About the Book
This book presents the results of systematic comparative analyses of electoral behavior and support for democracy in 13 countries on four continents. It is based on national election surveys held in "old" and "new" democracies in Europe (Germany, Britain, Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Bulgaria), North and South America (the United States, Chile and Uruguay), and Asia (Hong Kong) between 1990 and 2004. It is methodologically innovative, notwithstanding the fact
that its core concern with "political intermediation" (i.e., the flow of political information from parties and candidates to voters through the mass-communications media, membership in secondary
associations, and direct, face-to-face contacts within interpersonal networks) was first introduced to the study of electoral behavior by Paul Lazarsfeld and his collaborators in the 1940s. In addition to reviving that long-neglected analytical framework, this book breaks new ground by systematically exploring the impact of socio-political values on electoral behavior. It also analyzes the role of political intermediation in forming basic attitudes towards democracy (which are crucial for the
consolidation of new democracies), and, in turn, channeling those orientations into various forms of political behavior. Some of the findings presented in this volume are dramatic, and clearly reveal
that these channels of information are among the most powerful factors influencing the development of political attitudes and partisan electoral behavior. So, too, are socio-political values in some countries (particularly the United States). This volume is the first book-length product of the now 18-country Comparative National Elections Project.
Table of Contents:
1: Gunther, José Ramón Montero, and Hans-Jürgen Puhle: Introduction: Intermediation, Information, and Electoral Politics
2: Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero and Mariano Torcal: Democracy and Intermediation: Some Attitudinal and Behavioral Dimensions
3: Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck and Katrin Voltmer: The Mass Media in Third-Wave Democracies: Gravediggers or Seedsmen of Democratic Consolidation?
4: Paolo Bellucci, Marco Maraffi, and Paolo Segatti: Intermediation Through Secondary Associations: The Organizational Context of Electoral Behavior
5: Bradley Richardson and Paul Allen Beck: The Flow of Political Information: Personal Discussants, the Media, and Partisanship
6: Pedro C. Magalhães: Voting and Intermediation: Informational Biases and Electoral Choices in Comparative Perspective
7: Richard Gunther and Kuan Hsin-chi: Value Cleavages and Partisan Conflict
8: Hans-Jürgen Puhle, José Ramón Montero, and Richard Gunther: Conclusions: Processes of Intermediation, Electoral Politics, and Political Support in Old and New Democracies
About the Author :
Richard Gunther (Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley) is Professor of Political Science at the Ohio State University, where he has also served as Executive Director of International Studies. He is the international coordinator of the 18-country Comparative National Elections Project, of which this book is a product. Initially an expert on Spanish public policy, he subsequently broadened his research interests to deal with democratic transition and
consolidation, political institutions, parties, and electoral behavior. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award and the Distinguished Service Award by the Ohio State University.
Hans-Jürgen Puhle (Dr. phil., Freie Universität Berlin) is Professor of Political Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main. He has been a Fellow of Harvard and Oxford University, and has tought at the universities of Münster and Bielefeld, at Cornell, Stanford, University of Tel Aviv, Universidad de Chile, FLACSO Buenos Aires, and the Instituto Juan March Madrid. His fields of research are the comparative social and political history of Europe and
the Americas, problems of modernization, comparative politics, state functions in welfare capitalism, political parties, pressure groups and social movements, nationalism and regionalism, regime transformation and
problems of democratic consolidation José Ramón Montero (Ph.D., Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain) is Professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Madrid and at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Juan March Institute, Madrid. His main research areas are political participation, political parties, political culture, and electoral behaviour. He has been a member of the Standing Committee for the Social Sciences, European Science
Foundation, and is currently a member of the Academia Europea, the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Social Survey, and the Comparative National Elections Project, of which this book is a product
Review :
Democracy, Intermediation, and Voting stands out as an important book. Its main strength is the wealth of empirical information about different political intermediaries and their impact on voting and on political cultural variables...[The book] represents a renewal of a political sociological tradition that has long been neglected.
