Experts, Activists, and Democratic Politics
Are Electorates Self-Educating?

This book addresses opinion leadership in democratic politics as a process whereby individuals send and receive information through their informally based networks of political communication.

T. K. Ahn (Author), Robert Huckfeldt (Author), John Barry Ryan (Author)

9781107068872, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 November 2014

300 pages, 27 b/w illus. 36 tables
23.1 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.59 kg

'This book reveals the ways in which pundits, partisans, and political activists are central to forming public opinion and to the resilience of democracy. These biased opinion leaders garner expertise in issues that interest them, and their views are channeled to citizens with little incentive to gather their own information. Anyone seeking to explain public opinion, opinion leaders, partisan bias, political activism, or political communication is going to have to tackle this book. Disputing its findings will be a herculean task. The authors marshal observational data, laboratory experiments, agent-based models, network analysis, and statistical simulations to support their central theoretical claims. The book is an excellent model of social science, using diverse methods to answer well-defined questions.' Rick K. Wilson, Rice University

This book addresses opinion leadership in democratic politics as a process whereby individuals send and receive information through their informally based networks of political communication. The analyses are based on a series of small group experiments, conducted by the authors, which build on accumulated evidence from more than seventy years of survey data regarding political communication among interdependent actors. The various experimental designs provide an opportunity to assess the nature of the communication process, both in terms of increasing citizen expertise as well as in terms of communicating political biases.

1. Experts, activists, and self-educating electorates T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt and John Barry Ryan
2. The imperatives of interdependence T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt and John Barry Ryan
3. Experts, activists, and the social communication of political expertise T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt, Jeanette Mendez, Tracy Osborn and John Barry Ryan
4. Unanimity, discord, and opportunities for opinion leadership T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt, Jeanette Mendez and John Barry Ryan
5. Informational asymmetries among voters T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt and John Barry Ryan
6. Expertise and bias in political communication networks T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt, Alexander K. Mayer and John Barry Ryan
7. Interdependence, communication, and calculation T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt and John Barry Ryan
8. Partisanship and the efficacy of social communication in constrained environments John Barry Ryan
9. Noise, bias, and expertise: the dynamics of becoming informed Robert Huckfeldt, Matthew Pietryka and Jack Reilly
10. Opinion leaders, expertise, and the complex dynamics of political communication Robert Huckfeldt, Matthew Pietryka and Jack Reilly
11. Experts, activists, and democratic prospects T. K. Ahn, Robert Huckfeldt and John Barry Ryan.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW], Political structure & processes [JPH], Political ideologies [JPF], Political science & theory [JPA], Politics & government [JP], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH]