Jane Junn

Richard G. Niemi

Sound democratic decisions rely on a citizenry with at least a partial mastery of the rules and workings of democratic government. American high schools, where students learn the basics of citizenship, thus ought to play a critical role in the success of democracy. Yet studies examining the impact of high school government and civics courses on political knowledge over the past quarter-century have generally shown that these courses have little or no effect. In this important book, Richard G. Niemi and Jane Junn take a fresh look at what America's high school seniors know about government and politics and how they learn it. The authors argue convincingly that secondary school civics courses do indeed enhance students' civic knowledge. This book is based on the most extensive assessment to date of civic knowledge among American youth--the 1988 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Civics Assessment. The authors develop and test a theoretical model to explain the cognitive process by which students learn about politics and they conclude by suggesting specific changes in the style and emphasis of civics teaching.

What Makes Students Learn

Civic Education

Paul S. Herrnson

Frederick G. Conrad

Benjamin B. Bederson

Michael W. Traugott

Michael J. Hanmer

Voting difficulties hung over America's presidential election in 2000 like a dark cloud. Hanging chads, a butterfly ballot, and the Supreme Court remain the most vivid memories of that political donnybrook. Passage of 2002's Help America Vote Act sparked further interest in the physical process of casting a ballot, yet several recent contests still produced confusion at the polls. A solution to at least some of those problems may be found in new technology, but such innovations carry their own concerns and questions. V oting Technology is the first book to investigate in a scientific and authoritative manner how voters respond to the new equipment. The authors—an interdisciplinary group of experts in American elections, political behavior, human-computer interaction, and human factors psychology—assess five commercially available voting systems, each one representing a specific class based on shared design principles, as well as a prototype system not currently available. They evaluate the systems against different criteria (including ease of use, speed, and accuracy) using field experiments, laboratory experiments, and expert reviews. The results reveal the good and bad about the new systems, including specific features that contribute to clarity, confusion, or error. Going beyond the concern with spoiled ballots, they determine whether voters actually cast their ballots for the candidates they intended to support. They address fundamental questions of whether voters like and trust the equipment and whether the various systems are equally usable by all voters. Their research also opens up an entirely new line of inquiry by asking about the interaction between ballot format and voter behavior. The concluding chapter pulls together best practices that will guide manufacturers of voting systems, ballot designers, election officials, political observers, and of course, voters. In a political system based on free exercise of personal choice, the least we can do is make sure our choices are being accurately recorded and counted.

The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot

Voting Technology

Herbert F. Weisberg

Sixteen newly selected readings from 1992-2001 examine US debates and data on six key issues: why voter turnout continues to be low, the impact of public lack of political information, what determines the vote, voters seeming preference for divided government, how politics affects party identification, and the party system in transition. Political scientists Niemi (U. of Rochester) and Weisberg (Ohio State U.) provide section introductions. c. Book News Inc.

Controversies in Voting Behavior

Bruce E. Cain

Karl T. Kurtz

Legislative term limits adopted in the 1990s are in effect in fifteen states today. This reform is arguably the most significant institutional change in American government of recent decades. Most of the legislatures in these fifteen states have experienced a complete turnover of their membership; hundreds of experienced lawmakers have become ineligible for reelection, and their replacements must learn and perform their jobs in as few as six years. Now that term limits have been in effect long enough for both their electoral and institutional effects to become apparent, their consequences can be gauged fully and with the benefit of hindsight. In the most comprehensive study of the subject, editors Kurtz, Cain, and Niemi and a team of experts offer their broad evaluation of the effects term limits have had on the national political landscape. "The contributors to this excellent and comprehensive volume on legislative term limits come neither to praise the idea nor to bury it, but rather to speak dispassionately about its observed consequences. What they find is neither the horror story of inept legislators completely captive to strong governors and interest groups anticipated by the harshest critics, nor the idyll of renewed citizen democracy hypothesized by its more extreme advocates. Rather, effects have varied across states, mattering most in the states that were already most professionalized, but with countervailing factors mitigating against extreme consequences, such as a flight of former lower chamber members to the upper chamber that enhances legislative continuity. This book is must reading for anyone who wants to understand what happens to major institutional reforms after the dust has settled." ---Bernard Grofman, Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of Economics, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine "A decade has passed since the first state legislators were term limited. The contributors to this volume, all well-regarded scholars, take full advantage of the distance afforded by this passage of time to explore new survey data on the institutional effects of term limits. Their book is the first major volume to exploit this superb opportunity." ---Peverill Squire, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Iowa Karl T. Kurtz is Director of the Trust for Representative Democracy at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Bruce Cain is Heller Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and the Director of the University of California Washington Center. Richard G. Niemi is Don Alonzo Watson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester.

The Case of Term Limits

Institutional Change in American Politics

Joshua J. Dyck

No previous book has pulled together into one place a single, comprehensive volume that provides up-to-date coverage of state government and politics, along with the states’ current and future public policies. This new book does just that, offering students, scholars, citizens, policy advocates, and state specialists accessible information on state politics and policy in 34 topical chapters written by experts in the field. The guide provides contemporary analysis of state institutions, processes, and public policies, along with both historical and theoretical perspectives that help readers develop a comprehensive understanding of the 50 U.S. states’ complex and changing political spheres. Those who use this volume—from experienced scholars to neophytes—can rely upon the guide to provide: Basic factual information on state politics and policy Core explanatory frameworks and competing arguments Insightful coverage of major policy areas as they have played out in the states.

Richard G. Niemi

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