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The simple art of voting : the cognitive shortcuts of Italian voters / Delia Baldassarri ; translated by Nicholas Crotty.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Baldassarri, Delia.
- Standardized Title:
- Semplice arte di votare. English
- Language:
- English
- Italian
- Subjects (All):
- Voting--Italy.
- Voting.
- Elections--Italy.
- Elections.
- Italy.
- Italy--Politics and government--1994-2018.
- Politics and government.
- Political science.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (xi, 260 pages) : illustrations
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Oxford University Press, [2013]
- System Details:
- text file
- Summary:
- Voting distills a complex decision into a deceptively simple action. The electorate faces a messy tangle of parties, leaders, and issues. How is it possible for voters to unravel it all? How do they perceive the political landscape? How, in short, do voters choose? Not only is voting a complex choice, but voters themselves also vary widely in their degree of interest, and involvement in politics. This book provides a new understanding of how voting works by focusing on how choices are made given the cognitive limitations of the human mind and the environment in which decision making takes place. Drawing on recent advances in the study of cognitive psychology, decision making, and political cognition, this book provides a careful empirical examination of the strategies voters actually use to manage the complexity of political choice. Expressly rejecting the prevailing one-size-fits-all, “what a rational voter should do” approach, it distinguishes voters based on the cognitive shortcuts, or heuristics, they use to simplify the decision-making process. Drawing on survey data from the 1990s Italian national general elections, the book identifies four types of voters, classified by how they perceive and organize the political debate - from those who capably rely on nuanced ideological categories to those who, skeptical about all-things-political, prove easy prey for television broadcasters. The typology allows us to grasp the actual differences in political sophistication among citizens and to understand which factors are most important to different types of voters. The book helps us make sense of the various ways in which citizens themselves make sense of - and make “simple” - the complex world of politics.
- Notes:
- Originally published in Italian in 2005 as: La semplice arte di votare.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 0199979782
- 9780199979783
- OCLC:
- 827777860
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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