Book Review: Mark Pack and Edward Maxfield, 101 Ways to Win an Election
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929917716094 |
| Author | Chiemezie O Nwosu |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsGeneral Politics |
Book Reviews 655
101 Ways to Win an Election by Mark
Pack and Edward Maxfield. London: Biteback
Publishing, 2016. 319pp., £12.99 (p/b), ISBN
9781785900914
The candidate, the message, the medium and
the audience. These are the key ingredients in
any political space, and a successful political
campaign is one that manages the relationships
between them effectively.
That is the crux of this five-part book writ-
ten over 101 nuggets. Part I focuses on the
message, which is the key point in any com-
munication effort. ‘I want to win’ will not win
you the election; ‘You want me to win’ is far
more appealing. Prioritise; be consistent but
not repetitive; be dynamic. Part II extols the
benefits of team building, and why starting
early is important. Part III is no less critical to
success: data, money and time management.
Part IV leaves no medium out; it exhausts all
modern-day avenues for putting your message
out there. The bottom line is to get your sup-
porters to actually go out and vote on election
day. Part V focuses on the candidate; a theme
that is present throughout the book. Having
done everything you know to do, it is wise to
prepare for the best … and the worst.
Each heading captures an essence of political
communication, starting from the message. It
draws on experiences garnered over decades of
campaigning by the two authors, as well as other
successful – and unsuccessful – political move-
ments, and outlines what everyone involved in
any campaign should know. Its principles apply
not just to politics as we know it, but also to other
platforms of political communication. It simpli-
fies the issues, making them readable to anyone
who cares to pick up the book.
This book was an easy read, an attribute
that made it engaging for me. The ‘nuggets’,
broken into short and sweet chapters, are very
practical and easy to digest – the things you
know you should know, but have not quite
been able to articulate. The book helped to cre-
ate a structure for those must-knows.
I found some of the stories used to illustrate
ideas rather difficult to grasp, making me go
back to the chapter title to remind myself what
I was supposed to be learning from it. Perhaps
taking a look at the illustrations again with a
view to either simplifying or removing some of
them is worth the authors’ time, as some of
them add little, if any, value.
All in all, Mark Pack and Edward Maxfield
have done a fine job of simplifying politics and
making its intricacies interesting even for an
apolitical mind.
Chiemezie O Nwosu
(Northumbria University)
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929917716094
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Designing Public Policy for Co-production:
Theory, Practice and Change by Catherine
Durose and Liz Richardson. Bristol:
Policy Press, 2016. 228pp., £23.99 (p/b), ISBN
9781447316954
Since the UK referendum on the European
Union (EU) in June 2016, we have frequently
been told that ordinary people are tired of
experts and politicians telling them what to
think and do. If this is true, then the message
from Catherine Durose and Liz Richardson is
especially pertinent.
The premise of the book is that the design of
public policy needs a radical overhaul.
Conventional design is based on a conception of
power that is zero-sum, hierarchical and coercive
– power is constituted, and public policy is done
to people. An alternative approach encourages
power that is positive-sum, non-dominating and
relational – power is constitutive, and policy is
done with people. The authors suggest that con-
structive citizen involvement in policy formation
should be a critical design feature: ‘Building
positive sum power is not about espousing false
consensus’ (p. 200). Policies co-produced and
‘owned’ by communities better reflect local
needs and desires and are more effective in deal-
ing with complex issues.
Focusing on the vision and grammar of pol-
icy design, contributors from around the world
– academics and practitioners – offer a dozen
examples of how experts, leaders and ordinary
people have co-produced public policy. These
illustrate well the importance of adaptive design
and management. There is no pretence that co-
production is either easy or always successful,
and the practical risks of co-production are
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