The American Voter Revisited
A new book, The American Voter Revisited, argues the following:
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.
Its authors are Michael Lewis-Beck, William Jacoby, Helmut Norpoth, and Herb Weisberg.
The book is profiled today in this Washington Post piece. The article discusses debates among political scientists about the quality of citizens’ political decisions. It includes this piquant quote from Sam Popkin, who tends to disagree with the book’s pessimism:
“If I say to you, ‘What did the guy you didn’t marry say to you in bed?’ ” and you can’t remember, “does that mean you didn’t enjoy it?”
Who said political science wasn’t sexy?
Comments
SAVE THE IN BED REMARK FOR THE SLUTS YOU KNOW !
Posted by: ELAINE N. RAMEY | July 24, 2008 11:17 AM
See Ansolabehere, Rodden, and Snyder’s paper in the new APSR. Much of the sad news about the American Voter (then and now) can bet attributed to measurement error.
Posted by: JMA | July 24, 2008 03:32 PM
I burst out laughing at this quote in the Washington Post piece.
“They had to eliminate the chapter on the agrarian vote, though, because there aren’t enough farmers left anymore for a usable sample.”
One throw away sentence summarizes the contending perspectives of two great traditions of political science - behaviouralism and political economy. Brilliant.
Posted by: Simon Kiss | July 27, 2008 05:36 PM