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Selected from a small committee to compose a first draft of a declaration of independence of the American colonies from Great Britain, Thomas Jefferson set pen to paper and began what would be a litany of offenses committed by the Crown against the people of the soon-to-be United States of America. Included in that world-changing document was a passage dealing with the colonial judiciary and its past subjugation to the wishes of George III: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the recognized influence media have over participatory political behaviors, few studies perform systematic and direct cross-national comparisons of news use and its effects on citizenship in different countries. And even fewer studies consider social media news use. By analyzing comparable and concurrently collected survey data from the United States and the United Kingdom, this study explores how traditional media use and the use of social media for news impact citizens' political engagement in both nations. Despite differences in terms of media use, political knowledge, political efficacy, and political participation, evidence in both cases confirms the meaningful role social media play in promoting citizens' political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This research has been conducted with the aim of determining if celebrity endorsers in political party advertising have a significant impact on UK voter intentions. The use of celebrity endorsements is commonplace in the USA, but little is known about its effects in the UK. This research also aims to incorporate the use of celebrity endorsements in political party advertising with the political salience construct. Political salience represents how prominent politics and political issues are in the minds of the eligible voter. Design/methodology/approach - A 2 (endorser: celebrity; non-celebrity) × 2 (political salience: high; low) between-subjects factorial design experiment was used. The results show that celebrity endorsements do play a significant role in attitudes towards the political advert, attitudes towards the endorser and voter intention. However, this effect is significantly moderated by political salience. Findings - The results show that low political salience respondents were significantly more likely to vote for the political party when a celebrity endorser is used. However, the inverse effect is found for high political salience respondents. Practical implications - The results offer significant insights into the effect that celebrity endorsers could have in future elections and the importance that political salience plays in the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. If political parties are to target those citizens that do not actively engage with politics then the use of celebrity endorsements would make a significant impact, given the results of this research. Originality/value - This research would be of particular interest to political party campaigners as well as academics studying the effects of advertising and identity salience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the authors' comments on the models of the governing party's success in special elections in the U.S. and Great Britain. The authors have observed that voters treat special elections as referendums on the party in power. According to them, special elections' outcomes are built on the base provided by prior elections and carry over to the future. They say that the governing party's chances are better if special elections are held soon after general elections.

The article offers information on the difference of the inter-election changes in the U.S. and Great Britain. It cites the contributions of David Butler and Donald Stokes on the "Political Change in Britain", which analyze the electoral voting shifts. Moreover, the contributors also introduces the votality of the British election in the 1960's and demonstrate its party conversion. In addition, its acknowledges that the analysis develop through the publication and extended evaluation on vote changes for the general elections.

This article is a study of the relationship between votes and legislative representation in Great Britain and the United States. The author describes a process by which the representativeness of democratic institutions may be evaluated. One of the problems in providing an interpretation for the relationship between votes and seats in a two-party, single-member constituency, plurality election system is that of defining a frame of reference for comparison. If one starts from an implicit standard of proportional representation, the major problem appears to be that of explaining why the system provides a bias in favor of the majority party in the range around 50 percent so that an increase of 1 per cent in the party's voting strength results in an increase of approximately 3 per cent in the party's strength in the house. Consequently, although it has been the implicit approach of some students of the cube law, comparison of the observed results with a normative proportional representation model tends not to be particularly fruitful insofar as one is interested in empirically-grounded theory.