In Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice, Fourth Edition, Clawson and Oxley link the enduring normative questions of democratic theory to existing empirical research on public opinion. Organized around a series of questions—In a democratic society, what should be the relationship between citizens and their government? Are citizens’ opinions pliable? Are they knowledgeable, attentive, and informed?—the text explores the tension between ideals and their practice. Each chapter focuses on exemplary studies, explaining not only the conclusion of the research, but how it was conducted, so students gain a richer understanding of the research process and see methods applied in context.

In this revision of their lauded Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice, Rosalee A. Clawson and Zoe M. Oxley continue to link the enduring normative questions of democratic theory to the best empirical research on public opinion. Exploring the tension between ideals and their practice, each chapter focuses on exemplary studies so that students gain a richer understanding of key findings and the research process as well as see methods applied in context.

In this revision of their lauded Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice, Rosalee A. Clawson and Zoe M. Oxley continue to link the enduring normative questions of democratic theory to the best empirical research on public opinion. Exploring the tension between ideals and their practice, each chapter focuses on exemplary studies so that students gain a richer understanding of key findings and the research process as well as see methods applied in context.

Artfully weaving in the analytic theme of 'power' and the evaluative theme of 'citizenship, ' the authors deftly draw students into thinking critically about how and why institutions and rules determine who wins and who loses in American politics

In this timely book, leading researchers consider how media inform democracy in six countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Taking as their starting point the idea that citizens need to be briefed adequately with a full and intelligent coverage of public affairs so that they can make responsible, informed choices rather than act out of ignorance and misinformation, contributors use a comparative approach to examine the way in which the shifting media landscape is affecting and informing the democratic process across the globe. In particular, they ask: Can a comparative approach provide us with new answers to the question of how media inform democracy? Has increased commercialization made media systems more similar and affected equally the character of news and public knowledge throughout the USA and Europe? Is soft news and misinformation predominantly related to an American exceptionalism, based on the market domination of its media and marginalized public broadcaster? This study combines a content analysis of press and television news with representative surveys in six nations. It makes an indispensable contribution to debates about media and democracy, and about changes in media systems. It is especially useful for media theory, comparative media, and political communication courses.

In this highly anticipated revision, editors Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox expose students to the substance and process of public opinion research in an accessible way. Capturing the diversity of this research with 12 essays—10 new to this edition and 2 fully updated—well-respected contributors highlight the many approaches social scientists use to explore public opinion while citing actual research and teasing out the political implications of their findings. Understanding Public Opinion expands on important ideas that basic textbooks cover only briefly, such as public views of those on trial for terrorist acts, public attitudes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the rise and fall of public support for George W. Bush. Part introductions provide important thematic context, and a statistics primer in the appendix offers students a handy reference. More relevant and thought-provoking than ever, Understanding Public Opinion is the ideal supplement for any public opinion course.

This book explores how constitutional courts have transformed communication and overcome their reluctance to engage in direct dialogue with citizens. How has the information revolution affected the relationship of constitutional courts with the public and the media? The book looks in detail at the communication strategies of the US Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Canada, and in Europe the German Federal Constitutional Tribunal, the French Conseil Constitutionnel and the Italian Constitutional Court, arguing that when it comes to the relationship between courts and the media, different jurisdictions share many similarities. It focuses on the consequences of the communication revolution of courts both in terms of their relationship with public opinion and of the legitimacy of judicial review of legislation. Some constitutional courts have attracted criticism by engaging in proactive communication and, therefore, arguably yielding to the temptation of public support. The book argues that objections to the developing institutional communications employed by courts come from a preconceived notion of public opinion. It considers the burden the communication revolution has placed on constitutional courts to achieve a balance between transparency and seclusion, proximity and distance from public opinion. It puts forward important arguments for how this balance can be achieved. The book will interest scholars in constitutional law and public comparative law, sociologists, historians, political scientists, and scholars of media law and communication studies.

Lessons from the Arctic: The Role of Regional Government in International Affairs is a collection of articles written by twenty-six leading and emerging scholars from across the circumpolar region. Each author assesses and explores the processes of regional governance in the Arctic from an interdisciplinary perspective. The topics include Indigenous internationalism, paradiplomacy, federalism, global institution-building, and more.

The dramatic decline of democracy in East-Central Europe has attracted great interest world-wide. Going beyond the narrow spectrum of the extensive literature on this topic, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of ECE region – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – from systemic change in 1989 to 2019 to explain the reasons of the collapse of ECE democratic systems in the 2010s.

This book showcases new work done by gender politics scholars and political psychologists, covering a variety of political psychology topics. These include stereotyping and prejudice, intergroup conflict, social identity, attitude formation, group affinity, group decision-making, anxiety, contextual effects on individual behaviour, and the evolutionary roots of political behaviour. Political psychological insights are applied to address topics of longstanding concern within the field of gender and politics. Among the citizenry, gender differences in political ideology, responses to partisan conflict, Hispanic identity formation, and symbolic racism are explored. Other chapters pose the following questions relating to female candidates: What have been the effects of state parties’ gender-inclusive policies? Who is most likely to gender stereotype candidates? Are general attitudes toward women in political office related to vote choice in specific contests? What are the implications of politicized motherhood? Finally, a set of essays engage a variety of themes related to gender, decision-making rules, and authority in small deliberative bodies. This book was originally published as a special issue of Politics, Groups, and Identities.