Information and Elections

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University of Michigan Press, 23 dic 1998 - 287 páginas
R. Michael Alvarez examines how voters make their decisions in presidential elections. He begins with the assumption that voters have neither the incentive nor the inclination to be well-informed about politics and presidential candidates. Candidates themselves have incentives to provide ambiguous information about themselves, their records and their issue positions. Yet the author shows that a tremendous amount of information is made available about presidential candidates. And he uncovers clear and striking evidence that people are not likely to vote for candidates about whom they know very little. Alvarez explores how voters learn about candidates through the course of a campaign. He provides a detailed analysis of the media coverage of presidential campaigns and shows that there is a tremendous amount of media coverage of these campaigns, that much of this coverage is about issues and is informative, and that voters learn from this coverage.
The paperback edition of this work has been updated to include information on the 1996 Presidential election.
Information and Elections is a book that will be read by all who are interested in campaigns and electoral behavior in presidential and other elections.
"Thoughtfully conceptualized, painstakingly analyzed, with empirically significant conclusions on presidential election voting behavior, this book is recommended for both upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections." --Choice
R. Michael Alvarez is Associate Professor of Political Science, California Institute of Technology.
 

Índice

Introduction
1
Elections Information and Campaigns
7
The Theory of Uncertainty and Elections
25
Measuring Uncertainty
53
Modeling Uncertainty and Voting
77
The Causes of Uncertainty
93
Information Issues and Candidate Evaluations
109
Information and Voting Decisions
143
Uncertainty and Issues in the 1996 Campaign
209
Appendixes
233
Data and Models for Chapter 4
235
Derivations for Chapter 5
237
Data and Models for Chapter 6
243
Data and Models for Chapter 7
C-5
Data and Models for Chapter 8
Data and Models for Chapter 12
3

Campaigns and Uncertainty
157
The Dynamics of Uncertainty
171
Information and Elections
203

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Sobre el autor (1998)

R. Michael Alvarez is Associate Professor of Political Science, California Institute of Technology.

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