This anthology focuses on the behavioral study of political ideology and its connection to public policy formulation. The public policy implications of ideology, largely ignored by textbooks on ideology, have never been the purview of a single scholarly community. Instead, this area encompasses several specialties of political science, public administration, and economics. Across these disciplines the behavioral study of political ideology appears fragmented. This book is intended to pull these pieces together by showing the role of ideology in policy formulation and demonstrating methods by which the ideology-public policy relationship can be studied.

There is no unified theory that can explain both voter choice and where choices come from. Hinich and Munger fill that gap with their model of political communication based on ideology. Rather than beginning with voters and diffuse, atomistic preferences, Hinich and Munger explore why large groups of voters share preference profiles, why they consider themselves "liberals" or "conservatives." The reasons, they argue, lie in the twin problems of communication and commitment that politicians face. Voters, overloaded with information, ignore specific platform positions. Parties and candidates therefore communicate through simple statements of goals, analogies, and by invoking political symbols. But politicians must also commit to pursuing the actions implied by these analogies and symbols. Commitment requires that ideologies be used consistently, particularly when it is not in the party's short-run interest. The model Hinich and Munger develop accounts for the choices of voters, the goals of politicians, and the interests of contributors. It is an important addition to political science and essential reading for all in that discipline. "Hinich and Munger's study of ideology and the theory of political choice is a pioneering effort to integrate ideology into formal political theory. It is a major step in directing attention toward the way in which ideology influences the nature of political choices." --Douglass C. North ". . . represents a significant contribution to the literature on elections, voting behavior, and social choice." --Policy Currents Melvin Hinich is Professor of Government, University of Texas. Michael C. Munger is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina.

The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. What does democracy expect of its citizens, and how do the citizenry match these expectations? This Oxford Handbook examines the role of the citizen in contemporary politics, based on essays from the world's leading scholars of political behavior research. The recent expansion of democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public opinion impacts on governing and public policy. This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars and students interested in these key issues.

Political psychology applies what is known about human psychology to the study of politics. It examines how people reach political decisions on topics such as voting, party identification, and political attitudes as well as how leaders mediate political conflicts and make foreign policy decisions. The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology gathers together a distinguished group of scholars from around the world to shed light on these vital questions. Focusing first on political psychology at the individual level (attitudes, values, decision-making, ideology, personality) and then moving to the collective (group identity, mass mobilization, political violence), this fully interdisciplinary volume covers models of the mass public and political elites and addresses both domestic issues and foreign policy. Now with new material providing an up-to-date account of cutting-edge research within both psychology and political science, this is an essential reference for scholars and students interested in the intersection of the two fields.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Behavior explores the intersection of psychology, political science, sociology, and human behavior. This encyclopedia integrates theories, research, and case studies from a variety of disciplines that inform this established area of study. Aimed at college and university students, this one-of-a-kind book covers voting patterns, interactions between groups, what makes different types of government systems appealing to different societies, and the impact of early childhood development on political beliefs, among others. Topics explored by political psychologists are of great interest in fields beyond either psychology or political science, with implications, for instance, within business and management. This title will be available online on SAGE Knowledge, the ultimate social sciences library.

Public policy can be considered a design science. It involves identifying relevant problems, selecting instruments to address the problem, developing institutions for managing the intervention, and creating means of assessing the design. Policy design has become an increasingly challenging task, given the emergence of numerous ‘wicked’ and complex problems. Much of policy design has adopted a technocratic and engineering approach, but there is an emerging literature that builds on a more collaborative and prospective approach to design. This book will discuss these issues in policy design and present alternative approaches to design.

This book should be of interest to political psychology, attitudes, persuasion, or social cognition, upper-level/graduate courses in psychology, also appropriate for political behaviour and public opinion in departments of political science and the persuasion course in communications.

This groundbreaking book presents a new understanding of ideological change. It shows how and why America's political parties have evolved.