Objective analysis and comprehensive data on Americans' attitudes about key health-care issues Over the years, hundreds of polls have been conducted on health and health-care related topics, but until now there has been no reference tool to help students, researchers, and policy makers make sense of the data. American Public Opinion and Health Care brings together findings from more than 200 national opinion surveys conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Harvard University's School of Public Health, and other institutes and polling and media organizations. After years of intensive data gathering, the authors have compiled an in-depth, non-partisan look at Americans' attitudes about a range of current and critical health care issues. Twenty-one chapters combine unbiased survey data and analysis. The concluding chapter discusses the implications based on public opinion trends for the future of U.S. health policy in each of the areas discussed in the preceding chapters. Major topics addressed include: General attitudes, trust, and priorities Current critical health-care issues, such as quality, costs, the pharmaceutical industry, and reform efforts Specific health topics, such as HIV/AIDS, abortion, stem-cell research, end-of-life, obesity, infectious diseases, and pandemic flu Views by race and gender, and disparities in health care and coverage The importance of health care in recent elections and implications for the future of health care and policy in the United States Substantial trend data, covering the 1960s to the present, will allow researchers to get a sense of how opinions have changed over time. Chapters also look at how various groups in American society differ in their views and how those views compare with the citizens of other countries. This reference is highly recommended for public libraries and academic libraries, including but not limited to institutions with programs in medicine, public health, and government.

American Rage argues that anger is the central emotion governing contemporary US politics, with powerful, deleterious effects. Tracing the developments that have given rise to a culture of anger in the mass public, the book sheds new light on both public opinion and voting behavior. Steven W. Webster skillfully uses a combination of novel datasets, new measures of anger, and a series of experiments to show how anger causes citizens to lose trust in the national government and weaken in their commitment to democratic norms and values. Despite these negative consequences, political elites strategically seek to elicit anger among their supporters. Presenting compelling evidence, Webster ultimately concludes that elites engage in this behavior because voter anger leads to voter loyalty. When voters are angry, they are more likely to vote for their party's slate of candidates at multiple levels of the federal electoral system.

Truth qualities of journalism are under intense scrutiny in today's world. Journalistic scandals have eroded public confidence in mainstream media while pioneering news media compete to satisfy the public's appetite for news. Still worse is the specter of "fake news" that looms over media and political systems that underpin everything from social stability to global governance. This volume aims to illuminate the contentious media landscape to help journalism students, scholars, and professionals understand contemporary conditions and arm them to deal with a spectrum of new developments ranging from technology and politics to best practices. Fake news is among the greatest of these concerns, and can encompass everything from sarcastic or ironic humor to bot-generated, made-up stories. It can also include the pernicious transmission of selected, biased facts, the use of incomplete or misleadingly selective framing of stories, and photographs that editorially convey certain characteristics. This edited volume contextualizes the current "fake news problem." Yet it also offers a larger perspective on what seems to be uniquely modern, computer-driven problems. We must remember that we have lived with the problem of people having to identify, characterize, and communicate the truth about the world around them for millennia. Rather than identify a single culprit for disseminating misinformation, this volume examines how news is perceived and identified, how news is presented to the public, and how the public responds to news. It considers social media's effect on the craft of journalism, as well as the growing role of algorithms, big data, and automatic content-production regimes. As an edited collection, this volume gathers leading scholars in the fields of journalism and communication studies, philosophy, and the social sciences to address critical questions of how we should understand journalism's changing landscape as it relates to fundamental questions about the role of truth and information in society.

This much revised and reorganized edition of "Intellectuals and Society "is more than half again larger than the first edition. Four new chapters have been added on intellectuals and race, including a chapter on race and intelligence.

These new chapters show the radically different views of race prevailing among the intelligentsia at the beginning of the twentieth century and at the end-- and yet how each of these opposite views of race had the same dogmatic quality and the same refusal to countenance differing opinions among their contemporaries, much less engage dissenting opinions in serious debate. Moreover, each of these very different views of race produced flourishes of rhetoric and travesties of logic, leading to dire social consequences, though of very different sorts in the two eras. Other additions to this edition include a critique of John Rawls' conception or justice and a re-examination of the so-called "trickle-down theory" behind "tax cuts for the rich." There are other revisions, from the preface to the final chapter, the latter being extensively rewritten to bring together and highlight the themes of the other chapters, and to make unmistakably clear what "Intellectuals and Society "is, and is not, seeking to do.

