Citizens, Politics and Social Communication
Information and Influence in an Election Campaign

This book is dedicated to investigating the political implications of interdependent citizens.

R. Robert Huckfeldt (Author), John Sprague (Author), James H. Kuklinski (General editor), Robert S. Wyer (General editor), Stanley Feldman (Edited by)

9780521030441, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

316 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.491 kg

"With this book, the authors have presented an impressive study of social communication and its influence on political practice." Political Science Quarterly

Democratic politics is a collective enterprise, not simply because individual votes are counted to determine winners, but more fundamentally because the individual exercise of citizenship is an interdependent undertaking. Citizens argue with one another and they generally arrive at political decisions through processes of social interaction and deliberation. This book is dedicated to investigating the political implications of interdependent citizens within the context of the 1984 presidential campaign as it was experienced in the metropolitan area of South Bend, Indiana. Hence this is a community study in the fullest sense of the term. National politics is experienced locally through a series of filters unique to a particular setting and its consequences for the exercise of democratic citizenship.

Acknowledgments
Part I. Democratic Politics and Social Communication: 1. The multiple levels of democratic politics
2. A research strategy for studying electoral politics
Part II. Electoral Dynamics and Social Communication: 3. The social dynamics of political preference
4. Durability, volatility and social influence
5. Social dynamics in an election campaign
Part III. Networks, Political Discussants, and Social Communication: 6. Political discussion in an election campaign
7. Networks in context: The social flow of political information
8. Choice, social structure, and the informational coercion of minorities
9. Discussant effects on vote choice: Intimacy, structure, and interdependence
10. Gender effects on political discussion: The political networks of men and women
Part IV. The Organizational Locus of Social Communication: 11. One-party politics and the voter revisited: strategic and behavioral bases of partisanship
12. Political parties and electoral mobilization: political structure, social structure, and the party canvass
13. Alternative contexts of political preference
14. Political consequences of interdependent citizens
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Elections & referenda [JPHF], Sociology & anthropology [JH]