Political Advocacy and American Politics provides a detailed explanation as to why citizens engage in interpersonal advocacy in the United States. Sean Richey and J. Benjamin Taylor eloquently show how the campaigns, social media, and personality and partisanship affect one's propensity for candidates, which often leads to arguments about politics. Using original qualitative, survey, and experimental studies, Richey and Taylor demonstrate the causes of political advocacy over time in the political environment and at the individual level. While some worry about the incivility in American politics, Richey and Taylor argue political talk, where conflict is common, is caused by high-activity democratic processes and normatively beneficial individual attributes. Furthermore, Richey and Taylor argue that advocacy-when conceptualized as a democratic "release valve"-is exactly the kind of conflict we might expect in a vibrant democracy. Political Advocacy and American Politics: Why People Fight So Often About Politics is ideal for university students and researchers, yet it is also accessible to any reader looking to learn more about the role campaigns and personal attributes play in the decision to advocate.

Social networking fascinates scholars, pundits, and a billion Facebook users. This book shows that whom we know has a vast impact on our political beliefs, actions, and abilities. Prior scholarship has shown that networks are crucial to explaining everything from how bills get through Congress, why people vote, how NGO's become successful in developing nations, and much more; yet an in-depth analysis of the social basis of the rationality is missing. To fill this void, The Social Basis of the Rational Citizen provides the first empirical analysis of the most important hypothesized effect of social network influence on politics: social cognition. Through new lab experiments and survey data, this book shows that decision-making in groups promotes more rational choices and better citizenship. Thus, advice and learning derived from social network contacts are shown to be the basis of decision-making for the rational citizen.

Many who critique democracy as practiced in East Asia suggest that the Confucian political culture of these nations prevents democracy from being the robust participatory type, and limits it to a spectacle designed to create obedience from the public. Certainly some East Asian nations have had elections for decades, but for democracy to be meaningful, a country needs an active public sphere, political tolerance, egalitarian beliefs, and vigorous political participation. The Asian-values debate focuses on whether the creation of this optimal version of democracy in East Asian nations will be hindered by their shared Confucian cultural heritage and at the centre of this debate is whether there is an active political culture in East Asia that allows citizens to freely discuss, debate, and disagree about politics.

With Japan as its focus, this book examines the role of social networks and political discussion in Japanese political culture and asks whether discursive participatory democracy is indeed possible in East Asia. In order to answer this question the authors undertook the largest academic political survey ever conducted in Japan to give the book exceptional empirical credence. This data reveals how the Japanese people interact politically, concluding that through the powerful influence of social networks on Japanese political behaviour, Japan has a more globalized and less hierarchical society where Confucian culture is not dominant and where creation of a vibrant civil society is possible.

This book will be invaluable for students and scholars of Japanese politics, democracy, civil society, and globalization.

For the first time in human history, access to information on almost any topic is accessible through the Internet. A powerful extraction system is needed to disseminate this knowledge, which for most users is Google. Google Search is an extremely powerful and important component to American political life in the twenty-first century, yet its influence is poorly researched or understood. Sean Richey and J. Benjamin Taylor explore for the first time the influence of Google on American politics, specifically on direct democracy. Using original experiments and nationally representative cross-sectional data, Richey and Taylor show how Google Search returns quality information, that users click on quality information, and gain political knowledge and other contingent benefits. Additionally, they correlate Google usage with real-world voting behavior on direct democracy. Building a theory of Google Search use for ballot measures, Google and Democracy is an original addition to the literature on the direct democracy, Internet politics, and information technology. An indispensable read to all those wishing to gain new insights on how the Internet has the power to be a normatively valuable resource for citizens.

Many who critique democracy as practiced in East Asia suggest that the Confucian political culture of these nations prevents democracy from being the robust participatory type, and limits it to a spectacle designed to create obedience from the public. Certainly some East Asian nations have had elections for decades, but for democracy to be meaningful, a country needs an active public sphere, political tolerance, egalitarian beliefs, and vigorous political participation. The Asian-values debate focuses on whether the creation of this optimal version of democracy in East Asian nations will be hindered by their shared Confucian cultural heritage and at the centre of this debate is whether there is an active political culture in East Asia that allows citizens to freely discuss, debate, and disagree about politics. With Japan as its focus, this book examines the role of social networks and political discussion in Japanese political culture and asks whether discursive participatory democracy is indeed possible in East Asia. In order to answer this question the authors undertook the largest academic political survey ever conducted in Japan to give the book exceptional empirical credence. This data reveals how the Japanese people interact politically, concluding that through the powerful influence of social networks on Japanese political behaviour, Japan has a more globalized and less hierarchical society where Confucian culture is not dominant and where creation of a vibrant civil society is possible. This book will be invaluable for students and scholars of Japanese politics, democracy, civil society, and globalization.

For the first time in human history, access to information on almost any topic is accessible through the Internet. A powerful extraction system is needed to disseminate this knowledge, which for most users is Google. Google Search is an extremely powerful and important component to American political life in the twenty-first century, yet its influence is poorly researched or understood. Sean Richey and J. Benjamin Taylor explore for the first time the influence of Google on American politics, specifically on direct democracy. Using original experiments and nationally representative cross-sectional data, Richey and Taylor show how Google Search returns quality information, that users click on quality information, and gain political knowledge and other contingent benefits. Additionally, they correlate Google usage with real-world voting behavior on direct democracy. Building a theory of Google Search use for ballot measures, Google and Democracy is an original addition to the literature on the direct democracy, Internet politics, and information technology. An indispensable read to all those wishing to gain new insights on how the Internet has the power to be a normatively valuable resource for citizens.

Political Advocacy and American Politics provides a detailed explanation as to why citizens engage in interpersonal advocacy in the United States. Sean Richey and J. Benjamin Taylor eloquently show how the campaigns, social media, and personality and partisanship affect one's propensity for candidates, which often leads to arguments about politics. Using original qualitative, survey, and experimental studies, Richey and Taylor demonstrate the causes of political advocacy over time in the political environment and at the individual level. While some worry about the incivility in American politics, Richey and Taylor argue political talk, where conflict is common, is caused by high-activity democratic processes and normatively beneficial individual attributes. Furthermore, Richey and Taylor argue that advocacy-when conceptualized as a democratic "release valve"-is exactly the kind of conflict we might expect in a vibrant democracy. Political Advocacy and American Politics: Why People Fight So Often About Politics is ideal for university students and researchers, yet it is also accessible to any reader looking to learn more about the role campaigns and personal attributes play in the decision to advocate.

Social networking fascinates scholars, pundits, and a billion Facebook users. This book shows that whom we know has a vast impact on our political beliefs, actions, and abilities. Prior scholarship has shown that networks are crucial to explaining everything from how bills get through Congress, why people vote, how NGO's become successful in developing nations, and much more; yet an in-depth analysis of the social basis of the rationality is missing. To fill this void, The Social Basis of the Rational Citizen provides the first empirical analysis of the most important hypothesized effect of social network influence on politics: social cognition. Through new lab experiments and survey data, this book shows that decision-making in groups promotes more rational choices and better citizenship. Thus, advice and learning derived from social network contacts are shown to be the basis of decision-making for the rational citizen.