The face of the party? Leader personalization in British campaigns

The personal characteristics of political elites play an important role in British elections. While the personalization of the media’s election coverage has been the subject of much debate, we know less about the conditions under which voters receive personalized messages directly from elites during the campaign. In this paper, we use a new dataset that includes more than 3300 local communications from the 2015 general election to explore variation in the personalization of campaign messaging. We find that there is systemic variation in terms of where photographs of party leaders are included in election communications, which provides further evidence that campaign messages are deployed strategically to portray the candidate – and their party – in the best possible light.     

The German question: Anglo‐American,French and west German perspectives

Geteiltes Land ‐ halbes Land? Essays über Deutschland, eingeleitet von Richard Löwenthal. By David P. Calleo, Roger Morgan, Raymond Poidevin and Michael Voslensky. Frankfurt/Berlin: Ullstein, 1986. Pp.240. DM 38.00.

Die deutsche Frage aus der heutigen Sicht des Auslandes. Edited by Han‐nelore Horn and Siegfried Mampel. Berlin: Duncker &; Humblot, 1987. Pp.135. DM 28.00.

Germany between East and West. Edited by Edwina Moreton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp.185. DM 22.50.

Deutsche Frage und Westbindung. Edited by Klaus Weigelt. Melle: Knoth Verlag, 1986. Pp.151. DM 14.80.

Die offene deutsche Frage. Gesprdche mit unseren Nachbarn. Edited by Jean‐Paul Picaper and Günter Oeltze von Lobenthal. Berlin: Colloquium, 1987. Pp.199. DM22.00.

Le vertige allemand. By Brigitte Sauzay. Paris: Editions Olivier Orban, 1986. Pp.280.

Welches Deutschland soll es sein? Frankreich und die deutsche Einheit seit 1945. By Ernst Weisenfeld. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1986. Pp.203. DM 29.80.

Confronting the German Question. Germans on the East‐West Divide. By Renata Fritsch‐Bournatzel. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1988. Pp.150. £16.50.

Das ganze Deutschland. Perspektiven der Wiedervereinigung. By Wolfgang Seiffert. Munich: Piper, 1986. Pp.377. DM 19.80.

Einheit statt Raketen. Thesen zur Wiedervereinigung als Sicherheitskonzept. By Bernhard Friedmann. Herford: Busse/Seewald, 1987. Pp.180. DM 38.00

Deutsche Fragen oder die Suche nach der Staatsräson. Historisch‐politische Kolumnen. By Micheal Stürmer. Munich: Piper, 1988. Pp.211. DM16.80.     

Race, Income, and College in 25 Years: Evaluating Justice O'Connor's Conjecture

In Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice O’Connor conjecturedthat in 25 years affirmative action in college admissions willbe unnecessary. We project the test score distribution of blackand white college applicants 25 years from now, focusing onthe role of black–white family income gaps. Economic progressalone is unlikely to narrow the achievement gap enough in 25years to produce today’s racial diversity levels withrace-blind admissions. A return to the rapid black–whitetest score convergence of the 1980s could plausibly cause blackrepresentation to approach current levels at moderately selectiveschools, but not at the most selective schools.     

Terrorism alerts and target transference: evidence and implications from the 2010 Europe-wide terrorism alert

This article examines how terrorist alerts and terrorist threats interacted during a period of heightened alert in Europe in late 2010. Taking from game theory the concepts of target transference (by terrorists) and defence races (among states) and using their underlying rationalist logic as a causal mechanism, the article attempts to construct an analytical narrative of the till now unwritten history of this event. In the process, the event serves to test whether the observable implications of theory corresponded to reality in this case. The study finds that during the Euro-alert transference in time was more common than transference of place and that there was more resistance to defence races than theory predicts. The alert itself was only a qualified success; the extent to which it was effective was determined by its combination with other offensive actions. The findings call for more attention to be given to terrorist preferences, inter-temporal transference and its relationship to bandwagoning, and state resistance to defence races with consideration of the role of information.