Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability
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A01=Vincent L. Hutchings
Abortion
Accountability
Activism
Advocacy group
African Americans
Amendment
Author_Vincent L. Hutchings
Balanced budget amendment
Ballot
Ballot box
Candidate
Category=JPH
Category=JPWA
Clarence Thomas
Common good
Compassionate conservatism
Congressional Quarterly
Content analysis
Dummy variable (statistics)
Election
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Executive order
Foreign policy
General election
Governor
Graduate school
Gray Davis
Headline
Household
Ideology
Incumbent
Issue voting
Legislation
Legislator
Local election
Major party
Member of Congress
National Organization for Women
Nomination
Of Education
On the Issues
Participation (decision making)
Party identification
Political agenda
Political campaign
Political party
Political philosophy
Political science
Political spectrum
Politician
Politics
Prediction
Probability
Public opinion
Public policy
Regression analysis
Representative democracy
Republican Party (United States)
Respondent
School voucher
Socioeconomic status
Southern Democrats
Statistical significance
The Almanac of American Politics
The American Voter
The Political Process
Trade union
Unemployment
Veto
Voter turnout
Voting
Voting behavior
Weapon system
Workforce
Product details
- ISBN 9780691123790
- Weight: 28g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 11 Sep 2005
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Much of public opinion research over the past several decades suggests that the American voters are woefully uninformed about politics and thus unable to fulfill their democratic obligations. Arguing that this perception is faulty, Vincent Hutchings shows that, under the right political conditions, voters are surprisingly well informed on the issues that they care about and use their knowledge to hold politicians accountable. Though Hutchings is not the first political scientist to contend that the American public is more politically engaged than it is often given credit for, previous scholarship--which has typically examined individual and environmental factors in isolation--has produced only limited evidence of an attentive electorate. Analyzing broad survey data as well as the content of numerous Senate and gubernatorial campaigns involving such issues as race, labor, abortion, and defense, Hutchings demonstrates that voters are politically engaged when politicians and the media discuss the issues that the voters perceive as important.
Hutchings finds that the media--while far from ideal--do provide the populace with information regarding the responsiveness of elected representatives and that groups of voters do monitor this information when "their" issues receive attention. Thus, while the electorate may be generally uninformed about and uninterested in public policy, a complex interaction of individual motivation, group identification, and political circumstance leads citizens concerned about particular issues to obtain knowledge about their political leaders and use that information at the ballot box.
Vincent L. Hutchings is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, where he is also Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies of the Institute for Social Research. His work has appeared in "American Sociological Review, American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Political Communication, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Communication", and "Legislative Studies" Quarterly.