This book examines the domestic electoral consequences of the economic and financial crisis in Europe, particularly in those countries where the crisis manifested itself more devastatingly: the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, as well as Iceland and Ireland. On the surface, the electoral consequences of the crisis seem largely similar, having resulted, in these countries, in large electoral losses for incumbents, as the most elementary versions of "economic voting" theory would have us expect. However, behind this fundamental similarity, important differences emerge. Whilst in some cases, on the basis of post-election surveys, it is possible to see that the "crisis elections" followed a previous pattern of performance-oriented voters, with no major changes either in known predictors of electoral choices or in basic party system properties, other elections brought the emergence of new parties, new issues and cleavages, altering patterns of political competition. By examining these different outcomes by comparing the "crisis elections" with previous ones, this book takes into account their timing relative to different stages of crisis. It also scrutinises party strategies and campaign dynamics, particularly as governments attempted (and sometimes succeeded) in framing events and proposals so as to apportion responsibility for economic outcomes. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.

This comprehensive reference examines the history and importance of youth participation in politics, suggests reasons for their disengagement, and discusses efforts to increase the interest of young voters in the political process-a process in which they could be a controlling factor. Surveys indicate that those under the age of 30 consistently score the lowest on factual questions about politics, and young people are the least likely to engage in political activity online despite being the age group most likely to use the Internet. Many political researchers and activists are justifiably concerned, linking the low level of political participation among American youth to the overall health of our democratic system. Youth and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook sheds light on this important subject, identifying and discussing factors that have influenced youth political participation in the past and those that play a role today, including the mass media, political parties, interest groups, and individual attitudes toward political engagement. The book also provides historical perspective by addressing the early years of the Republic, the protest politics of the 1960s, the campaign for the 18-year-old vote, and the results of the 26th Amendment granting that right. Biographical sketches of individuals who have played key roles in encouraging political participation among young people and of young people who are, or were, especially active in politics A chronology of youth political participation in the United States from the Revolutionary War to the present A directory of organizations that have engaged in the study of youth political participation or that encourage such participation

Does public opinion matter in international conflict resolution? Does national foreign policy remain independent of public opinion and the media? International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis examines, through U.S., Canadian, and European case studies, how public reaction impacted democratic governments' response to the ethnic and religious conflict in Bosnia during the period from 1991-1997. Each case study offers an overview of the national media coverage and public reaction to the war in the former Yugoslavia and examines the links between public opinion and political and military intervention in Bosnia. The result is a comprehensive evaluation of the complex relationship between public opinion, media coverage, and foreign policy decision-making.

In this important new book, Gordon Tullock, a founding father of the public choice school, provides a formal analysis of the foundations of decision making. Voting procedures are crucial to Western democratic governments but are also employed in dictatorial governments, private clubs, corporations and religious organizations. This comprehensive book examines the many techniques of voting and the different outcomes in different situations. Gordon Tullock's analysis begins by using a simple model in which individuals vote in terms of their own preferences. It is assumed that the voters are well informed, their preferences are reasonably firm and there are no trades or bargains made among voters. These assumptions are then relaxed in order to make the analysis more realistic. Special attention is given to Arrow's work and the idea that people do not always vote according to simple preferences. The author discusses the phenomenon of 'throwing a vote away' or the possibility of an individual voting against their preference if offered something in return. After considering strategic voting, situations where voters engage in trades between one another and the lack of perfect information, Gordon Tullock examines a voter's options and the idea that individuals may rank options in degrees of their preferred outcomes. He also explores the possibility of preferences changing over time, why some issues are put up to vote and others are not, and situations where individuals voting with the same preferences, but in different voting systems, result in different outcomes. On Voting expands present thinking in the Public Choice school and provides a forum for creating new paradigms in the school as well as changing the focus and scope of current studies. It encourages new research by suggesting areas where more work should be done. The book will be of special interest to political scientists as well as those interested in public policy and political economy.

Does public opinion matter in international conflict resolution? Does national foreign policy remain independent of public opinion and the media? International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis examines, through U.S., Canadian, and European case studies, how public reaction impacted democratic governments' response to the ethnic and religious conflict in Bosnia during the period from 1991-1997. Each case study offers an overview of the national media coverage and public reaction to the war in the former Yugoslavia and examines the links between public opinion and political and military intervention in Bosnia. The result is a comprehensive evaluation of the complex relationship between public opinion, media coverage, and foreign policy decision-making.

