James E. Campbell – författare

Since the famous 1948 Dewey/Truman election, the role of polling has taken on increasing prominence in the American electoral process. Editors James Campbell and James Garand have pulled together some of the leading figures in political science to present their forecasts of the 1996 presidential election, along with accompanying analyses which discuss their methodology. Despite the relative lack of suspense about the eventual outcome, the various contributors have some very different angles on the enterprise of forecasting. Before the Vote presents a series of critiques, from prominent political scientists who look at the forecasting enterprise. Issues include whether more accurate models of predicting voter behavior damages the political climate by making politicians increasingly enslaved by pollsters, and the effect on turnout when there is a broad consensus of who the eventual winner will be. It will be a valuable addition to the bookshelves of political scientists interested in American electoral politics and those interested in broad questions surrounding social science research methods.

This book is targeted toward MSGI courses in political science, American government, American politics, parties and elections, public opinion and participation, media and politics, political analysis, and scholars who work in these areas.

Since the famous 1948 Dewey/Truman election, the role of polling has taken on increasing prominence in the American electoral process. Editors James Campbell and James Garand have pulled together some of the leading figures in political science to present their forecasts of the 1996 presidential election, along with accompanying analyses which discuss their methodology. Despite the relative lack of suspense about the eventual outcome, the various contributors have some very different angles on the enterprise of forecasting. Before the Vote presents a series of critiques, from prominent political scientists who look at the forecasting enterprise. Issues include whether more accurate models of predicting voter behavior damages the political climate by making politicians increasingly enslaved by pollsters, and the effect on turnout when there is a broad consensus of who the eventual winner will be. It will be a valuable addition to the bookshelves of political scientists interested in American electoral politics and those interested in broad questions surrounding social science research methods.

This book is targeted toward MSGI courses in political science, American government, American politics, parties and elections, public opinion and participation, media and politics, political analysis, and scholars who work in these areas.

An eye-opening look at how and why America has become so politically polarizedMany continue to believe that the United States is a nation of political moderates. In fact, it is a nation divided. It has been so for some time and has grown more so. This book provides a new and historically grounded perspective on the polarization of America, systematically documenting how and why it happened.Polarized presents commonsense benchmarks to measure polarization, draws data from a wide range of historical sources, and carefully assesses the quality of the evidence. Through an innovative and insightful use of circumstantial evidence, it provides a much-needed reality check to claims about polarization. This rigorous yet engaging and accessible book examines how polarization displaced pluralism and how this affected American democracy and civil society.Polarized challenges the widely held belief that polarization is the product of party and media elites, revealing instead how the American public in the 1960s set in motion the increase of polarization. American politics became highly polarized from the bottom up, not the top down, and this began much earlier than often thought. The Democrats and the Republicans are now ideologically distant from each other and about equally distant from the political center. Polarized also explains why the parties are polarized at all, despite their battle for the decisive median voter. No subject is more central to understanding American politics than political polarization, and no other book offers a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the subject than this one.