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Thackeray and Toye point out that increasingly MPs have been regarded "less as independent persons" than as "standard-bearers of their parties committed to manifesto pledges" they had not themselves drawn up (p. 5), and Toye's chapter positions Churchill as 'one of the last custodians of an older model of political independence'. I Electoral Pledges in Britain i , an ambitious and absorbing edited collection from David Thackeray and Richard Toye, places the art of promise-making at the heart of a complex "ecosystem of political persuasion" (p. 7). Manifestos played a role in "the working-out of ideological conflicts" - in purporting to act as "custodians of the manifesto", Labour rivals were signalling "their identity as socialists of one form or another" to an internal party constituency as much as to the electorate (Wickham Jones, p. 230). [Extracted from the article]

I If Then i is a riveting narrative history of the Simulmatics Corporation, "Cold War America's Cambridge Analytica" (pp. 1-2), from its founding in 1959 to its bankruptcy in 1970. Amid the tumult of New Left critique and campus protests, Pool resigned from MIT and Simulmatics declared bankruptcy in 1970. [Extracted from the article]

What is the effect of electoral uncertainty on a legislature's preference for bureaucratic insulation? Previous research argues that an increase in electoral uncertainty results in an increase in a legislature's preference for bureaucratic insulation, delegation of a program to an independent agency or multiple agencies, for a government‐regulated program. However, there is disagreement among political scientists on how to conceptually or empirically measure electoral uncertainty and bureaucratic insulation. I use the common conceptual definitions of electoral uncertainty and bureaucratic insulation from the legislative delegation literature in a within‐subject experiment of U.S. state legislators and legislative staff to assess the causal effect of electoral uncertainty on their preference for one of the four strategies of bureaucratic insulation. Once a legislature is subject to electoral uncertainty, I find that the respondents are more likely to delegate to an independent agency and multiple agencies that collectively implement a program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I The British General Election of 2019 i , the latest instalment in the venerable "Nuffield series" of UK general election monographs, does an excellent job at capturing both aspects of this juncture. (This is, incidentally, more bad news for Labour: it means that in absence of a similarly attractive Farage-led outlet at the next election, quite a few "red wall" seats Labour held in 2019 may be more at risk than they seem.). [Extracted from the article]

Analysing the election results of OECD countries during and after the Great Recession, leading US political scientist Larry Bartels challenges the common perception that voters have given up on progressive parties and turned to the right. Elections, he argues, have little to do with ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories involving coattails, surge and decline, presidential popularity, and the economy ascribe little importance to presidential efforts to influence congressional elections. Since such efforts do occur, we ask: What happens when a president campaigns for fellow partisans? We examined President George W. Bush's decisions to campaign for certain House candidates in 2002, and we assessed the effect of his visits on Republicans' electoral successes. Both the competitiveness of a race and the president's electoral self-interest increased the likelihood of a visit on behalf of a candidate. Neither party loyalty nor presidential support in Congress had an effect. We conclude that presidential campaign visits significantly enhance candidates' electoral prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of presidential mandates is as certain as a presidential election itself. Journalists inevitably discuss whether the president-elect has a popular mandate. Because they see elections as too complex to allow the public to send a unitary signal, political scientists are more skeptical of mandates. Mandates, however, have received new attention by scholars asking whether perceptions of mandate arise and lead representatives to actvoters sent a policy directive. Two explanations have emerged to account for why elected officials might react to such perceptions. One focuses on the president's strategic decision to declare a mandate, the second on how members of Congress read signals of changing preferences in the electorate from their own election results. We test these competing views to see which more accurately explains how members of Congress act in support of a perceived mandate. The results indicate that members respond more to messages about changing preferences than to the president's mandate declaration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion of strategic voting and agenda manipulation tends to be highly abstract. Most real-world examples are either artificial or politically insignificant; the few paradigmatic examples which do exist are discussed again and again. This is one reason why many empirically minded political scientists often ignore the whole social choice approach. The purpose of this article is to focus on a single event — the election of the Finnish President in 1956 — and to show that almost all theoretically interesting phenomena studied in the social-choice literature were present. The paper is based on empirical material, especially on subjective descriptions provided by the main actors. This kind of approach is recommended as a complement to the deductive-theoretical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on democracy as a branch of study by modern political science. It reflects that many political scientists had a critical outlook towards the aspect of representation in democracy, which was the ability of people to choose their representatives who would strive for their interests. It informs that democracy allows voters to elect leaders on the basis of their promises for the future but also provides them the power punish or reward leaders or parties for their past performances. It also reflects on accountability in politics and the political behavior of those in power towards electoral accountability.

Complete election returns are now available for the 1968-1986 period for 14 state legislatures that used single-member districts exclusively in both houses during that period. An analysis of incumbents shows that in most states there was only a modest increase over that period in the proportion who sought reelection or succeeded in getting re-elected; the reason is that in most states that percentage was already high in 1968. There was, however, a significant increase in most states in the margin by which incumbents won, though not an increase in winning margins for open seats. In many states this increase was largely accounted for by an increase in the proportion of uncontested elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Probably the most useful thing political scientists can do with the reform process is to look closely at its third step--actual and foreseeable consequences. The adopters of reforms are normally professional politicians and these may have no interest in achieving the ends they are forced by public opinion to espouse. Hence they often find it possible to write into law a ringing endorsement of principle, yet to lose the enacting clause somewhere on the way to conference. A "reform" is a change that promises, in the arguments of its advocates, to impart greater efficiency or equity to governmental activities.

Every four years the increasing costs and other consequences of the present presidential election system are dramatized, and new attention focused on the problem by journalists, legislators, presidential nominees and their staffs, as well as by political scientists. A definite responsibility appears here for the political science profession. The electoral processes and their explication fall primarily to the discipline, although collegial examination with associates in economics, sociology and other social science disciplines will be beneficial.