Download or read book From Tea Leaves to Opinion Polls written by John Gray Geer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in-depth analysis of the link between politicians' behavior and opinion polls. Exploring political action within a broad historical context, the book develops a theory to show how the behavior of politicians, and the unfolding of political change, have been irrevocably altered since the advent of opinion polling in the 1930s.

Download or read book Opinion Polls and the Media written by C. Holtz-Bacha and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Opinion Polls and the Media provides the most comprehensive analysis to date on the relationship between the media, opinion polls, and public opinion. Looking at the extent to which the media, through their use of opinion polls, both reflect and shape public opinion, it brings together a team of leading scholars and analyzes theoretical and methodological approaches to the media and their use of opinion polls. The contributors explore how the media use opinion polls in a range of countries across the world, and analyze the effects and uses of opinion polls by the public as well as political actors.

Download or read book The Evolution of Presidential Polling written by Robert M. Eisinger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-20 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Evolution of Presidential Polling is a book about presidential power and autonomy. Since FDR, virtually all presidents have employed private polls in some capacity. This book attempts to explain how presidential polling evolved from a rarely conducted secretive enterprise, to a commonplace event that is now considered an integral part of the presidency. I contend that because presidents do not trust institutions such as Congress, the media and political parties--all of which also gauge public opinion--they opt to gain autonomy from these institutions by conducting private polls to be read and interpreted solely for themselves.

Download or read book The Year of Intelligence in the United States written by Dafydd Townley and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-08 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will offer a unique approach to the Year of Intelligence, the sixteen-month period between January 1975 and April 1976 that saw the innermost secrets of various US intelligence agencies laid bare before the world. After allegations of intelligence abuses were made in the press, Congress investigated and revealed numerous cases of unwarranted and unconstitutional activity conducted by a number of intelligence agencies. Chief among the investigations was the Senate enquiry, popularly known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho. This study’s objective is to examine the relationship between national security policy and public opinion using extensive archival evidence, including previously unidentified indicators of public opinion. This monograph makes an important contribution to the historiography of the Church Committee, of public opinion, and of national security policy. The research contributes to the debate on the effectiveness of the Church Committee by challenging the conclusions within the established historiography of the limited impact of the committee’s quest for reform. Furthermore, it widens the very limited scholarship that engages with public opinion’s effect on national security policy. And the project also indicates to policymakers the lessons that can be learnt from the case study, principally, that public opinion is a vital ingredient in the decision making process of successful national security policy.

Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Survey Methodology written by Christof Wolf and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Survey Methodology is becoming a more structured field of research, deserving of more and more academic attention. The SAGE Handbook of Survey Methodology explores both the increasingly scientific endeavour of surveys and their growing complexity, as different data collection modes and information sources are combined. The handbook takes a global approach, with a team of international experts looking at local and national specificities, as well as problems of cross-national, comparative survey research. The chapters are organized into seven major sections, each of which represents a stage in the survey life-cycle: Surveys and Societies Planning a Survey Measurement Sampling Data Collection Preparing Data for Use Assessing and Improving Data Quality The SAGE Handbook of Survey Methodology is a landmark and essential tool for any scholar within the social sciences.

Download or read book Silent Voices written by Adam J. Berinsky and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century, opinion polls have come to pervade American politics. Despite their shortcomings, the notion prevails that polls broadly represent public sentiment. But do they? In Silent Voices, Adam Berinsky presents a provocative argument that the very process of collecting information on public preferences through surveys may bias our picture of those preferences. In particular, he focuses on the many respondents who say they "don't know" when asked for their views on the political issues of the day. Using opinion poll data collected over the past forty years, Berinsky takes an increasingly technical area of research--public opinion--and synthesizes recent findings in a coherent and accessible manner while building on this with his own findings. He moves from an in-depth treatment of how citizens approach the survey interview, to a discussion of how individuals come to form and then to express opinions on political matters in the context of such an interview, to an examination of public opinion in three broad policy areas--race, social welfare, and war. He concludes that "don't know" responses are often the result of a systematic process that serves to exclude particular interests from the realm of recognized public opinion. Thus surveys may then echo the inegalitarian shortcomings of other forms of political participation and even introduce new problems altogether.

