Public Opinion and Polling around the World [2 volumes]


Book Description

Covering the intricate facets of America's most important democratic tradition, this book serves as an important resource to understand how citizens' views are translated into governmental action. Public Opinion and Polling around the World presents a thorough review of public opinion from its roots in colonial America to its role in today's emerging democracies. More than 100 entries prepared by top scholars examine the 200-year history of public opinion, measurement methodologies with an emphasis on telephone interviews and Internet polls, and key figures like George Gallup and Elmo Roper, who created their own polling systems. An analysis of theories compares schools of thought from the fields of psychology, sociology, and economics and explores how people form opinions. A fascinating snapshot of the public's current views on economic issues, foreign policy, gender, gay rights, and other hot-button topics observes patterns across genders, race, ethnic origins, class, and religion in regions all over the world. Students, academicians, and political observers will discover answers to such questions as, "does public opinion shape the behavior of government?"







Spy Watching


Book Description

All democracies have had to contend with the challenge of tolerating hidden spy services within otherwise relatively transparent governments. Democracies pride themselves on privacy and liberty, but intelligence organizations have secret budgets, gather information surreptitiously around the world, and plan covert action against foreign regimes. Sometimes, they have even targeted the very citizens they were established to protect, as with the COINTELPRO operations in the 1960s and 1970s, carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) against civil rights and antiwar activists. In this sense, democracy and intelligence have always been a poor match. Yet Americans live in an uncertain and threatening world filled with nuclear warheads, chemical and biological weapons, and terrorists intent on destruction. Without an intelligence apparatus scanning the globe to alert the United States to these threats, the planet would be an even more perilous place. In Spy Watching, Loch K. Johnson explores the United States' travails in its efforts to maintain effective accountability over its spy services. Johnson explores the work of the famous Church Committee, a Senate panel that investigated America's espionage organizations in 1975 and established new protocol for supervising the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the nation's other sixteen secret services. Johnson explores why partisanship has crept into once-neutral intelligence operations, the effect of the 9/11 attacks on the expansion of spying, and the controversies related to CIA rendition and torture programs. He also discusses both the Edward Snowden case and the ongoing investigations into the Russian hack of the 2016 US election. Above all, Spy Watching seeks to find a sensible balance between the twin imperatives in a democracy of liberty and security. Johnson draws on scores of interviews with Directors of Central Intelligence and others in America's secret agencies, making this a uniquely authoritative account.




Violent Victors


Book Description

Why populations brutalized in war elect their tormentors One of the great puzzles of electoral politics is how parties that commit mass atrocities in war often win the support of victimized populations to establish the postwar political order. Violent Victors traces how parties derived from violent, wartime belligerents successfully campaign as the best providers of future societal peace, attracting votes not just from their core supporters but oftentimes also from the very people they targeted in war. Drawing on more than two years of groundbreaking fieldwork, Sarah Daly combines case studies of victim voters in Latin America with experimental survey evidence and new data on postwar elections around the world. She argues that, contrary to oft-cited fears, postconflict elections do not necessarily give rise to renewed instability or political violence. Daly demonstrates how war-scarred citizens reward belligerent parties for promising peace and security instead of blaming them for war. Yet, in so casting their ballots, voters sacrifice justice, liberal democracy, and social welfare. Proposing actionable interventions that can help to moderate these trade-offs, Violent Victors links war outcomes with democratic outcomes to shed essential new light on political life after war and offers global perspectives on important questions about electoral behavior in the wake of mass violence.




Routledge Handbook of International Organization


Book Description

This completely revised and rewritten handbook gives an overview of international organization (IO) as a dynamic field of research that adds to our understanding of global and regional relations and related domestic politics. Bringing together international scholars from a range of disciplines, it considers both IO as a process and multilateral organizations as institutions. This handbook is divided into five parts: I. Documentation, sources and perspectives II. International secretariats as bureaucracies III. Actors within and beyond international bureaucracies IV. Processes within and beyond international bureaucracies V. Challenges to international organizations Containing new chapters on topics such as the anthropological perspective, IO secretariats in several continents outside of Europe, feminization, the digital turn and challenges to IO legitimacy, the contributors reflect on the progression of IO studies from a burgeoning field to a well‐established subfield of international relations and the move away from scholarship based mainly in North‐Western Europe and the United States. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of IOs, global governance, diplomacy and foreign policy, as well as practitioners of multilateral cooperation.