The attitudes of individual citizens play a central role in a democracy. In the United States today, the two major parties are each associated with a broad set of policy positions representing the conservative and liberal political ideologies. The two major parties are becoming increasingly polarized on these ideologies between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. This book provides an in-depth examination of public opinion in a single American state, Alabama, to see whether the public opinion of general citizens follows this stereotype of ideological and partisan polarization. Alabama public opinion is analyzed on a fairly wide range of issues, including the quality of public officials, constitutional reform, the role of government in terms of taxes and overall spending, education, health care, religion in public life, crime, and immigration. Alabama is generally perceived as staunchly conservative politically and as a reliably 'red' Republican state in national elections. Yet, public opinion in Alabama is considerably more nuanced and complex than this stereotype in two distinct aspects. First, Alabamians are certainly conservative on many issues, but they are also liberal on a significant number of others. Second, the issue positions of the state's citizens are shaped by three different dynamics in terms of what factors influence specific attitudes. Furthermore a brief analysis of public opinion in the entire United States finds similar patterns. Thus, the current polarization in party politics does not necessarily reflect public opinion in its entirety, suggesting a need to transcend the competing conservative and liberal orthodoxies.

The 1992 American election saw more women running for office, at both local and national level, than ever before. The number of women elected increased by 50% in the House of Representatives and by a staggering 300% in the Senate. This book describes these key races, revealing the underlying tales of voter and institutional reactions to the women candidates and highlights the unprecedented levels of support garnered on their behalf.

Presidents spend millions of dollars on public opinion polling while in office. Critics often point to this polling as evidence that a "permanent campaign" has taken over the White House at the expense of traditional governance. But has presidential polling truly changed the shape of presidential leadership? Diane J. Heith examines the polling practices of six presidential administrations-those of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton-dissecting the poll apparatus of each period. She contends that while White House polls significantly influence presidential messages and responses to events, they do not impact presidential decisions to the extent that observers often claim. Heith concludes that polling, and thus the campaign environment, exists in tandem with long-established governing strategies.

The 2000 Mexican presidential race culminated in the election of opposition candidate Vicente Fox and the end of seven decades of one-party rule. This book, which traces changes in public opinion and voter preferences over the course of the race, represents the most comprehensive treatment of campaigning and voting behavior in an emerging democracy. It challenges the "modest effects" paradigm of national election campaigns that has dominated scholarly research in the field. Chapters cover authoritarian mobilization of voters, turnout patterns, electoral cleavages, party strategies, television news coverage, candidate debates, negative campaigning, strategic voting, issue-based voting, and the role of the 2000 election in Mexico's political transition. Theoretically-oriented introductory and concluding chapters situate Mexico's 2000 election in the larger context of Mexican politics and of cross-national research on campaigns. Collectively, these contributions provide crucial insights into Mexico's new politics, with important implications for elections in other countries.

"Japanese Public Opinion and the War on Terrorism" examines the effect the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States had on one of America's most important ally, Japan, as it struggles to define a post-Cold War role for itself in international security affairs. This study looks at Japanese mass opinion, the role of the Japanese media, both print and visual, in framing discourse on security, the response of political parties to public opinion, the position of Japanese intellectuals in the debate on the war on terrorism, civil society, and public opinion in Okinawa.

Despite the enthusiasm surrounding the Colour Revolutions and the Arab Spring, the world's share of democracies has stagnated over the past 15 years. The steady rise of China, Russia, and Iran has also led to warnings of a resurgence of "authoritarian great powers", especially in light of the financial crisis centred in the USA and Western Europe. On the positive side, however, democracy remains remarkably popular as an ideal. In the Global barometer's most recent survey, two out of three respondents say democracy is their most favoured political system, including a majority in 49 of the 55 countries. Yet there is evidence, much expanded upon in this edited collection, that commitments to liberal democracy in practice are not as strong. Nominally pro-democratic citizens frequently favour limitations on electoral accountability and individual rights in the service of improved governance or economic growth. Further, there are rising concerns that many citizens, especially across the developing world, are turning away from democracy out of frustration with democratic performance. In contrast to many transitional regimes, the more established democracies appear to be losing support among their highly educated citizens. The contributions in this edited collection compare how democracy is understood and experienced in transitioning regimes and established democracies. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.

