How Voters Decide: Information Processing During Election Campaigns (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521613064)

This book attempts to redirect the field of voting behavior research by proposing a paradigm-shifting framework for studying voter decision making. An innovative experimental methodology is presented for getting 'inside the heads' of citizens as they confront the overwhelming rush of information from modern presidential election campaigns. Four broad theoretically-defined types of decision strategies that voters employ to help decide which candidate to support are described and operationally-defined. Individual and campaign-related factors that lead voters to adopt one or another of these strategies are examined. Most importantly, this research proposes a new normative focus for the scientific study of voting behavior: we should care about not just which candidate received the most votes, but also how many citizens voted correctly - that is, in accordance with their own fully-informed preferences.

Author: Richard R. Lau, David P. Redlawsk
ISBN-10: 052161306X
ISBN-13: 9780521613064
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/26/2006
Pages: 366
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d