Who votes in national elections? What are their preferences on issues? How important is their party identification? How does their demographic profile change over time? Reflecting an unbroken record of eighteen studies of voter behavior conducted biennially since 1952, this volume presents data on hundreds of elements influencing voters that will interest political scientists, journalists, consultants, and students of political history.
The information was obtained from face-to-face interviews with national full probability samples of all citizens of voting age, as part of the University of Michigan/National Election Studies conducted by the Center for Political Studies. The data provide both an unrivaled occasion to gain a deeper understanding of congressional and presidential elections, and a basis for making or challenging broad generalizations about American politics since World War II.
Major sections include personal characteristics (age, education, gender, religion, occupation, income, union membership, urbanism, race/ ethnicity); partisanship (party identification, open-ended evaluations of parties and candidates); issues (ideological self-placement, issue preferences, perceptions of economic conditions); candidate traits; thermometer ratings of individuals and groups; voter preferences; media exposure; and voter turnout and political participation. The editors present these attributes in terms of stability and change and the sequence in which the various elements acquire relevance for the voter's choice. The book is organized to give time-series distributions of data from all items included on three or more studies during the thirty-four years covered, and presents first-level analyses through a logically structured series of bivariate tables. It is the only book to include the basic data from National Election Studies.
- ISBN10 0674026365
- ISBN13 9780674026360
- Publish Date 18 October 1989
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 4 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Harvard University Press
- Edition 2nd Revised edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 400
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780674026360