Reasoning and Choice - Sniderman, Bordy, and Tetlock (1991)

Sniderman, Paul M., Richard A. Brody, and Philip E. Tetlock. 1991. Reasoning and Choice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Some books are repeatedly cited with many reasons. Some are highlighted because of their initiation of certain research topics. Some are highlighted because of novelty of their arguments. Some are focused because their findings are well summarized and organized, serving like a final report in discussed topic. Whatever the category they belong to, books with many citations deserve to read carefully, I believe.

This book, I think, seems the third category. Findings and critics (meaning the accurate or correct judgment of an external world phenomenon) are well summarized and how they sort them out in order to fit their arguments. Especially, the first chapter is well constructed what topics the authors want to deal with, and what suggestions for future research could transform the discipline into the better.

According to the authors, there are six themes with which they want to deal in their book: “the revolt against minimalism, the concept of consistency, the role of feelings as well as beliefs in political reasoning, the “heterogeneity” assumption, the role of education in democratic citizenship, and an account of .. dynamics of reasoning and choice” (pp.1-2). Of course, the six themes are well-interconnected with each other.

Arguments, I believe, do not wait for my summary. Here (because this writing is for myself, not for other readers) I want to note one dissatisfaction over their findings and conclusion.

While many paragraphs deal with two psychological mechanisms (i.e., differentiation and integration), I think their definitions are not so harmonious with their uses of terms. I believe that these seemingly unfitted use of terminology does not belong to the authors’ faults, but conventions of opinion surveys or quantitative measures. First, there are many places where we can observe ‘idea-elements’ following Phillip E. Converse (1964), but there are actually no ‘ideas’ in measurements. Ideas are imposed by researchers or survey designers with the form of preference of certain issues (e.g., affirmative action) or arguments (e.g., people with AIDS should be quarantined) or principles (liberalism-conservatism). However, ideas, in normal discourse, denote some thoughts or cognitions, rather than preferences. Also ideas usually imply that thoughts or cognitions are created or voluntary, rather than given.

Second, thus belief system seems like judgmental structure of preference, rather than a system of knowledge or others.

Third, thus the mentioned belief system has to be measured as the strength between preference A and preference B, rather than a system of key ideas or thoughts or cognitions.

Fourth, opinion polls only ask respondents to assign themselves on a given set of locations.

Thus differentiation is less likely to be measured quantitatively because the dimensions that are obtained are previously achieved by a researcher, not by the survey respondent. While integration is possible to be measured, it has to be mixed with random guessing when respondents’ a web of belief is not sufficient enough.

However, as I’ve already pointed out, this book is book and sophisticated enough. A worthwhile book for reading and also holding for later consultation (although some chapters are out-of-dated because of the lead author’s later publication, such as “Scar of race” or “Reaching beyond race”)

Post-broadcast democracy - Markus Prior (2007)

Prior, Markus. 2007. Post-broadcast democracy : how media choice increases inequality in political involvement and polarizes elections. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Obviously, recent trend in public opinion studies has emphasized the importance of exogenous factors, such as community environment (e.g., racial composition, or population density, or community income level), median environment like the main predictor variable in this study (e.g., the number of stations, or the time when the cable television was introduced).

Markus Prior’s study seems plausible and his evidence is telling and supportive of what he wants to say in his book. The main arguments in this book,
1. Recently, media provide more choice (or opportunities) for people,
2. People have different media content preference, which influences the intake of their political information (measured as relative entertainment preference),
3. Since political information is critical factor in OMA framework, change of media environment leads to change in political opportunities, motivations, and ability.

If readers familiar with Prior’s journal articles published in top-tiered political science journals, they will follow his argument rapidly (Of course, many of chapters are based on his records of publication).

Important study giving readers great insight… However, I have one more question that I am always curious with. If some people who do not want to listen, see, or learn anything about politics, then their lives in low media-choice (i.e., situations that they had to absorb political information without any voluntary willingness) can be good? Further, their lives in such situations can be ideal or desirable, from the perspective of political regime called plural democracy?

I assume that many scholars took implicit assumption that more knowledge and more importantly more active voting should be needed, and any situations hurting those ideals would erode democracy. Probably true, but personal opinion is this sounds too much eliticism in these arguments. As I more read about so-called empirical political studies, I have to confess that these studies clearly demonstrated that any democracy has to be unequal. Powerful people have powerful voice (not desirable, but this seems okay, at least to me), but too frequently, weak people’s voices have copied powerful people’s voice, and simply justifying the preexisting regime and its structure.

What about Swifter – borrowed from Prior’s terms? If they learned something about politics, and if they participated due to the gained knowledge, their participation would reflect sincere and genuine their interest? Or simple swung by intensity of marketing-type electoral campaigns? How can we be certain that their knowledge and their participation are merely pseudo-knowledge or pseudo-participation?

If people do not want to be informed, is it better way to let them be uninformed and to let them escape their unwanted duty from the choice of collective decisionmaking?

Although I said above, I am not certain that this seems right. Just thought.

Anyway, Prior’s “Post-broadcast democracy” is good piece and enjoyable book, I believe.

