It is common knowledge that televised political ads are meant to appeal to voters' emotions, yet little is known about how or if these tactics actually work. Ted Brader's innovative book is the first scientific study to examine the effects that thes…
To succeed in foreign policy, U.S. presidents have to sell their versions or framings of political events to the news media and to the public. But since the end of the Cold War, journalists have increasingly resisted presidential views, even offerin…
The ideal of a neutral, objective press has proven in recent years to be just that - an ideal. In Governing with the News, Timothy E. Cook goes far beyond the single claim that the press is not impartial to argue that the news media are in fact a po…
Are Americans less prejudiced now than they were in the 1970s, or has racism simply gone "underground"? Is racism something that is learned as children, or is it a result of certain social groups striving to maintain their privileged positions in so…
Whether at parties, around the dinner table, or at the office, people talk about politics all the time. Yet while such conversations are a common part of everyday life, political scientists know very little about how they actually work. In Talking a…
Americans tend to see negative campaign ads as just that: negative. Pundits, journalists, voters, and scholars frequently complain that such ads undermine elections and even democratic government itself. But John G. Geer here takes the opposite stan…
What motivates us to change our opinions during times of political protest and social unrest? To investigate this question, Taeku Lee's smartly argued book looks to the critical struggle over the moral principles, group interests, and racial animosi…
How often do we hear that Americans are so ignorant about politics that their civic competence is impaired, and that the media are to blame because thay do a dismal job of informing the public? Integrating a broad range of research on how people lea…
The world's richer democracies all provide such public benefits as pensions and health care, but why are some far more generous than others? And why, in the face of globalization and fiscal pressures, has the welfare state not been replaced by anoth…
"Who Leads Whom?" is an ambitious study that addresses some of the most important questions in contemporary American politics: Do presidents pander to public opinion by backing popular policy measures that they believe would actually harm the countr…
In addition to their obvious roles in American politics, race and gender also work in hidden ways to profoundly influence the way we think - and vote - about a vast array of issues that don't seem related to either category. As Nicholas J. G. Winter…
Most people believe that large corporations wield enormous political power when they lobby for policies as a cohesive bloc. With this controversial book, Mark A. Smith sets conventional wisdom on its head. In a systematic analysis of postwar lawmaki…
It is a perennial question: how should Americans deal with racial and ethnic diversity? More than 400 communities across the country have attempted to answer it by organizing discussions among diverse volunteers in an attempt to improve race relatio…
A sobering look at the intimate relationship between political power and the news media is presented in this examination that is both an indictment of official spin and an urgent call to action to reduce reporters' dependence on power.
Public opinion polls are everywhere. Journalists report their results without hesitation, and political activists of all kinds spend millions of dollars on them, fuelling the widespread assumption that elected officials "pander" to public opinion -t…
