Michael S. Lewis-Beck

Today we are politically polarized as never before. The presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 will be remembered as two of the most contentious political events in American history. Yet despite the recent election upheaval, The American Voter Revisited discovers that voter behavior has been remarkably consistent over the last half century. And if the authors are correct in their predictions, 2008 will show just how reliably the American voter weighs in, election after election. The American Voter Revisited re-creates the outstanding 1960 classic The American Voter---which was based on the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956---following the same format, theory, and mode of analysis as the original. In this new volume, the authors test the ideas and methods of the original against presidential election surveys from 2000 and 2004. Surprisingly, the contemporary American voter is found to behave politically much like voters of the 1950s." Simply essential. For generations, serious students of American politics have kept The American Voter right on their desk. Now, everyone will keep The American Voter Revisited right next to it."---Larry J. Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of A More Perfect Constitution"The American Voter Revisited is destined to be the definitive volume on American electoral behavior for decades. It is a timely book for 2008, with in-depth analyses of the 2000 and 2004 elections updating and extending the findings of the original The American Voter. It is also quite accessible, making it ideal for graduate students as well as advanced undergrads."---Andrew E. Smith, Director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center"A theoretically faithful, empirically innovative, comprehensive update of the original classic."---Sam Popkin, Professor of Political Science, University of California, San DiegoMichael S. Lewis-Beck is F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. William G. Jacoby is Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. Helmut Norpoth is Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University. Herbert F. Weisberg is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University.

For many international experts, politicians, and commentators, Denmark stands out as an ideal society with a well-functioning welfare state, low levels of corruption, and a high degree of social and political stability. Like other countries, however, Denmark faces challenges brought on by overall societal changes—particularly the challenges of maintaining a prosperous economy and from the growing number of immigrants with different ethnic and religious backgrounds that have left their mark on Danish society over the past 50 years. But how have Danish voters reacted to these challenges? The authors of The Danish Voter investigate a series of interesting questions concerning voters’ reactions to these macrosocial challenges and how their reactions affect the foundations for the ideal. Indeed, due to an electoral system open to new influences, the Danish case is an important test case for theories about political development of contemporary Western societies.

The Michigan model, named after the institution where it was first articulated, has been used to explain voting behavior in North American and Western European democracies. In Latin American Elections, experts on Latin America join with experts on electoral studies to evaluate the model’s applicability in this region. Analyzing data from the AmericasBarometer, a scientific public opinion survey carried out in 18 Latin American nations from 2008 to 2012, the authors find that, like democratic voters elsewhere, Latin Americans respond to long-term forces, such as social class, political party ties, and political ideology while also paying attention to short-term issues, such as the economy, crime, corruption. Of course, Latin Americans differ from other Americans, and among themselves. Voters who have experienced left-wing populism may favor government curbs on freedom of expression, for example, while voters enduring high levels of economic deprivation or instability tend to vote against the party in power. The authors thus conclude that, to a surprising extent, the Michigan model offers a powerful explanatory model for voting behavior in Latin America.

Known for its readability and clarity, this Second Edition of the best-selling Applied Regression provides an accessible introduction to regression analysis for social scientists and other professionals who want to model quantitative data. After covering the basic idea of fitting a straight line to a scatter of data points, the text uses clear language to explain both the mathematics and assumptions behind the simple linear regression model. The authors then cover more specialized subjects of regression analysis, such as multiple regression, measures of model fit, analysis of residuals, interaction effects, multicollinearity, and prediction. Throughout the text, graphical and applied examples help explain and demonstrate the power and broad applicability of regression analysis for answering scientific questions.

Written at a level appropriate for the advanced undergraduate course on data analysis, this accessible volume introduces the reader to the "art" of data analysis from data-gathering to multiple regression in which a dependent variable is influenced by several independent variables. The book focuses on the interpretation of a statistical result, in particular those that come from non-experimental social research. Using a consistent data set throughout the book in order to illustrate the various analytic techniques, the author covers such topics as univariate statistics, measures of association, the statistical significance of the relationship between two variables, and simple regression where the dependent variable is influenced by a single independent variable. The last chapter offers analysis recommendations. Data Analysis will provide social science researchers with the tools to select and evaluate statistical tests appropriate for their particular research question.

Does a government’s fate at the ballot box hinge on the state of the economy? Is it inflation, unemployment, or income that makes the difference? What triggers economic voting for or against the incumbent – do voters look at their pocketbooks, or at the national accounts? Do economic voters “punish” rulers for bad times, but fail to “reward” them for the good times? Are voter’s judgments based on past economic performance or future policy promises? These are some of the questions considered by Michael Lewis-Beck in this major cross-national study of the effect of economic conditions on voting behavior in the Western European democracies and the United States.