American Civic and Political Behavior

Auteur

J. Cherie Strachan regularly teaches Introduction to Political Behavior at Central Michigan University, where she is Director of Student and Civic Engagement for the College of Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and a Professor in the Political Science & Public Administration Department. She is the author of High-Tech Grassroots: The Professionalization of Local Elections, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Her recent publications focus on the role of civility in a democratic society, as well as on college-level civic education interventions intended to enhance students' civic skills and identities. Her applied research, which focuses on facilitating student-led deliberative discussions sessions and on enhancing the campus version of civil society, has resulted in on-going work with the Kettering Foundation. She is also the co-founder and co-director of the Consortium for Inter-Campus SoTL Research, which facilitates cross-campus data collection for civic engagement and pedagogy research in political science. She is also an active member of APSA's political science education section, and regularly attends both the APSA Teaching & Learning Conference and the American Democracy Project meeting sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Michael R. Wolf is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. His research focuses on comparative and American public opinion and political behavior. He has recently published on the nature and effects of political discussion in democracies and the dynamics of political compromise and political incivility. He is a research partner with the Kettering Foundation, a research fellow with the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics, a former Lugar Senior Fellow, and the author of American Difference: American Politics from a Comparative Perspective (CQ Press, with Lori Poloni-Staudinger).

Résumé

With a focus on youth political participation, American Civic and Political Behavior puts the basics of polling and voting into a broad context of democratic theory and civic engagement. Covering everything from the Founding to social media and online recruitment, this text speaks directly to students while providing the political behavior background that professors require. The theme of public-minded citizens contributing to a strong democracy picks up the pieces from the 2016 election campaign and shows students a constructive way forward.