The Unchanging American Voter

Author : Eric R. A. N. Smith
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520909755
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Unchanging American Voter written by Eric R. A. N. Smith and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1989-10-04 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have the American people grown more politically sophisticated in the past three decades, or do they remain relatively ignorant of the political world? Did a "great leap forward" take place during the 1960s in which our citizenry became involved and adept voters? In this important book, Eric Smith addresses these and other provocative questions that have long befuddled political scientists and policymakers. Much of the current wisdom about American voters derives from an argument advanced in a volume entitled The Changing American Voter, written by Nie, Verba, and Petrocik. In this work, the authors contend that the electorate made a "great leap forward" in political sophistication and ideological thinking between the 1960 and 1964 elections. They argue that people changed in response to a shifting environment, and that, in particular, the surge of protest and ideological rhetoric between 1960 and 1964 engendered a new political savvy and sophistication. In their view, people learned to understand politics better, to relate the issues to the candidates more accurately, and to cast more informed, intelligent votes. In The Unchanging American Voter, Smith takes issue with this portrait of an engaged American citizenry and replaces it with a quite different picture of the voters of this nation. He posits a more bleak political landscape in which the typical voter knows little about politics, is not interested in the political arena and consequently does not participate in it, and is even unable to organize his or her attitudes in a coherent manner. To support this view, Smith demonstrates how the indices by which Nie, Verba, and Petrocik measured levels of sophistication during the 1960s were methodologically flawed and how a closer examination of supposed changes reveals only superficial and unimportant shifts in the ways voters have approached the ballot box since the 1950s. The Unchanging American Voter is an intelligent and original work that provides a new perspective of the American citizenry. It is sure to engender discussion and debate about the dynamics of voting in postwar America.

Author : Angus Campbell
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226092542
Total Pages : 576 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The American Voter written by Angus Campbell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1980-09-15 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On voting behavior in the United States

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Changing American Voter written by and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Ruy A. Teixeira
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 9780815723202
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Disappearing American Voter written by Ruy A. Teixeira and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The right to vote is the cornerstone of democracy. To millions around the world who have fought for that right, it is considered a privilege. Yet the magnitude of nonvoting in America is staggering. More than 91 million Americans did not vote in 1988, putting voter turnout at barely half of the voting-age population. This situation has stirred much comment and debate across the political spectrum, raising several questions: Why is voter turnout generally so low? Why has it declined steadily over the past three decades? Does low and declining turnout significantly bias the nature of contemporary U.S. politics? And what, if anything, can be done to increase voter participation? In this book, Ruy Teixeira addresses each of these question in detail in an effort to provide policymakers and the general public with a clearer view of the problem and possible solutions. The author's interpretations and recommendations are both provocative and firmly based on currently available data. Teixeira includes an assessment of current registration reform legislation and shows why a combination of registration reform and political reform is necessary to fully reverse the nonvoting trend and move to substantially higher turnout levels. He points out that while it is unlikely U.S. voter turnout will ever approach levels in Sweden, Australia, and Belgium—which are about 90 percent—with a thorough reform program, levels of around 70 percent, such as those in Japan and Canada, may be attainable.

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The American Voter written by and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 0472025139
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The American Voter Revisited written by Michael S. Lewis-Beck and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-12-18 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today we are politically polarized as never before. The presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 will be remembered as two of the most contentious political events in American history. Yet despite the recent election upheaval, The American Voter Revisited discovers that voter behavior has been remarkably consistent over the last half century. And if the authors are correct in their predictions, 2008 will show just how reliably the American voter weighs in, election after election. The American Voter Revisited re-creates the outstanding 1960 classic The American Voter---which was based on the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956---following the same format, theory, and mode of analysis as the original. In this new volume, the authors test the ideas and methods of the original against presidential election surveys from 2000 and 2004. Surprisingly, the contemporary American voter is found to behave politically much like voters of the 1950s. "Simply essential. For generations, serious students of American politics have kept The American Voter right on their desk. Now, everyone will keep The American Voter Revisited right next to it." ---Larry J. Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of A More Perfect Constitution "The American Voter Revisited is destined to be the definitive volume on American electoral behavior for decades. It is a timely book for 2008, with in-depth analyses of the 2000 and 2004 elections updating and extending the findings of the original The American Voter. It is also quite accessible, making it ideal for graduate students as well as advanced undergrads." ---Andrew E. Smith, Director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center "A theoretically faithful, empirically innovative, comprehensive update of the original classic." ---Sam Popkin, Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego Michael S. Lewis-Beck is F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. William G. Jacoby is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. Helmut Norpoth is Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University. Herbert F. Weisberg is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University.

Author : Angus Campbell
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The American Voter written by Angus Campbell and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1964 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Frances Fox Piven
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807004494
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Americans Still Don't Vote written by Frances Fox Piven and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2000-09-22 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans take for granted that ours is the very model of a democracy. At the core of this belief is the assumption that the right to vote is firmly established. But in fact, the United States is the only major democratic nation in which the less well-off, the young, and minorities are substantially underrepresented in the electorate. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward were key players in the long battle to reform voter registration laws that finally resulted in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (also known as the Motor Voter law). When Why Americans Don't Vote was first published in 1988, this battle was still raging, and their book was a fiery salvo. It demonstrated that the twentieth century had witnessed a concerted effort to restrict voting by immigrants and blacks through a combination of poll taxes, literacy tests, and unwieldy voter registration requirements. Why Americans Still Don't Vote brings the story up to the present. Analyzing the results of voter registration reform, and drawing compelling historical parallels, Piven and Cloward reveal why neither of the major parties has tried to appeal to the interests of the newly registered-and thus why Americans still don't vote.

Author : Karen M. Kaufmann
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195366832
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unconventional Wisdom written by Karen M. Kaufmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-06-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unconventional Wisdom offers a novel yet highly accessible synthesis of what we know about American voters and elections. It not only provides an integrated overview of the central themes in American politics--parties, polarization, turnout, partisan bias, campaign effects, swing voters, the gender gap, and the youth vote--but it also upends many of our fundamental preconceptions. Most importantly, it shows that the American electorate is much more stable than we have been led to believe, and that the voting patterns we see today have deep roots in our history. Throughout, the book provides comprehensive information on voting patterns; illuminates--and corrects--popular myths about voters and elections; and details the empirical foundations of conventional wisdoms that many understand poorly or not at all. It is essential reading for anyone interested in American politics.

Author : Warren Edward Miller
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780674608405
Total Pages : 640 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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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 640 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.