What does democracy expect of its citizens, and how do the citizenry
match these expectations? This Oxford Handbook examines the role of
the citizen in contemporary politics, based on essays from the world's
leading scholars of political behavior research. The recent expansion of
democracy has both given new rights and created new responsibilities for
the citizenry. These political changes are paralleled by tremendous
advances in our empirical knowledge of citizens and their behaviors
through the institutionalization of systematic, comparative study of
contemporary publics--ranging from the advanced industrial democracies
to the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, to new survey
research on the developing world. These essays describe how citizens
think about politics, how their values shape their behavior, the
patterns of participation, the sources of vote choice, and how public
opinion impacts on governing and public policy.
This is the most comprehensive review of the cross-national literature
of citizen behavior and the relationship between citizens and their
governments. It will become the first point of reference for scholars
and students interested in these key issues.