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1. R-2341/2. VIII,157 S.,Lit.,Tab.,Diagr. ISBN 0-8330-0163-9; 2. Technical Appendixes. R-2341/3- V,122 S.ISBN 0-8330-0205-8

Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The American electoral process -- 3. The transformation of American campaigns -- 4. Financing campaigns -- 5. Modern campaign strategies -- 6. Political parties and interest groups -- 7. Media -- 8. Presidential campaigns -- 9. Congressional campaigns -- 10. State and local elections -- 11. Voter participation -- 12. Vote choice -- 13. Democracy in action or a broken system? -- Glossary. Credits. Index

"This book examines the changing relationship between social class and voting behavior in contemporary America. At the end of the 20th century, working-class white voters were significantly more Democratic than their middle-class counterparts, as they had been since the 1930s. By the second decade of the 21st century, that long-standing relationship had reversed: Republicans now do better among working-class whites. While Trump accentuated this trend, the change began before 2016, something that has not been fully appreciated or understood. Charles Prysby analyzes this development in American politics in a way that is understandable to a wide audience, not just scholars in this field. Drawing on a wealth of survey data, this study describes and explains the root-cause of the change that has taken place over the past two decades, identifying how social class is directly related to partisan choice. Attitudes on race and immigration, on social and moral issues, and on economic and social welfare policies are all part of the explanation of this 21st century development in American political trends. Rich Voter, Poor Voter, Red Voter, Blue Voter: Social Class and Voting Behavior in Contemporary America is essential reading for scholars, students, and all others with an interest in American elections and voting behavior"--

"The People's Choice is a landmark psychological and statistical study of American voters during the 1940 and 1944 presidential elections, originally published in 1948. Amid a burgeoning interest in statistics and population sampling, it constituted the first systematic effort to trace voters' behavior across the duration of a presidential campaign and to follow up on this data years later. During the 1940 campaign, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet followed a sample population of six hundred people from Erie County, Ohio, interviewing them monthly in the seven months leading up to Election Day. Their subsequent study in 1944 expanded the sample to include a nationwide cross-section of two thousand voters. Contrary to the fears of the time, Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet found that media such as newspapers and radio and campaign advertising did not have a profound influence on individual voting habits. Instead, interpersonal interactions and word of mouth were more significant for most voters. They argued that mass media reached a small but crucial subset of people, who passed information on to less avid media consumers. The study paired the same interviewers and interviewees over time, leading to remarkable extended conversations featuring more casual and exploratory discussions than were typical of social-scientific research. Quoted verbatim, they offer additional insight into the American electorate. A groundbreaking work of empirical political science, The People's Choice remains of great importance in an era of anxiety about the influence of media on voting behavior"--

"The Taiwan Voter examines the critical role ethnic and national identities play in politics, utilizing the case of Taiwan. Although elections there often raise international tensions, and have led to military demonstrations by China, no scholarly books have examined how Taiwan's voters make electoral choices in a dangerous environment. Critiquing the conventional interpretation of politics as an ideological battle between liberals and conservatives, The Taiwan Voter demonstrates in Taiwan the party system and voters' responses are shaped by one powerful determinant of national identity--the China factor. Taiwan's electoral politics draws international scholarly interest because of the prominent role of ethnic and national identification. While in most countries the many tangled strands of competing identities are daunting for scholarly analysis, in Taiwan the cleavages are powerful and limited in number, so the logic of interrelationships among issues, partisanship, and identity are particularly clear. The Taiwan Voter unites experts to investigate the ways in which social identities, policy views, and partisan preferences intersect and influence each other.These novel findings have wide applicability to other countries, and will be of interest to a broad range of social scientists interested in identity politics"--

If only our people had turned out! -- American voter turnout : a history and portrait -- A theoretical exploration of turnout and voting -- Turnout and partisan vote choice : over time and across states and districts -- Turnout and partisan vote choice : over time and within states and districts -- Congressional district results : a further look -- Why is the conventional wisdom wrong? -- If turnout isn't driving election swings, what is? -- Some final data and thoughts on the link between turnout and vote choice.

Different views on voting -- How does compulsory voting work? -- Active citizens around the world -- A loss of liberty -- Turning around low voter turnout -- More voters, more problems -- Making all voices heard -- Not fixing the problem -- A choice or a duty?

Individual-level factors and voter participation in state -- Supreme Court elections -- Vote choice in state Supreme Court elections -- Voting decisions in partisan and nonpartisan elections -- Does one good term deserve another? Incumbency and vote choice -- Voting yes : retention elections