Unlike many studies of social attitudes, which are based on large scale quantitative surveys, or which focus on the attitude of elites, this book considers the views of ordinary people, and is based on in-depth, qualitative interviews. This approach results in rich, nuanced data, and is especially helpful for highlighting ambivalent attitudes, where respondents may hold positive and negative views on a particular topic, views which are liable to change. The book examines attitudes on a range of subjects of current importance, including views on nationalism and internationalism, housing preferences, and educational ambitions. Throughout, the book explores how far attitudes are influenced by traditional Chinese values or by the neo-liberal outlook fostered by recent reforms, and concludes that materialism and individualism have increased.

The Conservative Party is one of the most successful political parties in the western world. Its success has been built on its large grass roots membership. And yet that memberhip appears to be increasingly disaffected and in decline.;This book is the first in depth study of this crucial section of the Conservative Party. Drawing on new and revealing survey data, it paints a fascinating picture of the social make-up and political views of a grass roots membership who dislike Jacques Delors more than the European Community, and The Sun newspaper most of all. The book challenges the stereotypical view of the Conservative activist as an eccentric and politically irrelevant Thatcher-loving extremist. Instead, the authors argue that the grass roots membership are the unsung heroes of political life; helping to keep the party system working and democracy intact at a time when it is under considerable strain.;The authors claim that to some extent the party is the author of its own problems, and point out the likely dire consequences for its future success if the current decline continues. They conclude by outlining the ways in which the leadership might revitalize its most important polit

This book examines the domestic electoral consequences of the economic and financial crisis in Europe, particularly in those countries where the crisis manifested itself more devastatingly: the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, as well as Iceland and Ireland. On the surface, the electoral consequences of the crisis seem largely similar, having resulted, in these countries, in large electoral losses for incumbents, as the most elementary versions of "economic voting" theory would have us expect. However, behind this fundamental similarity, important differences emerge. Whilst in some cases, on the basis of post-election surveys, it is possible to see that the "crisis elections" followed a previous pattern of performance-oriented voters, with no major changes either in known predictors of electoral choices or in basic party system properties, other elections brought the emergence of new parties, new issues and cleavages, altering patterns of political competition. By examining these different outcomes by comparing the "crisis elections" with previous ones, this book takes into account their timing relative to different stages of crisis. It also scrutinises party strategies and campaign dynamics, particularly as governments attempted (and sometimes succeeded) in framing events and proposals so as to apportion responsibility for economic outcomes. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.

This volume explores the way governments endeavoured to build and maintain public support for the war in Afghanistan, combining new insights on the effects of strategic narratives with an exhaustive series of case studies. In contemporary wars, with public opinion impacting heavily on outcomes, strategic narratives provide a grid for interpreting the why, what and how of the conflict. This book asks how public support for the deployment of military troops to Afghanistan was garnered, sustained or lost in thirteen contributing nations. Public attitudes in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe towards the use of military force were greatly shaped by the cohesiveness and content of the strategic narratives employed by national policy-makers. Assessing the ability of countries to craft a successful strategic narrative, the book addresses the following key areas: 1) how governments employ strategic narratives to gain public support; 2) how strategic narratives develop during the course of the conflict; 3) how these narratives are disseminated, framed and perceived through various media outlets; 4) how domestic audiences respond to strategic narratives; 5) how this interplay is conditioned by both events on the ground, in Afghanistan, and by structural elements of the domestic political systems. This book will be of much interest to students of international intervention, foreign policy, political communication, international security, strategic studies and IR in general.

- The Gallup Organization has a solid track record of successful business books, including two recent Warner Books titles: "Discover Your Sales Strengths (3/03), which has 40,000 copies in print, and "Follow this Path (10/02), which has over 60,000 copies in print- Other bestselling Gallup titles include "First, Break all the Rules (Simon & Schuster, 1999), which has sold over 500,000 hardcover copies and was a "New York Times and "Wall Street Journal business bestseller, and "Now, Discover Your Strengths (Simon & Schuster, 2001), which sold over 300,000 hardcover copies.- By examining how public opinion is influenced, POLLING MATTERS will appeal to the same large audience as Malcolm Gladwell's runaway "New York Times bestseller "The Tipping Point (Little, Brown and Company, 2000), now in its 16th hardcover printing, with 693,000 copies in hardcover and paperback print combined.- Frank Newport is editor-in-chief of The Gallup Poll and a frequent guest expert on CNN.- Timed to coincide with the 2004 presidential election, this book is perfectly positioned for maximum reader interest and media exposure.

