Examining how people want their democratic government to work, this study finds that Americans don't like many of the practices associated with democracy: the conflicts, the debates, the compromises. It finds that Americans don't want to have to see democracy in practice, nor do they want to be involved in politics. If American citizens had their way, political decisions would be made by unselfish decision-makers, lessening the need for monitoring government.

Without the experience of disagreement, political communication among citizens loses value and meaning. At the same time, political disagreement and diversity do not always or inevitably survive. This book, accordingly, considers the compelling issue of the circumstances that sustain political diversity, even in politically high stimulus environments where individuals are attentive to politics and the frequency of communication among citizens is correspondingly high.

Citizens and Politics: Perspectives from Political Psychology brings together some of the current research on citizen decision making. It addresses the questions of citizen political competence from different political psychology perspectives. Some of the authors in this volume look to affect and emotions to determine how people reach political judgments, others to human cognition and reasoning. Still others focus on perceptions or basic political attitudes such as political ideology. Several demonstrate the impact of values on policy preferences. The collection features chapters from some of...

Many social scientists want to explain why people do what they do. A barrier to constructing such explanations used to be a lack of information on the relationship between cognition and choice. Now, recent advances in cognitive science, economics, political science, and psychology have clarified this relationship. In Elements of Reason, scholars from across the social sciences use these advances to uncover the cognitive foundations of social decision making. They answer tough questions about how people see and process information and provide new explanations of how basic human needs, the...

James L. Gibson and Amanda Gouws investigate the degree to which the political culture of South Africa and the beliefs, values, and attitudes of ordinary people affect democratic reform. One set of values is of particular concern for their research: political tolerance. Gibson and Gouws contend that political tolerance is a crucial element of democratic political cultures in general. And it is perhaps more important than any other democratic value in polyglot South Africa.

In the chapters of this edited volume, twenty-four leading scholars report research designed to help readers understand why so many Americans do not like, trust, approve of, or support their government. Readers with interests in current affairs, American politics, American government, and American opinion should be interested in this book. Since government is not always unpopular and since some parts of government are liked more than others, the authors are able to obtain insight into the particular features of politics that tend to be turnoffs with the public.

This book focuses on the impact of residential changes on the attitudes and behavior of African-Americans and whites. Will whites' attitudes about blacks and blacks' attitudes toward whites change if they are living in integrated neighborhoods rather than apart from one another? Are black suburbanites more likely to share the views of their fellow white suburbanites or of their fellow African-Americans in the central city? Will residential integration and new patterns of race in the suburbs break down divisions between blacks and whites in their views of local public services? These are the...

Without the experience of disagreement, political communication among citizens loses value and meaning. At the same time, political disagreement and diversity do not always or inevitably survive. This book, accordingly, considers the compelling issue of the circumstances that sustain political diversity, even in politically high stimulus environments where individuals are attentive to politics and the frequency of communication among citizens is correspondingly high.

Examining how people want their democratic government to work, this study finds that Americans don't like many of the practices associated with democracy: the conflicts, the debates, the compromises. It finds that Americans don't want to have to see democracy in practice, nor do they want to be involved in politics. If American citizens had their way, political decisions would be made by unselfish decision-makers, lessening the need for monitoring government.

Many social scientists want to explain why people do what they do. A barrier to constructing such explanations used to be a lack of information on the relationship between cognition and choice. Now, recent advances in cognitive science, economics, political science, and psychology have clarified this relationship. In Elements of Reason, scholars from across the social sciences use these advances to uncover the cognitive foundations of social decision making. They answer tough questions about how people see and process information and provide new explanations of how basic human needs, the...