Political Science Faculty Books/Book Chapters

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  Gay and Lesbian Candidates, Group Stereotypes, and the News Media: an Experimental Design (LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader)

  Mandi Bates Bailey and Steven P. Nawara

  From Harvey Milk to ACT UP to Proposition 8, no political change in the last two decades has been as rapid as the advancement of civil rights for LGBTQ people. As we face a critical juncture in progressive activism, political science, which has been slower than most disciplines to study the complexity of queer politics, must grapple with the shifting landscape of LGBTQ rights and inclusion.
  
  LGBTQ Politics analyzes both the successes and obstacles to building the LGBTQ movement over the past twenty years, offering analyses that point to possibilities for the movement’s future. Essays cover a range of topics, including activism, law, and coalition-building, and draw on subfields such as American politics, comparative politics, political theory, and international relations.
  
  LGBTQ Politics presents the full range of methodological, ideological, and substantive approaches to LGBTQ politics that exist in political science. Analyses focused on mainstream institutional and elite politics appear alongside contributions grounded in grassroots movements and critical theory. While some essays celebrate the movement’s successes and prospects, others express concerns that its democratic basis has become undermined by a focus on funding power over people power, attempts to fragment the LGBTQ movement from racial, gender and class justice, and a persistent attachment to single-issue politics.
  
  A comprehensive, thought-provoking collection, LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader will give rise to continued critical discussion of the parameters of LGBTQ politics.

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  The Twitter Election: Analyzing Candidate Use of Social Media in the 2016 Presidential Campaign (Chapter from The Internet and the 2016 Presidential Campaign)

  Steven P. Nawara and Mandi Bates Bailey

  On January 13, 2017, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump took to the social media platform Twitter to attack his recent opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump microblogged, “What are Hillary Clinton’s people complaining about with respect to the F.B.I. Based on the information they had she would have never been allowed to run – guilty as hell… [sic]” Aside from the obvious concerns about a president who will be appointing judicial candidates assigning guilt to a political opponent, this tweet generally illustrates the overall negative tone perceived throughout the 2016 Presidential Election campaigns and more specifically illustrates the way in which social media are revolutionizing American elections. This election cycle saw both major-party nominees with underwater favorability numbers and each candidate was dogged by scandals that called into question their character and suitability for office. With no shortage of potentially damning information on either side, Twitter became a forum for 140-character (or less) personal attacks from candidates that could be characterized as having itchy Twitter fingers. This chapter investigates candidates’ use of social media broadly as well as its use as a vehicle of negativity in this contentious election by looking across platforms. Specifically, we 2 content analyze the official candidate social media account activity in the months preceding Election Day 2016 from the three most-prominent social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. In addition to major party candidates Donald Trump (the Republican nominee) and Hillary Clinton (the Democratic nominee), we also investigate the social media use of Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.