"You want to read this book if you want to explore the fundamental tension in politics between life experienced as an individual and life experienced as a collectivity. You will want to understand the theoretical insights offered here. And you will want to understand the intellectual agenda that Huckfeldt and Sprague have pushed forward." Journal of Politics

• 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.