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Globalization and technology have altered public fears and changed expectations of how government should make people safer. This book analyzes how Europeans and Americans perceive and regulate risk. The authors show how public fears about risk are filtered through political systems to pressure governments to insure against risk.

Do representatives and senators respond to the critiques raised by their challengers? This study, one of the first to explore how legislators'experiences as candidates shape their subsequent behavior as policy makers, demonstrates that they do. Winning legislators regularly take up their challengers'priority issues from the last campaign and act on them in office, a phenomenon called'issue uptake'. This attentiveness to their challengers'issues reflects a widespread and systematic yet largely unrecognized mode of responsiveness in the US Congress, but it is one with important benefits for the legislators who undertake it and for the health and legitimacy of the representative process. This book provides fresh insight into questions regarding the electoral connection in legislative behavior, the role of campaigns and elections, and the nature and quality of congressional representation.

Lathrop analyzes the use of political consultants and campaign tactics and shows their impact on the development of public policy. Major pieces of legislation often are accompanied by a sophisticated marketing effort, complete with polling, television commercials, and direct mail. As Lathrop suggests, governing has taken on all the trappings of a full-time campaign.As political consultants become more prominent figures in congressional campaigns, they are simultaneously expanding their sphere of influence into the policy-making realm. No longer relegated to the limited confines of candidate-campaigns, many consultants remain principal advisors to politicians once in office. In addition, Lathrop shows how consultants are insinuating themsleves into the legislative process by managing single-issue, grassroots movements on behalf of trade associations, corporations, and advocacy groups in an effort to affect legislation as it moves through Congress.As Lathrop makes clear, the flowering of post-electoral consulting is due, in part, to the advent of the permanent campaign. Major policy initiatives have taken on the trappings of campaigns as politicians and interest groups court the public for support. Blurring the distinction between campaigning and governing places a premium on the specialized knowledge consultants possess in fields such as polling, mass marketing, and media relations. Post-electoral consulting raises important questions about the efficacy of applying campaign tactics in a governing context, the nature of political discourse in a mass media polity, about the role of unelected figures in a representative democracy, and the presence of elite bias in interest group activity. Lathrop evaluates these questions by chronicling consultant activity during the Clinton health care reform effort, the transformation of the Contract with America, and the legislative battle to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 1999-2000.

We expect a president to respond to public opinion as an elected official in a democracy. Indeed, the president needs public support to overcome opposition to his policies in Congress and the bureaucracy. At the same time the president may want to pursue policies that do not have widespread support. How does public opinion affect presidential policy making? Jeffrey Cohen finds that presidents are responsive to the public in selecting issues to focus on. If an issue has captured the interest of the people, then the president will focus on that issue. Cohen finds that having chosen to work on an issue, presidents pay less attention to public opinion when making a policy. The president will try to maintain control over the details of the policy so that the outcome fits his policy agenda. Cohen examines the way presidents from Eisenhower through Clinton have dealt with public opinion in policy making. He uses case studies of issues such as Clinton and gays in the military, Bush and the extension of unemployment benefits, and Kennedy and cutting the income tax, to explore the relationship between presidents and public opinion. In addition Cohen uses a quantitative analysis of State of the Union addresses and positions on roll call votes of presidents from Eisenhower through George Bush to test his theories. This book should appeal to political scientists and historians interested in the presidency and in public opinion, as well as general readers interested in the history of the American presidency. Jeffrey Cohen is Professor of Political Science, Fordham University.

What is the biggest social problem in the news today? Who makes issues newsworthy and important? Why do some issues receive more attention than others? Social issues that are widely recognized in the media′s agenda often demand attention on the public agenda and in turn, slide up the policy agenda, creating policy changes. James W. Dearing and Everett M. Rogers′s research on social issues that hit the top of the media agenda--the war on drugs, drunk driving, the Exxon Valdez, AIDS, and the Ethiopian famine--provides important theoretical and practical insight into the agenda-setting process and its role in effecting social change. This reader-friendly volume introduces students to an important area of communication research and offers them direction for further inquiry. Researchers and professionals in political and mass communication, media studies, research methods, and marketing will appreciate this volume′s insightful approach to agenda-setting and policy.'Agenda-Setting is a very useful introduction to the topic as well as a through review of the stream of research.... This book introduces a number of ideas that are useful in public relations strategic planning such as the concept of an issue life cycle. A lag/lead analysis of issue development is discussed that would also prove useful to campaign planners. The concept of framing is introduced as a technique that brings meaning to an issue.'--Public Relations Review'Authors James W. Dearing and Everett M. Rogers explain the importance of the agenda-setting hypothesis in mass communication research and suggest how research can be advanced in the future.... In the book′s most impressive character, the authors raise 12 research issues to advance agenda-setting, including the need for more international, comparative approaches. A very complete list of references and a separate list of suggested readings are helpful to scholars. Highly recommended for all serious collections in journalism, mass media, mass communication, political science, and public policy research.'R. A. Logan in Choice