Proximity Politics: How Distance Shapes Public Opinion and Political Behaviors: How Distance Shapes Public Opinion and Political Behaviors

by Jeronimo Cortina

Republicans who live closer to the U.S.-Mexico border are less likely to support constructing a wall than those who live farther away. After a mass shooting, gun sales and permit applications skyrocket in nearby communities. Experiencing an extreme weather event like a hurricane or flood can encourage someone to attribute climate change to human activity. Why do we react so differently to faraway events and ones that take place on our doorsteps, and what does this reveal about our political landscape?

Proximity Politics is a groundbreaking examination of the role of distance in shaping attitudes, behaviors, and understandings of the world. Analyzing geocoded survey data, Jeronimo Cortina demonstrates the crucial ways space and place influence public opinion. He demonstrates that the closer someone is to an event, social group, or policy, the likelier they are to have first-hand, specific, grounded knowledge of the subject. Conversely, distance leads to detachment, making it more likely that decontextualized or unreliable information and individual or group biases will prevail. Considering a range of case studies, from virus outbreaks to protests, Cortina unravels how spatial, emotional, temporal, social, and cultural distances affect public opinion. Bringing together quantitative and qualitative data in an accessible style, Proximity Politics shows that even in today’s interconnected world, we are still profoundly influenced by what happens next door.

• Publish Date: 1 October 2024
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Columbia University Press
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Obvious "Research" Yet Still Manages To Be Hyper Political. The basic premise of this book is that people are more about those things that are physically, emotionally, or ideologically close to them. Ok, and the sky is blue. Next. Oh, but now there's numbers showing this! And? There are numbers showing why the sky is blue. Nobody cares. Well, maybe the scientists and pedants. Aha! The target audience for this very academically oriented text!

 

I'll grant that the length of the bibliography is solid, clocking in at 30% of the text of the Advance Review Copy of this book that I read. Though content wise, it seems cherry picked specifically to support the author's conclusions rather than offer a more well rounded view of the topic.

 

In making claims such as "Partisan polarization proved to be the deadliest factor for Americans' health." (while blaming elderly Americans for their own deaths during the COVID event) and saying the US-Mexico border "The US -Mexico border as we know it today is a product of historical correction that took place in 1896 to rectify mapping errors from the US-Mexican War of 1849-1855. However, it is not merely a line drawn by Washington, DC and Mexico City to separate two nations. Rather, it is a dynamic permeable membrane shaped by centuries of movement and interaction among indigenous peoples, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans.", Cortina makes statements that his fellow members of the Academy may agree with... that will leave the rest of us in the "real" world wondering what the fuck those "Academics" are smoking, and if we can have some - particularly in these last days before the 2024 Presidential election. And then there is the fictitious claim that "assault rifles" exist (they don't) or that anthropogenic "climate change" is causing ever more natural disasters. Here, I'll at least give Cortina credit for moderating a *touch* in later chapters and moving on to a more "regardless of origins, it is happening" approach - which is still not actually borne out in the data, but is at least much closer to reality. Cortina would argue that my own proximal politics - growing up in the foothills of the Appalachians yet currently living just six miles off the beach - influences our disagreement here... I would argue reality does. ;)

 

And that is ultimately how anyone is going to find this book. If you like academic treatises with a strong leftward bent, you're going to enjoy what Cortina has put together here, obvious though it may be. Hey, there's numbers now! ;) If you find yourself not drawn to that type of book... spare Cortina the much more vicious take down that even *I* was tempted to write and just ignore this book. Your cardiologist will hate you for it, but your family will love you ever more for allowing them a few more days with you from not having a heart attack over this book. :D  

 

Recommended, but only for very select readers.