Electing A Mega Mayor

Electing a Mega-Mayor represents the first-ever comprehensive, survey-based examination of a Canadian mayoral race and provides a unique, detailed account of the 2014 mayoral election in Toronto. After making the case that local elections deserve more attention from scholars of political behaviour, this book offers readers an understanding of Toronto politics at the time of the 2014 election and presents relevant background on the major candidates. It considers the importance that Torontonians attached to policy concerns and identifies the bases of support for the outgoing, scandal-ridden mayor, Rob Ford, and his brother Doug. In the penultimate chapter, the authors examine how Torontonians viewed their elected officials, and the city’s performance, two years after the election. McGregor, Moore, and Stephenson conclude with a reflection on what the analysis of the Toronto 2014 election says about voters in large cities in general and provide a short epilogue addressing the 2018 election results. Written in an accessible style, this is the first book on the politics of Toronto during the Ford era that focuses on the perspective of the voter.

This book offers a thorough account of the attitudes and behaviour of electors towards the 2014 Toronto Mayoral Election.

One of the most peculiar features of municipal politics in Canada is how frequently local politicians, activists, and scholars disagree about how to describe the municipal arena. For some, municipal politics is distinct from other levels of government, a world of non-ideological elections, pragmatic and technical policymaking, and issue-by-issue policy coalitions. Others argue that municipal politics is similar to politics at other scales, with persistent axes of political disagreement and a recognizable “left” and “right.” This recurring debate features prominently in municipal election campaigns across Canada. In Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics, Jack Lucas investigates municipal ideology in Canada. Using data from original surveys of municipal politicians and the Canadian public, the book reveals how municipal politics is clearly structured by left-right ideology. It shows that municipal politicians represent their constituents’ ideological preferences quite well: they understand their constituents’ ideological perspectives, they align with their constituents’ preferences, and they are elected in part because of their ideological alignment with voters. A lively and accessible study, Ideology in Canadian Municipal Politics will appeal to readers interested in municipal politics, political ideology, and political representation.

This book contains chapters on each of Latin America's six large cities (Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, and Santa Fé de Bogotá). It has four thematic chapters. the first discusses the demography of urban growth in the region and the other three focus on what are particularly sensitive issues in very large cities : public administration, transportation, and land, housing, and infrastructure. (Adapté du résumé de l'éditeur).

At 11 pm on Election Night, my little brother (and co-author) called me. I hesitated to pick up the phone because I knew what the call was about. When I answered he described the scene at his law school following Hillary Clinton's probable loss as one of total despair. Every pollster said this could not happen, but here we were - watching Donald Trump successfully pull off one of the biggest political upsets of all time. The next day reality sank in, and my brother and I were on the phone once again, but this time the conversation was different. We were discussing just how this happened, and researching whether there were examples in history that could explain this phenomenon. What we found is that results like the 2016 presidential election had happened before and at all levels of government from mayoral races to races for the White House. In our research and analysis we found there are many ways a politician can be upset by their opponent, such as not understanding their electorate properly, lack of data, or being outmaneuvered technology wise (failing to innovate). Ultimately, we discovered that there is no set way to win an election, but by not changing from past styles incumbents and new candidates alike guarantee an eventual loss. To demonstrate this point, we will walk through goat mayor Clay Henry's election, Jesse Ventura's rise to governorship, Barack Obama's election, Donald Trump's campaign points, an exclusive look into how the PAN took the Mexican state of Tamaulipas from the PRI written by the President of DIF Reynosa, and many other upset elections.

Though mayors directly elected by the residents of a city are so commonplace as to go without comment in the United States and Canada, in many other countries, including England, Germany, and Hungary, they are a recent development, where they have been pitched as an effective, democratically accountable governing option. But is that actually true? Do directly elected mayors deliver better governance than the alternatives? This text presents the results of an in-depth study of that question and the role of the elected mayor in general, drawing on data from a large number of cities from around the world to show the wide range of policy approaches and outcomes that the position can entail.