Hypocrisy in American Political Attitudes

This book illuminates, and ultimately defends, attitudinal hypocrisy within the personal politics of Americans by utilizing statistical analyses within political history, social psychology, public opinion, and political science. Within a simple and parsimonious model of political attitudes, along with a novel method of calculating and operationalizing what attitudinal hypocrisy is, the book argues that the wielding of conflicting attitudes is a necessary characteristic of the American electorate. It uses an innovative multidisciplinary approach to answer some of the most pervasive questions in American politics: Why do conservatives preach the value of economic libertarianism, but decry the lack of government involvement in social issues and the military? Why do liberals extol the virtues of a regulatory economic state, but not a cultural or military state?

Offers a unified approach to looking at types of attitudinal hypocrisy in political attitudes and the origins of each Utilizes a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates political science, psychology, and American history to answer questions not addressed by previous scholarship Provides a counterintuitive defense of hypocrisy by demonstrating the universality of in in political attitudes and, subsequently, removing its negative stigma

Autorentext
Timothy P. Collins is Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at St. Olaf College, USA.

Inhalt

1. What Is Political Hypocrisy and Why Does it Matter?.- 2.Psychological Dispositions, Political Orientations, and a Theoretical Framework of Ideological Differences in Attitudinal Hypocrisy.- 3. Gay Is the New Black (But Black Is Still Black): The History and Current Trends of Attitudinal Hypocrisy.- 4. Analyzing and Predicting Hypocrisy in the Electorate.- 5. Having Your Cake and Eating It Too: Using Cognitive Dissonance to Explore Attitudinal Hypocrisy.- 6. What Good Is Cake If You Can't Eat It?: Prescriptions for and Conclusions About American Attitudinal Hypocrisy.