This volume investigates the reasons behind voter turnout inequalities in contemporary Europe. It looks at the socioeconomic factors that can inhibit electoral participation at the individual level, and how these factors interact with the institutional constraints regulating access to the electoral arena, and considering the changes affecting the class system and occupational opportunities. The volume also reflects on the long-term effects of the 2008 Great Recession on the stability of democracy and the individual lives of voters, who are often deprived of institutional representation and left with the choice between anti-system protest and disengagement from politics.

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

Is voting out of fashion? Does it matter if voters don't show up at the polls? If yes, is legal enforcement of voting compatible with democracy? These are just a few of the questions linked to the thorny problem of electoral abstention. This book addresses the hot question whether there is a duty to vote and if this is enforceable in the form of compulsory voting. Divided into two parts, Anthoula Malkopoulou begins by expertly presenting the importance of compulsory voting today, situating the debate within the contemporary discussion on liberty, equality and democracy. Then, she questions the historical origins of the idea in Europe. In particular, she examines parliamentary discussions and other primary sources from France and Greece, including a few additional insights from other countries like Switzerland and Belgium. Focusing especially on the years between 1870 and 1930, the reader learns about the historical actors of the debates, their efforts to legitimate punishment of abstention through normative arguments, but also their strategic motivations and political interests. While discussions at the beginning of the century focus on introducing compulsory voting, Malkopoulou criticizes its misuse after the Second World War, exposing the contingency of relevant normative claims today and the conditionality of compulsory voting. From ancient times until today, you learn about the ideological debates, their political context and how the problems of equal representation and democratic moderation persist through the ages.

This work contains the updated papers presented at the Conference "How Did They Become Voters? The History of Franchise in Modern European Representational Systems", which was organized under the auspices of the European University Institute and held on 20-22 April 1995 in Florence. It examines the basic mechanisms regulating electoral processes in many countries, both in Europe and the rest of the world, in the 19th and 20th centuries.

As Europe’s Muslim communities continue to grow, so does their impact on electoral politics and the potential for inclusion dilemmas. In vote-rich enclaves, Muslim views on religion, tradition, and gender roles can deviate sharply from those of the majority electorate, generating severe trade-offs for parties seeking to broaden their coalitions. Dilemmas of Inclusion explains when and why European political parties include Muslim candidates and voters, revealing that the ways in which parties recruit this new electorate can have lasting consequences. Drawing on original evidence from thousands of electoral contests in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Great Britain, Rafaela Dancygier sheds new light on when minority recruitment will match up with existing party positions and uphold electoral alignments and when it will undermine party brands and shake up party systems. She demonstrates that when parties are seduced by the quick delivery of ethno-religious bloc votes, they undercut their ideological coherence, fail to establish programmatic linkages with Muslim voters, and miss their opportunity to build cross-ethnic, class-based coalitions. Dancygier highlights how the politics of minority inclusion can become a testing ground for parties, showing just how far their commitments to equality and diversity will take them when push comes to electoral shove. Providing a unified theoretical framework for understanding the causes and consequences of minority political incorporation, and especially as these pertain to European Muslim populations, Dilemmas of Inclusion advances our knowledge about how ethnic and religious diversity reshapes domestic politics in today’s democracies.

Inclusion and Exclusion of the Urban Poor in Dhaka explores how the inhabitants of poor neighborhoods in Dhaka, Bangladesh, gain inclusion in the city at the face of exclusion. The book considers how the people of poor neighborhoods encounter the exclusionary behavior of city development, and how their inclusionary attempts have influenced the urban design. The book is presented in two parts: first, it explains how people in poor neighborhoods face exclusion because of the imbalance of power and politics. Second, it demonstrates how the existing exclusion of urban poor is affecting their strategies to gain access to urban services through people’s power and politics. Focusing on the transdisciplinary field of urban anthropology, the chapters uncover the urban forces, policies and actions that facilitate urban politics. It also investigates the people who live in poor neighborhoods, who in the face of exclusion, have included themselves in urban development planning and design by employing diverse strategies against those forces in the urban politics, e.g., accepting dominance, bargaining, or having control over their lives. This book will recontextualize an ethnographic inquiry into the exclusion and inclusion of the people within city development design, plans and innovations in applications of anthropological theory and methodology. This book will encourage the reader to understand the politics of state’s development projects and plans, and furthermore instigate the city government, planners and policymakers to focus on the people's political power and agency that enables them to achieve inclusion. It will therefore be of interest to researchers and students of urban planning and development, urban geography, and urban anthropology, as well as planning professionals and policymakers.

Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.

Explains cross-national differences in the political and partisan representation of low-income voters, focusing attention on the electoral geography of income.

'The editors have succeeded in putting together an excellent group of authors who present a well informed and balanced analysis of the formation of political systems in the examined countries. . . . The authors of this book are to be congratulated on the structure and clarity of its presentation. This volume makes an interesting contribution to knowledge in this field and should be useful reading for students and experts interested in Central and Eastern European politics.' - Dan Marek, Journal of European Area Studies 'This is a very interesting reference book of the political changes in Eastern Europe since the demise of communism. It will prove to be of great use for everybody involved in research on Eastern Europe, but it can also offer considerable introductory information to those who have not followed the most recent developments in the region.' - Ioannis Armakolas, The Ethnic Conflict Research Digest This major new reference book provides an authoritative and thorough analysis of the political changes which have occurred in Eastern Europe since the demise of communism. It offers an historical, comparative perspective of the region and focuses on the social consequences of the transition, historical legacies, and variations between countries in the sequences of the changes.

First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.