Choice Outstanding Academic Book! This in-depth study of the recent civil war in El Salvador supports the author's broader contention that the strategies adopted by incumbent regimes and insurgent movements are key to explaining why revolutions occur—and the conditions under which they succeed or fail. Arguing that prevailing theories of revolution underemphasize the importance of    More >

While many commentators and political scientists dismissed Jesse Ventura's rise to the governorship as a fluke of celebrity, Jacob Lentz shows that it was Minnesota's unique electoral rules, coupled with on-target campaign dynamics, that enabled a third-party candidate to reach office. In this first complete account of Ventura's victory, Lentz draws on tantalizing details from the    More >

In eight of the past dozen presidential elections, TV networks proclaimed the winner while citizens on the West Coast, Hawaii, and Alaska were still casting ballots. Is this a problem? Do media projections decrease voter turnout? Carefully examining data from every presidential election held from 1960 through 2004, William Adams definitively answers both questions. Adams employs a range of    More >

Often regarded as a phenomenon of earlier times and backward places, vote buying has made an impressive comeback in recent decades—primarily as a by-product of democratization. Elections for Sale offers the first comprehensive analysis of this widespread but ill-understood practice. The authors systematically explore a series of key questions: What exactly is vote buying? What are its    More >

Today, electoral authoritarianism represents the most common form of political regime in the developing world and the one we know least about. Filling in the lacuna, this new book presents cutting-edge research on the internal dynamics of electoral authoritarian regimes.   Each concise, jargon-free chapter addresses a specific empirical puzzle on the basis of careful cross-national    More >

What causes widespread abuse of the electoral process? How do political elites choose and weigh the relative costs and benefits of differing kinds of electoral manipulation? How and why have patterns of electoral conduct changed over time? The authors of Electoral Malpractice in Asia answer these questions and more as they systematically compare the quality of elections across eleven    More >

In the midst of the political ugliness that has become part of our everyday reality, are there steps that can be taken to counter polarization and extremism—practical steps that are acceptable across the political spectrum? To answer that question, starting from the premise that the way our political processes are designed inevitably creates incentives for certain styles of politics and    More >

After decades of experimentation with various forms of dictatorship and autocracy, most sub-Saharan African countries adopted multiparty elections in the 1990s—a development widely celebrated as a sign that the region was moving toward democracy. This embrace of elections, however, has often been accompanied by unanticipated violence, raising important questions: Are violent elections a    More >

Elusive Equality explores how government institutions—the executive branch, the federal courts, Congress, and state legislatures—affect the legal status of women. In this fully revised and updated edition, Susan Gluck Mezey traces the evolving legal parameters of gender equality from early court rulings through the most recent legislation and judicial decisions. She also examines    More >

Elusive Reform explores one of the Latin American countries' biggest challenges: establishing a rule of law. Based on a close examination of historical patterns, it demonstrates how executive power and judicial disarray thwart progress toward judicial independence, state accountability, and citizen access to effective means of conflict resolution. Ungar critiques the wide spectrum of agencies    More >