Download or read book American Public Opinion written by Robert S Erikson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-23 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing an in-depth analysis of public opinion, beginning with its origins in political socialization, the impact of the media, the extent and breadth of democratic values, and the role of public opinion in the electoral process, American Public Opinion goes beyond a simple presentation of data to include a critical analysis of the role of public opinion in American democracy.

Download or read book The Moral Authority of Government written by Henry Barbera and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These new essays prepared to commemorate the centennial of the National Institute of Social Sciences have been carefully crafted to deal with an overriding concern of our time--those elements in political rule that go beyond legal rights and responsibilities into the moral requirements of effective governance. The principal theme of this book is presidential leadership. The presidency personifies government authority, including moral authority.In the first part of this book most of the essays argue that the moral authority of leaders depends on high personal standards as well as policy outcomes. The second segment on the rule of law and character raises considerations not limited to the presidency. Character and the authority that derives from it are demonstrated most effectively not by what someone does in his or her personal life, but in the moral values of the causes espoused and effectiveness in pursuing them. In the realm of international affairs, governmental leadership must wrestle with the moral and constitutional guidelines known as "reasons of state." Under what circumstances is it morally acceptable for a leader or government to practice deception upon the citizenry, to overthrow other governments, to bomb civilians?Many contributors raise the issue of what permits a government to take actions that would be immoral or illegal in individuals or groups. The final segment expands and deepens this theme by exploring the work and role of non-governmental agencies that influence both leaders and citizens in the public arena. In short, at a period that brings to a close a period in which the presidency has become more visible as well as more prominent, this collective effort sheds new light on classic themes. It will be an invaluable guide as we enter the new century.The contributors include an illustrious galaxy of public officials and political scientists, including Madeleine K. Albright, Judith A. Best, Betty Glad, C. Lowell Harriss, Travis Beal Jacobs, Ruth P. Morgan, Stanley A. Renshon, Donald L. Robinson and William vanden Heuvel.

Download or read book Social Issues in America written by James Ciment and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 2056 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 150 key social issues confronting the United States today are covered in this eight-volume set: from abortion and adoption to capital punishment and corporate crime; from obesity and organized crime to sweatshops and xenophobia.

Download or read book Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs written by Thomas Knecht and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do American presidents consider public opinion when making foreign policy decisions? In a democracy, it is generally assumed that citizen preferences inform public policy. For a variety of reasons, however, foreign policy has always posed a difficult challenge for democratic governance. In Paying Attention to Foreign Affairs, Thomas Knecht offers new insights into the relationship between public opinion and U.S. foreign policy. He does so by shifting our focus away from the opinions that Americans hold and toward the issues that grab the public’s attention. Policy making under the glare of public scrutiny differs from policy making when no one is looking. As public interest in foreign policy increases, the political stakes also rise. A highly attentive public can then force presidents to choose foreign policies that are less politically risky but usually less effective. By tracking the ebb and flow of public attention to foreign policy, this book offers a method of predicting when presidents are likely to lead, follow, or simply ignore the American public.

Download or read book The Unsolid South written by Devin Caughey and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Jim Crow era, the Democratic Party dominated the American South, presiding over a racially segregated society while also playing an outsized role in national politics. In this compelling book, Devin Caughey provides an entirely new understanding of electoral competition and national representation in this exclusionary one-party enclave. Challenging the notion that the Democratic Party’s political monopoly inhibited competition and served only the Southern elite, he demonstrates how Democratic primaries—even as they excluded African Americans—provided forums for ordinary whites to press their interests. Focusing on politics during and after the New Deal, Caughey shows that congressional primary elections effectively substituted for partisan competition, in part because the spillover from national party conflict helped compensate for the informational deficits of elections without party labels. Caughey draws on a broad range of historical and quantitative evidence, including archival materials, primary election returns, congressional voting records, and hundreds of early public opinion polls that illuminate ideological patterns in the Southern public. Defying the received wisdom, this evidence reveals that members of Congress from the one-party South were no less responsive to their electorates than members from states with true partisan competition. Reinterpreting a critical period in American history, The Unsolid South reshapes our understanding of the role of parties in democratic theory and sheds critical new light on electoral politics in authoritarian regimes.

