1st Edition
Comparative Public Opinion
This book presents a comprehensive examination of public opinion in the democratic world.
Built around chapters that highlight key explanatory frameworks used in understanding public opinion, the book presents a coherent study of the subject in a comparative perspective, emphasizing and interrogating immigration as a key issue of high concern to most mass publics in the democratic world.
Key features of the book include:
- Covers several theoretical issues and determinants of opinion such as the effects of personality, age and life cycle, ideology, social class, partisanship, gender, religion, ethnicity, language, and media, highlighting over time the effects of political, social, and economic contexts.
- Each chapter explores the theoretical rationale, mechanisms of effect, and use in the scholarly literature on public opinion before applying these to the issue of immigration comparatively and in specific places or regions.
- Widely comparative using a nine-country sample (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America) in the analysis of individual-level determinants of public opinion about immigration and extending to other countries like Belgium, Brazil, and Japan when evaluating contextual factors.
This edited volume will be essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners interested in public opinion, political behaviour, voting behaviour, politics of the media, immigration, political communication, and, more generally, democracy and comparative politics.
Part 1: Public opinion in a comparative perspective
1. Introduction
Cameron D. Anderson and Mathieu Turgeon
2. Defining and Measuring Public Opinion
Cameron D. Anderson and Mathieu Turgeon
Part 2: The Individual-Level Determinants of Public Opinion
3. Public Opinion about Immigration and Immigrants
Cameron D. Anderson and Mathieu Turgeon
4. Age and Public Opinion
Stephen White
5. Gender and Public Opinion
Ana Espírito-Santo and João Carvalho
6. Immigration Status and Public Opinion
Katrine Beauregard
7. Class and Public Opinion
Tyler Romualdi, John Kennedy, and Cameron D. Anderson
8. Religion and Public Opinion
Paul A. Djupe
9. Personality and Public Opinion
Kathrin Ackermann and Jan Eckardt
10. Ideology and Public Opinion
Philippe Chassé and Éric Bélanger
11. Partisanship and Public Opinion
Laura Stephenson
Part 3: The contextual-level determinants of public opinion
12. Immigration and Public Opinion in Brazil: Taking Stock of New Waves of Migration and Polarization
Ryan Lloyd and Amâncio Jorge de Oliveira
13. The Inflow of Immigrants and Natives’ Attitudes toward Immigration in Japan
Tetsuya Matsubayashi and Masateru Yamatani
14. The Impact of Labour Market Vulnerability: Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration in Europe
Anthony Kevins
15. Linguistic Cleavages in Public Opinion
Ruth Dassonneville, Nadjim Fréchet and Baowen Liang
16. News Media Organizations and Public Opinion on Political Issues
Frédérick Bastien
17. Racial Attitudes and Opposition to Immigration
Allison Harell and Robert Hinckley
18. Conclusion
Cameron D. Anderson and Mathieu Turgeon
Biography
Cameron D. Anderson is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Mathieu Turgeon is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
"Comparative Public Opinion provides a comprehensive and modern coverage of one of the major areas of political science research. It brings together leading authors in the field and takes a very broad and rigorous view of public opinion. The textbook provides a priceless insight into the field."
Ignacio Lago, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