What's Fair - Jennifer Hochschild (1981)

Hochschild, Jennifer L. 1981. What's Fair: American Beliefs About Distributive Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Reading thick book -- to a student who is pressured to read lots of literature for a short time -- is not easy work, but fruitful labor for the future study. I believe Jennifer Hochschild’s book belongs to this category (reading all pages in the book is not easy, but fruitful).

There are -- I believe -- two purposes in this book: one is explicit, and the other is implicit. The explicit purpose of this book is academic investigation of the reason “why there is not socialism in American” asked by Sombart. The duopoly system of American politics does not allow the emergency of socialism, as many political observers agreed. While some extreme conservatives may consider Barack Obama as a socialist, this type of hyper-over-misperception among extremists exists in any society. As George W. Bush cannot be equated with Hitler, any Democrat party’s politicians cannot be equated with socialists.

Of course, Hochschild’s conclusion is not about American political institution(s) or systematic analyses. Her strategies are close to Antonio Gramsci’s analyses of civil society. Citizens feel, interpret and behave politically based on their experiences and (subjective) justice or principles. As many poor people would complain, make voice for better treatment, or revolts, American poor people do the same, but they give up dreaming alternative better world, or they just dream without any actions, or their voice or action seems so weak. Her findings are well summarized in the book. First, there are two principles -- equality vs. differentiation. Second, there are three parts in a society -- society vs. economy vs. state (politics). Third, people, in general, agreed on the use of equality rule in the two areas of society and state, but ask the use of economy rule in the area of economy. Fourth, people become ambivalent, and thus feeling frustrated, angry, or transcendent. Finally, people do not realize any thoughts that may be as similar as socialism observed in Western Europe.

The second purpose is implicit and more oriented to academic audience. As she consistently argued in the last two chapters, her project highly resembles that of Robert Lane’s in both theoretically and methodologically. The motivation for the second purpose might emerge because of the influential writing of Philip Converse, arguing that ordinary people cannot understand and/or judge political issues using ideological constraint. The debate is well summarized in the second last chapter (Ambivalence chapter), and I do not feel it is worth to summarize the two sides. Anyway, her conclusion is that people’s understanding of a society is well structured within each domain (here, the three parts of a society), but critical inconsistency or confusion emerges when contrasting principles between different domains clash.

When reading the book, I’ve met so-called ideal type people we might still encounter in any society. Among the interviewed people, Maria got most of my attention. Why are there so many people who are honest, good, and hardworking but poor and alienated? This question is the main question I have, but no answers, unfortunately, I have made.

By the way, her later books highly focuses on the community and school, race, and other issues that are rooted in the social skin, which is essentially ambivalent. Civil society (although she did not use the term in the book, as far as I remember) is both progressive and conservative. As she said in the book, individual ambivalence reflects social contradiction where many interests, principles, justices, and causes fight each other.

The clash of rights - Paul Sniderman (1996)

Sniderman, Paul M. 1996. The clash of rights : liberty, equality, and legitimacy in pluralist democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

I do not know why I started to read this book (I just picked it up by chance while looking at the shelf in library), but I finished reading it from the first page to the last one. The final thought is good, as I read his other books – Reaching beyond race (with Edward Carmines) and Scar of race (with Thomas Piazza).

The title of the book really well summarizes the whole messages in the book. The main problem in modern politics (if plural liberalism is the right summary of modern politics) is the conflict between two (or more) political rights or principles. The potential ambivalence due to the coexistence of conflicting political rights or different understandings of contestable concept (he mentioned equality as such example by calling it chameleon value) is the core of modern politics, and thus modern political process or institution has to be dynamic and changeable.

Most of his mobilized examples came from Canada. In the first chapter, he argues that findings in Canadian contexts can be generalizeable. In the second chapter, he summarizes previous academic arguments, i.e., democratic elitism. The agreement or consensus between competing elites is the backbone of modern politics, according to the thesis of democratic elitism. However, the author criticized its possibility because the agreement between conflicting elites cannot be justified. Instead, there is a huge gap between different elites, which causes the clash of rights. Figure 2-13 summarizes how the elites are divided and how mass politics mediate the clash of rights triggered by elites’ conflicts.

Other chapters are examples that show clash of rights with different topics and different formats. Equality, symbolic politics (race, Canadian residents, and language) are the examples that show how different rights or principles are conflicting and why the political system should be understood as dynamic.

The final chapter concludes that value pluralism is the key to understand modern politics and its dynamics.

Clearly written, based on strong message and nice examples. The writing style, I assume, is the model of well trained social behavioralist.

While good, some are disappointing. This is not about the criticism of his book, but just my reflection or subjective feelings after finishing his book.

First, too much space is given to justify that Canadian politics is also observed in the politics of the US. It is not bad, by itself, but I simply doubts that this thought shows – implicitly and unconsciously - the American Academic Imperialism (not implusive meaning, please). Frequently, the US situation is assumed as a standard (whether it is a good or bad standard), and other national politics is approached via particularized or localized theory, rather than generalized or universal theory.

Second, rights (or principles) are frequently assumed as norms that are a priori. However, they are mobilized to justify the things post hoc. For example, rule of equal chance could be a principle, but it becomes a ruling device if its proponent is the person who can enjoy his/her privilege in a society. Of course, the second dissatisfaction is nothing but my interpretation (while I assume that many others in a society can agree with me).

By the way, (and again) good and well-written book, I believe.