Download or read book Democracy for Realists written by Christopher H. Achen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.
Download or read book Who Votes Now written by Jan E. Leighley and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-24 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Votes Now? compares the demographic characteristics and political views of voters and nonvoters in American presidential elections since 1972 and examines how electoral reforms and the choices offered by candidates influence voter turnout. Drawing on a wealth of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the American National Election Studies, Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler demonstrate that the rich have consistently voted more than the poor for the past four decades, and that voters are substantially more conservative in their economic views than nonvoters. They find that women are now more likely to vote than men, that the gap in voting rates between blacks and whites has largely disappeared, and that older Americans continue to vote more than younger Americans. Leighley and Nagler also show how electoral reforms such as Election Day voter registration and absentee voting have boosted voter turnout, and how turnout would also rise if parties offered more distinct choices. Providing the most systematic analysis available of modern voter turnout, Who Votes Now? reveals that persistent class bias in turnout has enduring political consequences, and that it really does matter who votes and who doesn't.
Download or read book Collective Preferences in Democratic Politics written by Scott L. Althaus and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-09-08 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since so few people appear knowledgeable about public affairs, one might question whether collective policy preferences revealed in opinion surveys accurately convey the distribution of voices and interests in a society. This study, the first comprehensive treatment of the relationship between knowledge, representation, and political equality in opinion surveys, suggests some surprising answers. Knowledge does matter, and the way it is distributed in society can cause collective preferences to reflect disproportionately the opinions of some groups more than others. Sometimes collective preferences seem to represent something like the will of the people, but frequently they do not. Sometimes they rigidly enforce political equality in the expression of political viewpoints, but often they do not. The primary culprit is not any inherent shortcoming in the methods of survey research. Rather, it is the limited degree of knowledge held by ordinary citizens about public affairs. Accounting for these factors can help survey researchers, journalists, politicians, and concerned citizens better appreciate the pitfalls and possibilities for using opinion polls to represent the people s voice.
Download or read book Advances in the Spatial Theory of Voting written by James M. Enelow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-06-29 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together eight original essays designed to provide an overview of developments in spatial voting theory in the past ten years. The topics covered are: spatial competition with possible entry by new candidates; the "heresthetical" manipulation of vote outcomes; candidates with policy preferences; experimental testing of spatial models; probabilistic voting; voting on alternatives with predictive power; elections with more than two candidates under different election systems; and agenda-setting behavior in voting. Leading scholars in these areas summarize the major results of their own and other's work, providing self-contained discussions that will apprise readers of important recent advances.
Download or read book Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy written by Alberto Alesina and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how electoral laws, the timing of election, the ideological orientation of governments, and the nature of competition between political parties influence unemployment, economic growth, inflation, and monetary and fiscal policy. The book presents both a thorough overview of the theoretical literature and a vast amount of empirical evidence.
Download or read book Policy Office Or Votes written by Wolfgang C. Müller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-08-28 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the behaviour of political parties in situations where they experience conflict between two or more important objectives.
Download or read book Votes and Policy Preferences written by Hanneke Hermsen and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do political parties in democracies choose to stand for one policy platform rather than another? Is it merely a desire for obtaining votes, necessary to acquire government power, or do publicly interested motives also play a role in the policy positioning of parties? In this book, these questions are mainly dealt with through use of formal models, with the effects of this new model formally analyzed, whereupon an application is presented to the Dutch multi-party system.
Download or read book Organizing Democratic Choice written by Ian Budge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold venture into democratic theory offers a new and reinvigorating thesis for how democracy delivers on its promise of public control over public policy. In theory, popular control could be achieved through a process entirely driven by supply-side politics, with omniscient and strategic political parties converging on the median voter's policy preference at every turn. However, this would imply that there would be no distinguishable political parties (or even any reason for parties to exist) and no choice for a public to make. The more realistic view taken here portrays democracy as an ongoing series of give and take between political parties' policy supply and a mass public's policy demand. Political parties organize democratic choices as divergent policy alternatives, none of which is likely to satisfy the public's policy preferences at any one turn. While the one-off, short-run consequence of a single election often results in differences between the policies that parliaments and governments pursue and the preferences their publics hold, the authors construct theoretical arguments, employ computer simulations, and follow up with empirical analysis to show how, why, and under what conditions democratic representation reveals itself over time. Democracy, viewed as a process rather than a single electoral event, can and usually does forge strong and congruent linkages between a public and its government. This original thesis offers a challenge to democratic pessimists who would have everyone believe that neither political parties nor mass publics are up to the tasks that democracy assigns them. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.
Download or read book Follow the Leader written by Gabriel S. Lenz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a democracy, we generally assume that voters know the policies they prefer and elect like-minded officials who are responsible for carrying them out. We also assume that voters consider candidates' competence, honesty, and other performance-related traits. But does this actually happen? Do voters consider candidates’ policy positions when deciding for whom to vote? And how do politicians’ performances in office factor into the voting decision? In Follow the Leader?, Gabriel S. Lenz sheds light on these central questions of democratic thought. Lenz looks at citizens’ views of candidates both before and after periods of political upheaval, including campaigns, wars, natural disasters, and episodes of economic boom and bust. Noting important shifts in voters’ knowledge and preferences as a result of these events, he finds that, while citizens do assess politicians based on their performance, their policy positions actually matter much less. Even when a policy issue becomes highly prominent, voters rarely shift their votes to the politician whose position best agrees with their own. In fact, Lenz shows, the reverse often takes place: citizens first pick a politician and then adopt that politician’s policy views. In other words, they follow the leader. Based on data drawn from multiple countries, Follow the Leader? is the most definitive treatment to date of when and why policy and performance matter at the voting booth, and it will break new ground in the debates about democracy.
