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Passion and emotion run deep in politics, but researchers have only recently begun to study how they influence our political thinking. Contending that the long-standing neglect of such feelings has left unfortunate gaps in the understanding of political behavior, this book provides a comprehensive overview of current research on emotion in politics and where it is likely to lead. In sixteen chapters, thirty scholars approach this topic from an array of angles that address four major themes. The first section outlines the philosophical and neuroscientific foundations of emotion in politics, while the second focuses on how emotions function within and among individuals. The final two sections branch out to explore how politics work at the societal level and suggest the next steps in modeling, research, and political activity itself.

The United States boasts scores of organizations that offer crucial representation for groups that are marginalized in national politics, from women to racial minorities to the poor. This systematic study of these organizations explores the challenges and opportunities they face in the new millennium, as waning legal discrimination coincides with increasing political and economic inequalities within the populations they represent. Drawing on data from a survey of 286 organizations and interviews with forty officials, the author finds that groups too often prioritize the interests of their most advantaged members: male rather than female racial minorities, for example, or affluent rather than poor women. But she also finds that many organizations try to remedy this inequity, and concludes by distilling their best practices into a set of principles that she calls affirmative advocacy—a form of representation that aims to overcome the entrenched but often subtle biases against people at the intersection of more than one marginalized group.

This book argues that the congressional agenda includes many issues about which liberals and conservatives generally agree. Even over these matters, though, senators from the Democratic Party and Republican Party tend to fight with each other. What explains this discord? This book contends that many partisan battles are rooted in competition for power rather than disagreement over the rightful role of government. This is the first book to systematically distinguish Senate disputes centering on ideological questions from the large proportion of them that do not, and it foregrounds the role of power struggle in partisan conflict. Presidential leadership, for example, inherently polarizes legislators who can influence public opinion of the president and his party by how they handle his agenda. Senators also exploit good government measures and floor debate to embarrass opponents and burnish their own party's image — even when the issues involved are broadly supported or low-stakes. Moreover, the book suggests that the congressional agenda itself amplifies conflict by increasingly focusing on issues that reliably differentiate the parties. With the new president pledging to stem the tide of partisan polarization, this book provides a timely taxonomy of exactly what stands in his way.

When we think about what constitutes being a good citizen, routine activities such as voting, letter writing, and paying attention to the news spring to mind. But this book argues that these activities are only a small part of democratic citizenship—a standard of citizenship that requires creative thinking, talking, and acting. For it, the author met with labor, church, business, and sports organizations and proposed to them four fictive scenarios: what if your senator is involved in a scandal, or your police department is engaged in racial profiling, or a local factory violates pollution laws, or your nearby airport is slated for expansion? The conversations these challenges inspire, he shows, require imagination. And what people can imagine doing in response to those scenarios depends on what's possible, what's important, what's right, and what's feasible. By talking with one another, an engaged citizenry draws from a repertoire of personal and institutional resources to understand and reimagine responses to situations as they arise. Building on such political discussions, the book shows how a rich culture of association and democratic discourse provides the infrastructure for a healthy democracy.

Why have conservatives fared so much better than progressives in recent decades, even though polls show no significant move to the right in public opinion? This book highlights one reason: that progressives often adopt impoverished modes of discourse, ceding the moral high ground to their conservative rivals. The book also shows that some progressive groups are pioneering more robust ways of talking about their issues and values, providing examples other progressives could emulate. Through case studies of grassroots movements—particularly the economic justice work carried on by congregation-based community organizing and the pursuit of human rights by local members of Amnesty International—the book shows how these groups develop distinctive ways of talking about politics and create characteristic stories, ceremonies, and practices. According to this book, the way people engage in politics matters just as much as the content of their ideas: when activists make the moral basis for their activism clear, engage issues with passion, and articulate a unified social vision, they challenge the recent ascendancy of conservative discourse. On the basis of these case studies, the book addresses currently debated topics such as individualism in America and whether strains of political thought strongly informed by religion and moral values are compatible with tolerance and liberty.