School Library Journal


Book Description




Survey Methods in Multinational, Multiregional, and Multicultural Contexts


Book Description

A unique collaboration featuring the latest methodologies and research on multi- and cross-national surveys Over the past two decades, the relevance of cross-national and cross-cultural methodologies has heightened across various fields of study. Responding to increasing cultural diversity and rapid changes in how research is conducted, Survey Methods in Multinational, Multiregional, and Multicultural Contexts addresses the need for refined tools and improved procedures in cross-cultural and cross-national studies worldwide. Based on research submitted to the International Conference on Multinational, Multicultural, and Multiregional Survey Methods (3MC), this book identifies important changes in comparative methodology approaches, outlines new findings, and provides insight into future developments in the field. Some of the world's leading survey researchers gather in this volume to address the need for a standard framework that promotes quality assurance and quality control in survey research, and its impact on various stages of the survey life cycle, including study design and organization, cross-national sampling, testing and pretesting, data collection, and input and output variable harmonization. Self-contained chapters feature coverage of various topics, such as: Question and questionnaire design, from both global and study-specific perspectives The construction and evaluation of survey translations and instrument adaptations The effects of cultural difference on the perception of question and response categories Non-response issues Analysis in comparative contexts, featuring discussion of polytomous item response theory, categorization problems, and Multi-Trait-Multi-Methods (MTMM) The significance of evolving methodologies for current international survey programs, including the European Social Survey, the International Social Survey Programme, and the Gallup World Poll Survey Methods in Multinational, Multiregional, and Multicultural Contexts is a valuable supplement for courses on comparative survey methods at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as an insightful reference for professionals who design, implement, and analyze comparative research in the areas of business, public health, and the social and behavioral sciences.




Contemporary China


Book Description

Contemporary China: A New Superpower? is a unique textbook introducing the complexity and diversity of China’s society, politics, economics, and international affairs, and the multiple ways in which their dynamics corroborate to simultaneously construct and challenge perceptions of China. Structured thematically in three sections – History, Society and Culture; Politics and Economy; and International Relations – this textbook provides answers to one of the most frequently asked general questions in relation to China. Will it become a new superpower and equal the international power and influence of the United States? Chapters written by some of the most recognized commentators and researchers of China cover a broad range of topics and offer an in-depth analysis of issues in contemporary China, such as the impact of the Tiananmen 1989 events, the economic development of the country, the environmental and demographic crises, social control and propaganda, and the role of China in the region and the world. Introducing students comprehensively to the domestic context and international affairs of China, the book will be particularly useful for undergraduate-level courses in Asian Studies and courses on the history, politics, and international affairs of China and Chinese Studies.




The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of the Modern World delves into the period from 1750 to the present, providing special attention to social, economic, cultural and political topics applicable to the time. The breadth of knowledge offered within this multivolume set is astounding, with features spanning articles on countries, regions, and ethnic groups; themes involving social history, demography, family life, politics, economics, religion, thought, education, science and technology, and culture; events such as major wars; and extensive coverage of the United States. Detailed articles cover not only the major facts but the interpretations as well and are written for readers who are not specialists in the particular area. Enriched with over 800 halftones and 50 maps, this reference work is essential for any scholar, general reader, collector or curator interested in this rich and varied time in history. Through its fluent global coverage The Encyclopedia of Modern World provides information about and interpretation of major developments across particular regionsboth salient events and regional perspectives on common themes such as politics, demography, social class, and gender. Readers can explore topics that have global implications, such as migration, childhood, and foods, topics that can be viewed through a combination of global patterns and key comparisons. Entries also shed light on standard geographic and ethnic units, such as Scandinavia, Korea, or the Gypsies, in the modern period. The Encyclopedia presents unprecedented coverage of global processes and institutions themselves including the International Red Cross, and the League of Nations. - Publisher.




The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology


Book Description

This Handbook provides a comprehensive treatment of basic and more advanced research methodologies in applied linguistics and offers a state-of-the-art review of methods particular to various domains within the field. Arranged thematically in 4 parts, across 41 chapters, it covers a range of research approaches, presents current perspectives, and addresses key issues in different research methods, such as designing and implementing research instruments and techniques, and analysing different types of applied linguistics data. Innovations, challenges and trends in applied linguistics research are examined throughout the Handbook. As such it offers an up-to-date and highly accessible entry point into both established and emerging approaches that will offer fresh possibilities and perspectives as well as thorough consideration of best practices. This wide-ranging volume will prove an invaluable resource to applied linguists at all levels, including scholars in related fields such as language learning and teaching, multilingualism, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, discourse analysis and pragmatics, language assessment, language policy and planning, multimodal communication, and translation.