- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (Jun 21 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0226389839
- ISBN-13: 978-0226389837
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 590 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #622,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
Public opinion polls are everywhere. Journalists report their results without hesitation, and political activists of all kinds spend millions of dollars on them, fueling the widespread assumption that elected officials "pander" to public opinion—that they tailor their policy decisions to the results of polls.
In this provocative and engagingly written book, the authors argue that the reality is quite the opposite. In fact, when not facing election, contemporary presidents and members of Congress routinely ignore the public's policy preferences and follow their own political philosophies, as well as those of their party's activists, their contributors, and their interest group allies. Politicians devote substantial time, effort, and money to tracking public opinion, not for the purposes of policymaking, but to change public opinion—to determine how to craft their public statements and actions to win support for the policies they and their supporters want.
Taking two recent, dramatic episodes—President Clinton's failed health care reform campaign, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America"—as examples, the authors show how both used public opinion research and the media to change the public's mind. Such orchestrated displays help explain the media's preoccupation with political conflict and strategy and, the authors argue, have propelled levels of public distrust and fear of government to record highs.
Revisiting the fundamental premises of representative democracy, this accessible book asks us to reexamine whether our government really responds to the broad public or to the narrower interests and values of certain groups. And with the 2000 campaign season heating up, Politicians Don't Pander could not be more timely.
"'Polling has turned leaders into followers,' laments columnist Marueen Dowd of The New York Times. Well, that's news definitely not fit to print say two academics who have examined the polls and the legislative records of recent presidents to see just how responsive chief executives are to the polls. Their conclusion: not much. . . . In fact, their review and analyses found that public opinion polls on policy appear to have increasingly less, not more, influence on government policies."—Richard Morin, The Washington Post
In this provocative and engagingly written book, the authors argue that the reality is quite the opposite. In fact, when not facing election, contemporary presidents and members of Congress routinely ignore the public's policy preferences and follow their own political philosophies, as well as those of their party's activists, their contributors, and their interest group allies. Politicians devote substantial time, effort, and money to tracking public opinion, not for the purposes of policymaking, but to change public opinion—to determine how to craft their public statements and actions to win support for the policies they and their supporters want.
Taking two recent, dramatic episodes—President Clinton's failed health care reform campaign, and Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America"—as examples, the authors show how both used public opinion research and the media to change the public's mind. Such orchestrated displays help explain the media's preoccupation with political conflict and strategy and, the authors argue, have propelled levels of public distrust and fear of government to record highs.
Revisiting the fundamental premises of representative democracy, this accessible book asks us to reexamine whether our government really responds to the broad public or to the narrower interests and values of certain groups. And with the 2000 campaign season heating up, Politicians Don't Pander could not be more timely.
"'Polling has turned leaders into followers,' laments columnist Marueen Dowd of The New York Times. Well, that's news definitely not fit to print say two academics who have examined the polls and the legislative records of recent presidents to see just how responsive chief executives are to the polls. Their conclusion: not much. . . . In fact, their review and analyses found that public opinion polls on policy appear to have increasingly less, not more, influence on government policies."—Richard Morin, The Washington Post
About the Author
Lawrence R. Jacobs is the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Robert Y. Shapiro is associate professor of political science at Columbia University.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Public opinion polls are everywhere. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Public opinion polls are everywhere. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
A major disappointment,
By A Customer
This review is from: Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (Paperback)
This book has been widely touted, so I talked two other political scientists into plowing through it for our reading group. We found the book to be a major disappointment. The authors have an argument to make, but the quality of their qualitative and quantitative evidence is at best uneven. The survey analysis seldom includes multivariate tests and the interview sources, while extensive, are episodically not comprehensively analyzed. By the end of the book, we had little confidence that the conclusions the authors presented were well supported by their evidence. It's a readable book, but it is difficult to put much faith in
4.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific: Explores Link Betwn Public Opinion & Politicians,
By
This review is from: Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (Paperback)
This is a wide-ranging, theoretically rich and empirically focused look at whether politicians simply "follow" the polls or whether politicians use polls to help "sell" proposals to the public. The answer is both, of course, but Jacobs and Shapiro explain how and why public leaders develop their own policy views, and how the public's acceptance of those views shape how policies are ultimately formed. Politicians are "trustees" in the Burkean sense, but how they explain their actions have to be placed in a "delegate" framework. Their case study on health care policy is especially instructive. This book won the 2001 Goldsmith Book Prize, it should be read by serious students of the media and politics.
1.0 out of 5 stars
I say, dash it!,
This review is from: Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness (Paperback)
Reading this book, one phrase kept floating to mind - dash it all. I think..... well, I don't know. This book, er, doesn't do justice to the concept of intercounty by-elections, what?
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