Recommendations from our site
“This was the beginning of modern political science – of empirically oriented, big data, statistically tested work. The book was published in 1960 but it drew on surveys taken during each of the three previous US presidential elections – a smaller number in 1948 and 1952, and a much larger number in 1956…The headline finding of the book is that the strongest correlate of a person’s vote is that person’s party identification, and the strongest correlate of a person’s party identification is their parents’ party identification. These authors were all psychologically oriented, and they see this as early childhood imprinting. They took identification really seriously: they saw it as an identity thing, where you say ‘I am a Republican’ in the same way as ‘I am an American’, ‘I am gay’, ‘I am Catholic'” Read more...
The Best Political Science Books
Robert E. Goodin, Political Scientist