Download or read book Reading the Tea Leaves written by Bryce Don Summary and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tea Party has become a powerful force in American politics. Emerging in early 2009, the Tea Party has elicited mass support among the public with important implications for public policy and electoral politics. However, there remains significant debate over the political characteristics and motivations of Tea Party supporters. The emergence of the Tea Party has also led to speculation that supporters will form a third party. Using survey data collected in 2010 and 2011, this dissertation examines the relationship between Tea Party and third party supporters. Evidence is found that although Tea Party and third party supporters disapprove of President Obama and hold negative views of the economy, the two groups are fundamentally different in terms of their partisanship and political attitudes. Tea Party supporters are found to be ideologically conservative Republicans, while third party supporters are shown to be political independents holding negative opinions of both parties. Using American National Election Studies data, this dissertation also explains the motivations behind Tea Party support. Evidence is found that Tea Party support is motivated by traditional moral values, racial resentment, negative views of President Obama, negative opinions of immigrants, and libertarianism. This dissertation also examines the emotional component of Tea Party support finding that strong feelings of anger and fear, related to perceptions of the state of the country, motivates support. Finally, this dissertation analyzes an aggregation of public opinion data measuring opinions of the Tea Party from 2010 to 2011. Support for the Tea Party is found to have declined from 2010 through the end of 2011, with the most precipitous decline occurring among its most ardent supporters. Ultimately, the findings of this dissertation suggest that the emergence of the Tea Party has created a rift within the Republican Party between the moderate and ideologically extreme elements, constituting a barrier to legislative compromise.

Download or read book The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion written by Katerina Linos and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that laws spread around the world not through elite networks of technocrats, but through domestic democracy. It combines public opinion experiments, election campaign data, legislative debates, and policy adoption patterns to document how international models generated domestic support for health, family, and employment law reforms across rich democracies.

Download or read book People and Their Opinions written by Eric B. Shiraev and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-02 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilizing both a critical thinking approach and a comparative perspective throughout the text, Sobel and Shiraev provide comprehensive coverage of public opinion while also teaching students the basic skills necessary for measurement, understanding, and interpreting. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, this text provides a unique and practical introduction to the field of public opinion. The book begins by “schooling” the reader in how to think critically and then helps students apply those techniques as they encounter the concepts of public opinion. The text also employs a comparative perspective, demonstrating the effect and nature of public opinion in other countries while also placing American public opinion in context.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media written by Robert Y. Shapiro and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With engaging new contributions from the major figures in the fields of the media and public opinion The Oxford Handbook of American Public Opinion and the Media is a key point of reference for anyone working in American politics today.

Download or read book Reading Primary Sources written by Miriam Dobson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-09-03 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does the historian approach primary sources? How do interpretations differ? How can they be used to write history? Reading Primary Sources goes a long way to providing answers for these questions. In the first part of this unique volume, the chapters give an overview of both traditional and new methodological approaches to the use of sources, analyzing the way that these have changed over time. The second part gives an overview of twelve different types of written sources, including letters, opinion polls, surveillance reports, diaries, novels, newspapers, and dreams, taking into account the huge expansion in the range of written primary sources used by historians over the last thirty years. This book is an up-to-date introduction into the historical context of these different genres, the ways they should be read, the possible insights and results these sources offer and the pitfalls of their interpretation. All of the chapters push the reader beyond a conventional understanding of source texts as mere "reflections" of a given reality, instead fostering an understanding of how each of the various genres has to be seen as a medium in its own right. Taking examples of sources from around the globe, and also including a student-friendly further reading section, this is the perfect companion for every student of history who wants to engage with sources.

Download or read book Public Opinion and Polling around the World 2 volumes written by John G. Geer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-07-21 with total page 908 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the intricate facets of America's most important democratic tradition, this book serves as an important resource to understand how citizens' views are translated into governmental action. Public Opinion and Polling around the World presents a thorough review of public opinion from its roots in colonial America to its role in today's emerging democracies. More than 100 entries prepared by top scholars examine the 200-year history of public opinion, measurement methodologies with an emphasis on telephone interviews and Internet polls, and key figures like George Gallup and Elmo Roper, who created their own polling systems. An analysis of theories compares schools of thought from the fields of psychology, sociology, and economics and explores how people form opinions. A fascinating snapshot of the public's current views on economic issues, foreign policy, gender, gay rights, and other hot-button topics observes patterns across genders, race, ethnic origins, class, and religion in regions all over the world. Students, academicians, and political observers will discover answers to such questions as, "does public opinion shape the behavior of government?"