It has been said that the British Empire, on which the sun never set, meant little to the man in the street. Apart from the jingoist eruptions at the death of Gordon or the relief of Mafeking he remained stonily indifferent to the imperial destiny that beckoned his rulers so alluringly. Strange, then that for three-quarters of a century it was scarcely possible to buy a bar of soap or a tin of biscuits without being reminded of the idea of Empire. Packaging, postcards, music hall, cinema, boy's stories and school books, exhibitions and parades, all conveyed the message that Empire was an adventure and an ennobling responsibility. Army and navy were a sure shield for the mother country and the subject peoples alike. Boys' brigades and Scouts stiffened the backbone of youth who flocked to join. In this illuminating study John M. Mackenzie explores the manifestations of the imperial idea, from the trappings of royalty through writers like G. A. Henty to the humble cigarette card. He shows that it was so powerful and pervasive that it outlived the passing of Empire itself and, as events such as the Falklands 'adventure' showed, the embers continue to smoulder. -- .

As China is increasingly integrated into the processes of economic, political, social, and cultural globalization, important questions arise about how Chinese people perceive and evaluate such processes. At the same time, international communication scholars have long been interested in how local, national, and transnational media communications shape people's attitudes and values. Combining these two concerns, this book examines a range of questions pertinent to public opinion toward globalization in urban China: To what degree are the urban residents in China exposed to the influences from the outside world? How many transnational social connections does a typical urban Chinese citizen have? How often do they consume foreign media? To what extent are they aware of the notion of globalization, and what do they think about it? Do they believe that globalization is beneficial to China, to the city where they live, and to them personally? How do people's social connections and communication activities shape their views toward globalization and the outside world? This book tackles these and other questions systematically by analyzing a four-city comparative survey of urban Chinese residents, demonstrating the complexities of public opinion in China. Media consumption does relate, though by no means straightforwardly, to people's attitudes and beliefs, and this book provides much needed information and insights about Chinese public opinion on globalization. It also develops fresh conceptual and empirical insights on issues such as public opinion toward US-China relations, Chinese people's nationalistic sentiments, and approaches to analyze attitudes toward globalization.

This book traces the emergence of the ideas and institutions that evolved to give people mastery over their own destiny through the force of public opinion. The Greek belief in citizen participation is shown as the ground upon which the idea of public opinion began and grew. For Wilson, public opinion is an "orderly force," contributing to social and political life.

Wilson appraises the influence of modern psychology and the slow appearance of methodologies that would enable people not only to measure the opinions of others, but to mold them as well. He examines the relation of the theory of public opinion to the intellectuals, the middle class, and the various revolutionary and proletarian movements of the modern era. The circumstances in which the individual may refuse to follow the opinions of the experts are succinctly and movingly analyzed.

This book is a historical and philosophical evaluation of a concept that has played a decisive part in history, and whose overwhelming force is underestimated. The author's insight brings an understanding that is invaluable at a time when public opinion, the force developed to enable the ruled to restrain their rulers, has become controllable. Attempts to manipulate it are made by those who would impose their will upon their fellow men.

The text is technically precise but at the same time accessible, and is carried forward by numerous examples. The chapters focus on vote counting rules, voting agendas, voter preferences, sincere and sophisticated voting strategies, solution sets, voting outcomes, agendas control, and agenda formation. The author himself has made prior research contributions to a number of these topics.

The first edition of this book offered one of the first social science analyses of Barack Obama's historic electoral campaigns and early presidency. In this second edition the authors extend that analysis to Obama's service in the presidency and to his second campaign to hold that presidency. Elaborating on the concept of the white racial frame, Harvey Wingfield and Feagin assess in detail the ways white racial framing was deployed by the principal characters in the electoral campaigns and during Obama's presidency. With much relevant data, this book counters many commonsense assumptions about U.S. racial matters, politics, and institutions, particularly the notion that Obama's presidency ushered in a major post-racial era. Readers will find this fully revised and updated book distinctively valuable because it relies on sound social science analysis to assess numerous events and aspects of this historic campaign.