Anxious Politics
Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World

Anxious Politics argues that political anxiety affects the news we consume, who we trust, and what public policies we support.

Bethany Albertson (Author), Shana Kushner Gadarian (Author)

9781107441484, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 September 2015

268 pages, 14 b/w illus. 35 tables
23 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'How do political communications that foster feelings of threat and insecurity influence citizens - how and what they learn, who they trust, and what policies they advocate? Anxious Politics offers a compelling set of answers to these important questions through experimental analyses that range widely across issues, context, and message form. Anyone with an interest in public opinion should read this book.' Laura Stoker, Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Emotions matter in politics - enthusiastic supporters return politicians to office, angry citizens march in the streets, a fearful public demands protection from the government. Anxious Politics explores the emotional life of politics, with particular emphasis on how political anxieties affect public life. When the world is scary, when politics is passionate, when the citizenry is anxious, does this politics resemble politics under more serene conditions? If politicians use threatening appeals to persuade citizens, how does the public respond? Anxious Politics argues that political anxiety triggers engagement in politics in ways that are potentially both promising and damaging for democracy. Using four substantive policy areas (public health, immigration, terrorism, and climate change), the book seeks to demonstrate that anxiety affects how we consume political news, who we trust, and what politics we support. Anxiety about politics triggers coping strategies in the political world, where these strategies are often shaped by partisan agendas.

1. Anxiety in public life
2. What's your worry? Finding and creating anxiety in the American public
3. Anxiety, immigration, and the search for information
4. Don't worry, be trusting? The effect of anxiety on political trust
5. The politics of anxiety: anxiety's role on public opinion
6. Anxiety and democratic citizenship.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]