"This book represents contemporary French political science at its best: grappling with important questions by employing cutting-edge tools and theories drawn from the international political science literature, but augmenting these tools and theories as appropriate with approaches designed specifically for the French case." - Mark Franklin, Stein Rokkan Professor of Comparative Politics, European University Institute "This book ... Read moreis a major step. Most of the scholarly leaders in the French elections community have a chapter in this book.Virtually all are connected, directly or indirectly, to the organizations that study French elections (CEVIPOF, CNRS, FNSP).The topics considered cover valuable political science topics: the process of electoral decision, voter loyalty, political alignments, the influence of candidate images, the timing of the electoral decision, the role of the campaign, the place of issues in the vote choice, andthe impact of candidates such as Le Pen and Bayrou. All of this is especially exciting and timely reading because of the highly contested 2007 presidential election between candidates Royal and Sarkozy." - Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Department of Political Science, University of Iowa Show Less