Comparative Public Opinion

This book presents a comprehensive examination of public opinion in the democratic world. 

Built  around chapters that highlight key explanatory frameworks used in  understanding public opinion, the book presents a coherent study of the  subject in a comparative perspective, emphasizing and interrogating  immigration as a key issue of high concern to most mass publics in the  democratic world. 

Key features of the book include: 

• Covers  several theoretical issues and determinants of opinion such as the  effects of personality, age and life cycle, ideology, social class,  partisanship, gender, religion, ethnicity, language, and media,  highlighting over time the effects of political, social, and economic  contexts. 
•  Each  chapter explores the theoretical rationale, mechanisms of effect, and  use in the scholarly literature on public opinion before applying these  to the issue of immigration comparatively and in specific places or  regions. 
• Widely  comparative using a nine-country sample (Australia, Canada, France,  Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the  United States of America) in the analysis of individual-level  determinants of public opinion about immigration and extending to other  countries like Belgium, Brazil, and Japan when evaluating contextual  factors. 

This edited volume will be  essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners interested  in public opinion, political behaviour, voting behaviour, politics of  the media, immigration, political communication, and, more generally,  democracy and comparative politics.