This book enables analysts in government and the private sector as well as policy advisors and decision makers to assess global risks and opportunities systematically, make well-founded and informed decisions, and anticipate the unanticipated. The authors illuminate the basics of intuitive and analytical thinking and how structured techniques can mitigate the impact of cognitive biases, misapplied heuristics, and intuitive traps. Three case studies illustrate how to apply over 30 Structured Analytic Techniques (SATs) with step-by-step instructions. The final chapter focuses on how to optimize the impact of your analytic product, be it a paper, briefing, or digital display.

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This edited collection explores the intersections of populist communication, performative leadership and international politics. It investigates the mechanisms and dynamics connecting these core conceptual fields and offers empirical examples. Together, the contributors to the volume argue that populist communication, i.e. the language, deliberation and discursive performance of populist ideas, has a profound and lasting impact not only on domestic politics, but in terms of foreign policies as well as the conduct of international politics writ large. First, populist communication shapes how global, regional and transborder issues are debated and strategically used for political purposes domestically. Second, populist communication changes when and how states and other actors in turn formulate responses and policies vis-a-vis, for example, migration, global health, climate change, trade, or war. Finally, populist communication affects the nature of international politics.

European leaders faced the Covid-19 pandemic by adopting very different leadership styles, characterized by diverging approaches to crisis communication, power management, and relationship-building with actors and stakeholders in the public sphere. The pandemic also highlighted the importance of the already-existing cleavage between populism and technocracy, positioning it at the centre of the political scene.

This book discusses the life and professional struggle of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and the transformation of the CHP under his leadership. It deals with the transformational periods and phases of the CHP, up to the period when Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu became prominent in the party. The CHP’s transformation and how it variously affected its popular standing in public opinion and revealed political liabilities and limitations cumulatively can indicate and explain to what extent political parties are likely to change as leadership changes and different regime governing approaches take hold. Furthermore, this book aims to answer the following questions: How and for what reasons did Kılıçdaroğlu decide to ally with the center-right wing in the CHP? What was the collective impact of the center-right wing in positive and negative terms regarding the CHP’s general identity, especially in historical context? After the 2015 elections, what constituted the shifts and revisions in Kılıçdaroğlu’s ideology and how did they alter the political power of the CHP as a major opposition party? What evidence exists to shed light on his capabilities for building coalitions as a viable option for the possibility of forming a national government in elections?

This book provides the first systematic, empirical analysis of the media’s approach to US vice-presidential selection (or the “veepstakes”). In their news coverage, Devine finds that media outlets typically treat vice-presidential selection as little more than a game—by focusing on how potential running mates might help to win the election, rather than how they might help the next president to govern. Based on an original content analysis of hundreds of veepstakes profiles from 2000–2020, this book quantifies the news media’s relative emphasis on various selection criteria, in general and across different electoral circumstances. The analysis suggests that journalists generally fail to serve the public interest by emphasizing electoral over governing considerations. However, Devine also points to positive examples of media coverage that help the public to evaluate potential running mates’ governing credentials, and suggests ways in which scholars, journalists, and citizens might encourage media outlets to provide more substantive, responsible coverage of the vice-presidential selection process in future elections.

This book offers a systematic inquiry into how, why, and with what consequences media affects governments and the standing of prime ministers. It aims at an understanding of how media has caused institutional effects in government, as well as at advancing a unified theory of government communication. The author develops a logic of centralization and applies it to one case, Sweden. Government communication has been institutionalized, tightened and centralized with the prime minister and has changed irreversibly. Analysis of how the government communication system has evolved, mainly in its institutional structures, suggests that the shift to centralization arose more out of necessity than choice. For prime ministers most of this is about finding ways to ensure that the entire government respond to media uniformly.

This book offers a systematic inquiry into how, why, and with what consequences media affects governments and the standing of prime ministers. It aims at an understanding of how media has caused institutional effects in government, as well as at advancing a unified theory of government communication. The author develops a logic of centralization and applies it to one case, Sweden. Government communication has been institutionalized, tightened and centralized with the prime minister and has changed irreversibly. Analysis of how the government communication system has evolved, mainly in its institutional structures, suggests that the shift to centralization arose more out of necessity than choice. For prime ministers most of this is about finding ways to ensure that the entire government respond to media uniformly.

This book focuses on the impact of political leaders on the integration process led by the European Union. It aims at a better understanding of the European Union through the actions, contributions, and ideas of these outstanding characters to European integration and disintegration. By doing so, the book offers an entirely new perspective, presenting the actions of the main actors involved, their background, their historical time, their challenges and problems, and how they influenced the European Union's development.

This book presents a collection of studies on political interviews in a variety of broadcast media worldwide. Following the growing scholarly interest in media talk as a dominant form of political communication in contemporary society, a number of eminent international scholars analyze empirical material from the discourse of public figures and interviewer–journalists to address questions related to the characteristics, conduct, and potential effects of political interviews. Chapters span a varied array of cultural contexts: the U.S.A., U.K., Israel, Japan, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Australia, Philippines, Finland, Brazil, Malaysia, Spain, Venezuela, Montenegro, and the European Community,

During the last three decades, there has been a growing interest in systems that combine elements of parliamentarism and presidentialism. Despite the fact that much attention has been directed towards the semi-presidential form of government in particular, it is evident that many aspects of regime forms remain unexplored. This book systematically categorises democratic political regimes with a separate head of state and government (including regimes with a monarch and prime minister, and president and PM) globally and over a long historical period 1850–2019. It analyses how regimes with a dual executive emerge and what trajectories they follow. It also explores the stability of these regimes across time and space. An important feature of this endeavour is to address actual powers of the head of state rather than constitutional provisions.