Over five decades of research has made clear that social networks can have an important impact on our political behavior. Specifically, when we engage in political conversation within these networks we develop connections that increase the likelihood that we will become politically active. Yet, most studies of political behavior focus on individuals, rather than the effects of networks on political behavior. Furthermore, any studies of networks have, by and large, been based on White Americans. Given what we know about the ways in which neighborhood, cultural, friend, and family networks tend to segregate along ethnic and racial lines, the authors of this book argue that we can assume that political networks segregate in much the same way. This book draws on quantitative and qualitative analyses of 4000 White American, African American, Latino, and Asian American people to explore inter and intra-ethnoracial differences in social network composition, size, partisanship, policy attitudes, and homophily in political and civic engagement. The book thus makes three key contributions: 1) it provides, for the first time, detailed comparative analysis of how political networks vary across and within ethnoracial groups; 2) demonstrates how historical differences in partisanship, policy attitudes, and engagement are reflected within groups' social networks; and, 3) reveals the impact that networks can have on individuals' political and civic engagement.

Talking Politics is a philosophical examination of some of the basic concepts of political discourse. Its primary focus is on the ordinary; on what is said by politicians, in newspapers and by people in pubs, rather than on the works of political theorists. This is a work of, but not on political theory. Talking Politics is: * Invaluable as a source of reference for students, and contains a detailed index * Arranged thematically, around topics such as `Nation'. Each entry has copious cross-references and suggestions for further reading A. W. Sparkes is uniquely qualified to write such a book, combining some thirty years' teaching as a philosopher with wide experience of, and a life-long fascination with, politics. His attitude is that of a critical, but uncynical, observer.

Originally published in 1991, this study examines the views of politics presented by young people in contemporary Britain. Bhavnani argues that previous studies of youth and youth culture were limited by too great a reliance on simple survey techniques, and by lack of attention to conceptions of politics amongst young people, and to politics as a series of lived relationships rather than a set of external objects. Instead, she uses ethnographic approaches and open-response interviewing within the broad theoretical framework of social representations. The political is taken to refer to the ways in which people regulate, and attempt to regulate with a view to challenging, unequal social relationships. Within this the specific issues examined are employment, unemployment, youth training schemes, democracy and voting, racism, and marriage. Bhavnani's analysis, organised by themes such as disposable income and social and personal control, tackles questions of power in the research process; and a notion of discursive configurations as distinct from social representations.

Sharia implementation and democratic discourse in Northern Nigeria -- What we talk about when we talk about Islam and democracy -- Envisioning sharia, imagining the past -- Democracy, federalism, and the sharia question -- Sharia in a time of transition -- Framing sharia and democracy -- Muslims talking politics -- All sharia is local: islamic law and democracy in practice.

This book is a collection of studies on political interaction in a variety of broadcast, namely news and current affairs programs, political interviews, audience participation programs and radio phone-ins. Following a growing scholarly interest in political discourses, dialogic forms of news production and media talk in general, a number of internationally acclaimed scholars investigate the discursive and interactional practices that give rise to the arena of public politics in contemporary society. Chapters span an array of cultural contexts, as diverse as Sweden, Greece, Belgium (Flanders), the U.K., Spain, Israel, the U.S.A., Australia and China. Authors combine an interest in discourse analysis and conversation analysis with different disciplinary orientations, such as linguistics, media and cultural studies, sociology, political science, and social psychology. The book uncovers current trends in media and political discourse, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of media discourse and politics.

This book consists of six imagined dialogues between a fictional philosophy student, Logos, and some of the outstanding philosophers and politicians at all times. Political philosophy is discovered by conversations with the thinkers whose work has shaped the fields: John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jürgen Habermas, Iris Marion Young, and Thomas Jefferson.

This book makes an important contribution to the study of political communication. Its chapters analyse forms of media talk associated with contemporary political elections. Key topics include: changing forms of political interview, televised political debates, and the use of multimedia in promotional discourse.

How do people of different ages experience and engage with politics in their everyday lives, and how do these experiences and engagements change over their life course and across different generations? Age, life course and generation have become increasing important experiences for understanding political participation and political outcomes, and current policies of austerity across the world are affecting people of all ages. This book contributes towards an interdisciplinary understanding of the temporalities of everyday political encounters. At a time when social science is struggling to understand the rapid and unexpected changes to contemporary political landscapes, the contributors to this book present examples of activism and politics across everyday experiences of homes, communities, online platforms, local environment, playgrounds and educational spaces. The research takes ethnographic, biographical and action research approaches, and the studies described feature interlocutors as young as four and as old as ninety-two who reside in European, North and South America, and South Asia. This is an eclectic text that brings together a number of themes and ideas not typically associated with political activism, and is intended for students and academic researchers across the humanities, social and political sciences interested in the temporalities of everyday political participation. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Social Science.

A comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of devolved government in Britain today.

The intellectual history of the Civic Culture concept / Gabriel A. Almond -- The structure of inference / Arend Lijphart -- The Civic Culture : a philosophic critique / Carole Pateman -- The Civic Culture from a Marxist-sociological perspective / Jerzy J. Wiatr -- Political culture in Great Britain : The decline of The Civic Culture / Dennis Kavanagh -- The United States : political culture under stress / Alan I. Abramowitz -- Changing German political culture : continuity and change / Giacomo Sani -- Political culture in Mexico : continuities and revisionist interpretations / Ann L. Craig and Wayne A. Cornelius -- On revisiting The Civic Culture : a personal postcript / Sidney Verba