From Open Secrets to Secret Voting

From Open Secrets to Secret Voting
Author: Isabela Mares
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015-06-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 131630079X

The expansion of suffrage and the introduction of elections are momentous political changes that represent only the first steps in the process of democratization. In the absence of institutions that protect the electoral autonomy of voters against a range of actors who seek to influence voting decisions, political rights can be just hollow promises. This book examines the adoption of electoral reforms that protected the autonomy of voters during elections and sought to minimize undue electoral influences over decisions made at the ballot box. Empirically, it focuses on the adoption of reforms protecting electoral secrecy in Imperial Germany during the period between 1870 and 1912. Empirically, the book provides a micro-historical analysis of the democratization of electoral practices, by showing how changes in district level economic and political conditions contributed to the formation of an encompassing political coalition supporting the adoption of electoral reforms.

Secrecy and Publicity in Votes and Debates

Secrecy and Publicity in Votes and Debates
Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107083362

In the spirit of Jeremy Bentham's Political Tactics, this volume offers the first comprehensive discussion of the effects of secrecy and publicity on debates and votes in committees and assemblies. The contributors - sociologists, political scientists, historians, and legal scholars - consider the micro-technology of voting (the devil is in the detail), the historical relations between the secret ballot and universal suffrage, the use and abolition of secret voting in parliamentary decisions, and the sometimes perverse effects of the drive for greater openness and transparency in public affairs. The authors also discuss the normative questions of secret versus public voting in national elections and of optimal mixes of secrecy and publicity, as well as the opportunities for strategic behavior created by different voting systems. Together with two previous volumes on Collective Wisdom (Cambrige, 2012) and Majority Decisions (Cambridge, 2014), the book sets a new standard for interdisciplinary work on collective decision-making.

The Politics of Social Risk

The Politics of Social Risk
Author: Isabela Mares
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2003-07-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521534772

The book provides a systematic evaluation of the role played by business in the development of the modern welfare state. When and why have employers supported the development of institutions of social insurance that provide benefits to workers for various employment-related risks? What factors explain the variation in the social policy preferences of employers? What is the relative importance of business and labor-based organization in the negotiation of a new social policy? This book studies these critical questions, by examining the role played by German and French producers in eight social policy reforms spanning nearly a century of social policy development. The analysis demonstrates that major social policies were adopted by cross-class alliances comprising labor-based organizations and key sectors of the business community.

Super PACs

Super PACs
Author: Louise I. Gerdes
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2014-05-20
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 0737776552

The passage of Citizens United by the Supreme Court in 2010 sparked a renewed debate about campaign spending by large political action committees, or Super PACs. Its ruling said that it is okay for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want in advertising and other methods to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. This book provides a wide range of opinions on the issue. Includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives; eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others.

Apartheid Guns and Money

Apartheid Guns and Money
Author: Hennie van Vuuren
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787382486

In its last decades, the apartheid regime was confronted with an existential threat. While internal resistance to the last whites-only government grew, mandatory international sanctions prohibited sales of strategic goods and arms to South Africa. To counter this, a global covert network of nearly fifty countries was built. In complete secrecy, allies in corporations, banks, governments and intelligence agencies across the world helped illegally supply guns and move cash in one of history's biggest money laundering schemes. Whistleblowers were assassinated and ordinary people suffered. Weaving together archival material, interviews and newly declassified documents, Apartheid Guns and Money exposes some of the darkest secrets of apartheid's economic crimes, their murderous consequences, and those who profited: heads of state, arms dealers, aristocrats, bankers, spies, journalists and secret lobbyists. These revelations, and the difficult questions they pose, will both allow and force the new South Africa to confront its past.

The Secrets of the Hopewell Box

The Secrets of the Hopewell Box
Author: James D. Squires
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2013-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826519253

"A sometimes eye-goggling history of political corruption in one corner of the postwar South. . . . [Squires'] grandfather was a sheriff's deputy who carried a gun and a clenched fist, a man . . . [who] was also, Squires relates, one of the muscle men behind a vicious cabal of power brokers headed by one Boss Crump. . . . That machine involved, for a time, much of Nashville's leading citizenry. It engineered elections, stole votes, organized lynch mobs, ran an illegal gambling empire, and in the 1950s, when it appeared that the traditional Democratic Party was going soft on civil rights, brokered the advent of Republicanism in one corner of the South." —Kirkus Reviews "His richly textured narrative charts the Nashville machine's rupture with the state's top political boss, Edward Crump of Memphis, and traces the sweeping reforms that shattered rural white control of the state legislature. Squires dramatically reenacts the downfall of Nashville lawyer Tommy Osborn, convicted of jury tampering in 1964 after defending Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. He follows Nashville's transformation into a crucible of the civil rights movement in this stirring chronicle of the South's coming-of-age." —Publishers Weekly

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Author: Greg Palast
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2003-02-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 110121323X

"Palast is astonishing, he gets the real evidence no one else has the guts to dig up." Vincent Bugliosi, author of None Dare Call it Treason and Helter Skelter Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast digs deep to unearth the ugly facts that few reporters working anywhere in the world today have the courage or ability to cover. From East Timor to Waco, he has exposed some of the most egregious cases of political corruption, corporate fraud, and financial manipulation in the US and abroad. His uncanny investigative skills as well as his no-holds-barred style have made him an anathema among magnates on four continents and a living legend among his colleagues and his devoted readership. This exciting collection, now revised and updated, brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of the past decade. Included here are his celebrated Washington Post exposé on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris's stealing of the presidential election in Florida, and recent stories on George W. Bush's payoffs to corporate cronies, the payola behind Hillary Clinton, and the faux energy crisis. Also included in this volume are new and previously unpublished material, television transcripts, photographs, and letters.

Get Out the Vote

Get Out the Vote
Author: Donald P. Green
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2008-09-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 081573266X

The first edition of Get Out the Vote! broke ground by introducing a new scientific approach to the challenge of voter mobilization and profoundly influenced how campaigns operate. In this expanded and updated edition, the authors incorporate data from more than one hundred new studies, which shed new light on the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of various campaign tactics, including door-to-door canvassing, e-mail, direct mail, and telephone calls. Two new chapters focus on the effectiveness of mass media campaigns and events such as candidate forums and Election Day festivals. Available in time for the core of the 2008 presidential campaign, this practical guide on voter mobilization is sure to be an important resource for consultants, candidates, and grassroots organizations. Praise for the first edition: "Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber have studied turnout for years. Their findings, based on dozens of controlled experiments done as part of actual campaigns, are summarized in a slim and readable new book called Get Out the Vote!, which is bound to become a bible for politicians and activists of all stripes." —Alan B. Kreuger, in the New York Times "Get Out the Vote! shatters conventional wisdom about GOTV." —Hal Malchow in Campaigns & Elections "Green and Gerber's recent book represents important innovations in the study of turnout."—Political Science Review "Green and Gerber have provided a valuable resource for grassroots campaigns across the spectrum."—National Journal

From Open Secrets to Secret Voting

From Open Secrets to Secret Voting
Author: Isabela Mares
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015-06-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107100216

This book presents an account of the adoption of electoral reforms democratizing electoral practices in nineteenth century European countries.

Secret Government

Secret Government
Author: Brian Kogelmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2021-11-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108833268

Offers a comprehensive philosophical analysis of transparency in government.