The American Political Landscape

The American Political Landscape PDF Author: Byron E. Shafer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674045590
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Social scientists and campaign strategists approach voting behavior from opposite poles. Reconciling these rival camps through a merger of precise statistics and hard-won election experience, The American Political Landscape presents a full-scale analysis of U.S. electoral politics over the past quarter-century. Byron Shafer and Richard Spady explain how factors not usually considered hard data, such as latent attitudes and personal preferences, interact to produce an indisputably solid result: the final tally of votes. Pundits and pollsters usually boil down U.S. elections to a stark choice between Democrat and Republican. Shafer and Spady explore the significance of a third possibility: not voting at all. Voters can and do form coalitions based on specific issues, so that simple party identification does not determine voter turnout or ballot choices. Deploying a new method that quantifiably maps the distribution of political attitudes in the voting population, the authors describe an American electoral landscape in flux during the period from 1984 to 2008. The old order, organized by economic values, ceded ground to a new one in which cultural and economic values enjoy equal prominence. This realignment yielded election outcomes that contradicted the prevailing wisdom about the importance of ideological centrism. Moderates have fared badly in recent contests as Republican and Democratic blocs have drifted further apart. Shafer and Spady find that persisting links between social backgrounds and political values tend to empty the ideological center while increasing the clout of the ideologically committed.

The American Political Landscape

The American Political Landscape PDF Author: Byron E. Shafer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674045590
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Social scientists and campaign strategists approach voting behavior from opposite poles. Reconciling these rival camps through a merger of precise statistics and hard-won election experience, The American Political Landscape presents a full-scale analysis of U.S. electoral politics over the past quarter-century. Byron Shafer and Richard Spady explain how factors not usually considered hard data, such as latent attitudes and personal preferences, interact to produce an indisputably solid result: the final tally of votes. Pundits and pollsters usually boil down U.S. elections to a stark choice between Democrat and Republican. Shafer and Spady explore the significance of a third possibility: not voting at all. Voters can and do form coalitions based on specific issues, so that simple party identification does not determine voter turnout or ballot choices. Deploying a new method that quantifiably maps the distribution of political attitudes in the voting population, the authors describe an American electoral landscape in flux during the period from 1984 to 2008. The old order, organized by economic values, ceded ground to a new one in which cultural and economic values enjoy equal prominence. This realignment yielded election outcomes that contradicted the prevailing wisdom about the importance of ideological centrism. Moderates have fared badly in recent contests as Republican and Democratic blocs have drifted further apart. Shafer and Spady find that persisting links between social backgrounds and political values tend to empty the ideological center while increasing the clout of the ideologically committed.

Political Landscape

Political Landscape PDF Author: Martin Warnke
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780232349
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
We all know what "the political landscape" is, and politicians and journalists never tire of referring to it. But in this ingenious and original book, Martin Warnke takes that well-worn metaphor literally and uses it to reveal just how politicized the real landscape of continental Europe has been for centuries. The author finds his evidence of humanity's intervention in nature in the form of monuments and milestones, gardens, roads and border crossings, in landscape paintings and maps – even, in fact, in the anthropomorphic interpretations once given to formations of hills and rocks. The Political Landscape is underpinned with a fascinating array of examples and illustrations, many of which will be new even to experts in the art of landscape and related disciplines.

The Political Landscape

The Political Landscape PDF Author: Adam T Smith
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520237501
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
"This highly original and challenging book defies every easy form of classification. Ostensibly about early polities, its penetrating and erudite asides extend with equal facility into contemporary politics and the symmetrical deficiencies of modernism and postmodernism. To my knowledge, imaginative reflections of spatial representations have never previously found their way into the theoretical base of what has been thought of as an essentially materialistic archaeological science. It is a pleasure and a discovery to see the permanent and rightful place Adam Smith has now fashioned for them."—Robert McC. Adams, Secretary Emeritus, The Smithsonian Institution "If social theory in cultural anthropology was transformed in the last decades by a 'linguistic turn,' research by archaeologists into the development and practices of early states now seems to be undergoing a 'geographic turn.' Adam Smith's book, although drawing from modern currents in geography, anthropology, sociology, and political philosophy, brings original archaeological contributions to social theory by examining the making and re-making of landscapes in early complex polities (especially in Mesopotamian, Urartian, and Maya states). Smith observes these (and other) early states as 'political landscapes,' in which monuments come to constitute authority and shape memories. Smith's book represents a comprehensive turn from metahistorical reifications of the state to investigations of how the content of social roles was determined through the production of landscapes. The landscape of archaeology will be changed decisively by this book."—Norman Yoffee, Professor, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies and Dept. of Anthropology, University of Michigan. "This book emerges as both a remarkable scholarly achievement and something of a manifesto for contemporary political thinking and engagement."—Susan E. Alcock, author of Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories

China's Changing Political Landscape

China's Changing Political Landscape PDF Author: Cheng Li
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815752083
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
While China's economic rise is being watched closely around the world, the country's changing political landscape is intriguing, as well. Forces unleashed by market reforms are profoundly recasting state-society relations. Will the Middle Kingdom transition rapidly, slowly, or not at all to political democracy? In China's Changing Political Landscape, leading experts examine the prospects for democracy in the world's most populous nation. China's political transformation is unlikely to follow a linear path. Possible scenarios include development of democracy as we understand it; democracy with more clearly Chinese characteristics; mounting regime instability due to political and socioeconomic crises; and a modified authoritarianism, perhaps modeled on other Asian examples such as Singapore. Which road China ultimately takes will depend on the interplay of socioeconomic forces, institutional developments, leadership succession, and demographic trends. Cheng Li and his colleagues break down a number of issues in Chinese domestic politics, including changing leadership dynamics; the rise of business elites; increased demand for the rule of law; and shifting civil-military relations. Although the contributors clash on many issues, they do agree on one thing: the political trajectory of this economic powerhouse will have profound implications, not only for 1.3 billion Chinese people, but also for the world as a whole.

Political Humor in a Changing Media Landscape

Political Humor in a Changing Media Landscape PDF Author: Jody C Baumgartner
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498565093
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This book is devoted to anticipating and addressing where the field of political humor and its effects will move in the next generation of scholarship, exploring the continued evolution of the study of political humor as well as the normative implications of these developments.

Mapping the Political Landscape

Mapping the Political Landscape PDF Author: Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780176424138
Category : Political science
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
Mapping the Political Landscape: An Introduction to Political Science, second edition explores many issues that reflect the large diversity of Canadian society. Taking into account the increasing globalization of issues, this text/reader relates classical concepts of political science to differing political and cultural experiences. Mapping the Political Landscape is divided in to four thematic parts: Politics as Discipline, Ideas, Institutions and Change, with a small section of classic and contemporary readings following each chapter. The text assists the students with the readings by providing a set of questions relating to the readings and thematic commentary.

Political Economies of Landscape Change

Political Economies of Landscape Change PDF Author: James L. Jr Wescoat
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402058497
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
This hugely important and timely work asks how politics and economics transform the landscapes we inhabit. It explores the connections between political economy and landscape change through a series of conceptual essays and case studies. In so doing, it speaks to a broad readership of landscape architects, geographers, and related fields of social and environmental research.

Derailing Democracy in Afghanistan

Derailing Democracy in Afghanistan PDF Author: Noah Coburn
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231166206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
This volume shows how Afghani elections since 2004 have threatened to derail the country’s fledgling democracy. Examining presidential, parliamentary, and provincial council elections and conducting interviews with more than one hundred candidates, officials, community leaders, and voters, the text shows how international approaches to Afghani elections have misunderstood the role of local actors, who have hijacked elections in their favor, alienated communities, undermined representative processes, and fueled insurgency, fostering a dangerous disillusionment among Afghan voters.

Political Landscapes of Capital Cities

Political Landscapes of Capital Cities PDF Author: Jessica Joyce Christie
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607324695
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Political Landscapes of Capital Cities investigates the processes of transformation of the natural landscape into the culturally constructed and ideologically defined political environments of capital cities. In this spatially inclusive, socially dynamic interpretation, an interdisciplinary group of authors including archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians uses the methodology put forth in Adam T. Smith’s The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities to expose the intimate associations between human-made environments and the natural landscape that accommodate the sociopolitical needs of governmental authority. Political Landscapes of Capital Cities blends the historical, political, and cultural narratives of capital cities such as Bangkok, Cusco, Rome, and Tehran with a careful visual analysis, hinging on the methodological tools of not only architectural and urban design but also cultural, historiographical, and anthropological studies. The collection provides further ways to conceive of how processes of urbanization, monumentalization, ritualization, naturalization, and unification affected capitals differently without losing grasp of local distinctive architectural and spatial features. The essays also articulate the many complex political and ideological agendas of a diverse set of sovereign entities that planned, constructed, displayed, and performed their societal ideals in the spaces of their capitals, ultimately confirming that political authority is profoundly spatial. Contributors: Jelena Bogdanović, Jessica Joyce Christie, Talinn Grigor, Eulogio Guzmán, Gregor Kalas, Stephanie Pilat, Melody Rod-ari, Anne Parmly Toxey, Alexei Vranich

How the Obama Presidency Changed the Political Landscape

How the Obama Presidency Changed the Political Landscape PDF Author: Larry J. Walker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Covering key issues ranging from education to political mobilization to racial stratification, this book provides a comprehensive examination of the Obama Presidency. President Barack Obama's election and subsequent reelection represent a critical paradigm shift in American political history. But are there lasting effects of the election of an African American to the highest office in the land in terms of the United States' economic, educational, political and social realities? A valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, state and federal policymakers, and general readers, this book poses critical questions and offers insightful answers from expert contributors, provides a balanced critique of President Obama's accomplishments and challenges, and considers the national and international impact President Obama's tenure had on politics. The numerous contributors to this book provide a range of perspectives on President Obama's presidency that question conventional thinking, covering key issues that include health care, education, political mobilization, gender, racial stratification, voting patterns, and criminal justice. Readers will come away with a heightened comprehension of the complex relationships between political structures, economic policies, and minority interests; how Congress, traditional and contemporary activists, and domestic and international issues all shaped the Obama Presidency; and how micro and macro issues such as voting rights, voting patterns, and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) initiatives are connected.