Download or read book The New American Voter written by Warren Edward Miller and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this definitive study, Warren E. Miller and J. Merrill Shanks present a comprehensive, authoritative analysis of American voting patterns from 1952 through the early 1990s, with special emphasis on the 1992 election, based on data collected by the National Election Studies. For example, Miller and Shanks reveal that: The loudly trumpeted "dealignment" of the 1970s and 1980s, along with the decline in voter turnout, was in fact an acute "nonalignment" and noninvolvement of new cohorts entering the electorate. The social correlates of the Republican/Democratic divisions on party identification among Southern voters have changed dramatically over a forty-year period. Enduring cultural and ideological predispositions play a major role in shaping voters' reactions to election campaigns and their choice for President. Personalities of presidential candidates and their positions on campaign issues tend to matter far less than is often claimed. Perot's appeal in 1992 can be attributed to the same factors that distinguished between supporters of Clinton and Bush. In an unprecedented analysis of individual elections and long-term trends, and of changes within regions, ethnic groups, and gender and age categories, The New American Voter presents a unique social and economic picture of partisanship and participation in the American electoral process. This work is likely to become an instant classic.
Download or read book Controversies In Voting Behavior 4th Edition written by Richard G Niemi and published by C Q Press College. This book was released on 2001-03-21 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The sixteen readings in this volume, all of which are newly selected for this fourth edition, and most of which are reproduced in their entirety, are organized around six debates: Why is voter turnout low, and why is it declining? Does the public's lack of political information matter? What determines the vote, and to what extent do campaigns matter? Is divided government intentional on the part of voters? How much does politics affect party identification? Is the party system changing? Niemi and Weisberg supply section introductions that weave the readings together, establish useful context, and help to sort out conflicting interpretations and diverging opinions that emerge across the chapters. Collectively, the readings and supporting essays in Controversies in Voting Behavior provide an illuminating look at some of the most lively and fascinating issues being debated in this field today." -- Publisher.
Download or read book Classics in Voting Behavior written by Richard G. Niemi and published by CQ-Roll Call Group Books. This book was released on 1993 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reader gathering highlights of the best original work in the study of American voting behavior from the late 1950s through the mid-1980s. The editors provide introductory essays that summarize each of a half-dozen areas of voting behavior research. Drawing from the first two editions of Controvers
Download or read book Gale Researcher Guide for Voter Decision Making written by Julio Borquez and published by Gale, Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gale Researcher Guide for: Voter Decision Making is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
Download or read book Democracy for Realists written by Christopher H. Achen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.
Download or read book Referendum Voting written by Harlan Hahn and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1987-11-06 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once a prominent feature of most theories on the structure and function of political systems, in recent years, social class or status has become one of the most neglected variables in research on contemporary American politics. This study analyzes the relationship between social status and referendum voting in an effort to refocus attention on social stratification in political science.
Download or read book Ideology and Spatial Voting in American Elections written by Stephen A. Jessee and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The central feature of democracy is that the will of the people determines the policies enacted by the government. In representative democracies such as the United States, citizens influence the government primarily through voting in elections. The success of democratic governance, therefore, rests in large part on the ability of citizens to select leaders who will act in accordance with their policy preferences. In the end, a government lives up to this democratic ideal (or doesn't) through the enactment of specific policies. How, then, do citizens' votes relate to their preferences over government policy outputs? What intervening factors either assist or interfere with voters' selection of candidates who espouse views closest to their own? Understanding the relationship between citizens' policy views and their voting behavior is central to the evaluation of elections and of democratic governance more generally. This book studies the opinions of ordinary citizens on specific policies and the relationships between these policy views and people's vote choices in presidential elections. Specifically, I focus on testing the empirical implications of spatial theories of voting, which, in their simplest form, assume that each citizen's policy views can be represented by a location on some liberal-conservative policy spectrum, with candidates in a given election each taking a position on this same dimension. Each voter then casts his or her ballot for the candidate whose position is closest to the voter's own ideological location"-- Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Persuadable Voter written by D. Sunshine Hillygus and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The use of wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration has become standard political strategy in contemporary presidential campaigns. Why do candidates use such divisive appeals? Who in the electorate is persuaded by these controversial issues? And what are the consequences for American democracy? In this provocative and engaging analysis of presidential campaigns, Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields identify the types of citizens responsive to campaign information, the reasons they are responsive, and the tactics candidates use to sway these pivotal voters. The Persuadable Voter shows how emerging information technologies have changed the way candidates communicate, who they target, and what issues they talk about. As Hillygus and Shields explore the complex relationships between candidates, voters, and technology, they reveal potentially troubling results for political equality and democratic governance. The Persuadable Voter examines recent and historical campaigns using a wealth of data from national surveys, experimental research, campaign advertising, archival work, and interviews with campaign practitioners. With its rigorous multimethod approach and broad theoretical perspective, the book offers a timely and thorough understanding of voter decision making, candidate strategy, and the dynamics of presidential campaigns.
