narrative that prevails today, the New Deal years are positioned between two equally despised Gilded Ages—the first in the late nineteenth century and the second characterized by the world of Walmart, globalization, and right-wing populism in which we currently live. What defines these two ages is an increasing level of inequality legitimized by powerful ideologies, namely, Social Darwinism at the end of the nineteenth century and neoliberalism today. In stark contrast, the era of the New Deal was first and foremost an attempt to put an end to inequality in American society. In the historical longue durée, it appears today as a kind of golden age when policymakers and citizens sought to devise solutions to the two major "questions"—labor on one side, social on the other—that were at the heart of the American political economy during the twentieth century. Capitalism Contested argues that the New Deal order remains an effective framework to make sense of the transformation of American political economy over the last hundred years. Contributors offer an historicized analysis of the degree to which that political, economic, and ideological order persists and the ways in which it has been transcended or even overthrown. The essays pay attention not only to those ideas and social forces hostile to the New Deal, but to the contradictions and debilities that were present at the inauguration or became inherent within this liberal impulse during the last half of the twentieth century. The unifying thematic among the essays consists not in their subject matter—politics, political economy, social thought, and legal scholarship are represented—but in a historical quest to assess the transformation and fate of an economic and policy order nearly a century after its creation. Contributors: Kate Andrias, Romain Huret, William P. Jones, Nelson Lichtenstein, Nancy MacLean, Isaac William Martin, Margaret O'Mara, K. Sabeel Rahman, Timothy Shenk, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Jason Scott Smith, Samir Sonti, Karen M. Tani, Jean-Christian Vinel.

A thorough examination of the people, forces, and events that have shaped the right, opportunity, and value of the vote in America from 1715 to the present. Despite the successful struggles of women, blacks, soldiers, and other minorities to secure suffrage, voter turnout in America is among the lowest in westernized countries. Voting in America: A Reference Handbook surveys the history of voting, examining how it has evolved since Colonial times. This book focuses on how various legal, constitutional, and social barriers such as the Voter Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, the Motor Voter Act, and the 23rd Amendment have impacted the right to vote. It also focuses on what controversies, such as the two-party monopoly and financial influence, still remain. The only book to consider the rise in voting opportunities for Americans also explores factors affecting the value of the vote, such as redistricting, term limits, and low voter turnout.