In addition to their obvious roles in American politics, race and gender also work in hidden ways to influence profoundly the way we think—and vote—about a vast array of issues that don't seem related to either category. As this book reveals, politicians and leaders often frame these seemingly unrelated issues in ways that prime audiences to respond not to the policy at hand but instead to the way its presentation resonates with their deeply held beliefs about race and gender. The book shows, for example, how official rhetoric about welfare and Social Security has tapped into white Americans' racial biases to shape their opinions on both issues over the past two decades. Similarly, the way politicians presented health care reform in the 1990s divided Americans along the lines of their attitudes toward gender. Combining cognitive and political psychology with innovative empirical research, the book illuminates the emotional underpinnings of politics in the United States.

How do threats of terrorism affect the opinions of citizens? Speculation abounds, but until now no one had marshaled hard evidence to explain the complexities of this relationship. Drawing on data from surveys and original experiments conducted in the United States and Mexico, this book shows how our strategies for coping with terrorist threats significantly influence our attitudes toward fellow citizens, political leaders, and foreign nations. It reveals, for example, that some people try to restore a sense of order and control through increased wariness of others — especially of those who exist outside the societal mainstream. Additionally, voters under threat tend to prize “strong leadership” more highly than partisan affiliation, making some politicians seem more charismatic than they otherwise would. The book argues that a wary public will sometimes continue to empower such leaders after they have been elected, giving them greater authority even at the expense of institutional checks and balances. Having demonstrated that a climate of terrorist threat also increases support for restrictive laws at home and engagement against terrorists abroad, the book concludes that our responses to such threats can put democracy at risk.

Direct democracy is alive and well in the United States. Citizens are increasingly using initiatives and referendums to take the law into their own hands, overriding their elected officials to set tax, expenditure, and social policies. This book provides an even-handed and historically based treatment of the subject. Drawing upon a century of evidence, the author argues against the popular belief that initiative measures are influenced by wealthy special interest groups that neglect the majority view. Examining demographic, political, and opinion data, he demonstrates how the initiative process brings about systematic changes in tax and expenditure policies of state and local governments that are generally supported by the citizens. The author concludes that, by and large, direct democracy in the form of the initiative process works for the benefit of the many rather than the few.

With world affairs so troubled, what kind of foreign policy should the United States pursue? This book looks for answers in a surprising place: among the American people. Drawing on a series of national surveys conducted between 1974 and 2004, the authors reveal that—contrary to conventional wisdom—Americans generally hold durable, coherent, and sensible opinions about foreign policy. Nonetheless, their opinions often stand in opposition to those of policymakers, usually because of different interests and values, rather than superior wisdom among the elite. The book argues that these gaps between leaders and the public are harmful, and that by using public opinion as a guideline, policymakers could craft a more effective, sustainable, and democratic foreign policy. The authors support this argument by painting a comprehensive portrait of the military, diplomatic, and economic foreign policies Americans favor. They show, for example, that protecting American jobs is just as important to the public as security from attack, a goal the current administration seems to pursue single-mindedly. And contrary to some officials' unilateral tendencies, the public consistently and overwhelmingly favors cooperative multilateral policy and participation in international treaties. Moreover, Americans' foreign policy opinions are seldom divided along the usual lines: majorities of virtually all social, ideological, and partisan groups seek a policy that pursues the goals of security and justice through cooperative means.

In recent years, as government agencies have encouraged faith-based organizations to help ensure social welfare, many black churches have received grants to provide services to their neighborhoods' poorest residents. This collaboration, activist churches explain, is a way of enacting their faith and helping their neighborhoods. But as this book demonstrates, this alliance also serves as a means for black clergy to reaffirm their political leadership and reposition moral authority in black civil society. Drawing on both survey data and fieldwork in New York City, the author reveals that African American churches can use these newly forged connections with public agencies to influence policy and government responsiveness in a way that reaches beyond traditional electoral or protest politics. The churches and neighborhoods, he argues, can see a real benefit from that influence—but it may come at the expense of less involvement at the grassroots.