Abstract
A pivotal point in US history occurred from the 1950s to 1970s when a remarkable upsurge in left-of-center social movements challenged the prevailing consensus model of ‘normal politics’. A burgeoning literature has since charted the development of contemporary social movements, but less well chronicled is their decline and fall. Jules Boykoff's The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch US American Social Movements poses the questions: How has the US state taken action to squelch the practice of dissent; how has it interacted with the mass media to achieve suppression; and how do these lead to the demobilization of left-of-center movements?
The book's theoretical approach lies in the middle range between description and generalized universal laws. Boykoff constructs a typology of state and mass media actions that, interacting in various combinations and sequences, lead to the demobilization of dissident left movements. Boykoff employs a comparative-historical multiple-case approach that temporally spans the twentieth century. While his data sources include archival accounts, mass-media news accounts, the radical press and governmental sources, it draws heavily from a wide range of secondary sources.
There has been an undeniable and deeply ingrained historical bias in the US state's suppression of left movements, but the question arises whether, how and why movements to the right of center might be suppressed differently. A good test of Boykoff's theoretical framework would be to apply it to dissident movements on the ideological right. Also, political theories of the state focus nearly exclusively on the national level, and while some of the book's illustrative cases involve the actions of local agencies, it deals primarily with national-level state actions. The importance and complexity of US local and state political systems is profound, however, and another test of Boykoff's approach would be its systematic application to a broad range of sub-national cases.
One questions the utility of the concept of ‘prestige media’, in which Boykoff includes the major national newspapers and television networks. Undeniably, these news outlets have loomed large in shaping, controlling and conveying information in the past. Their stagnating readership and viewership, however, suggests that they have a declining influence on US public opinion and that there is a much more variegated situation than the book admits to.
The Suppression of Dissent will appeal to scholars who specialize in social movements; its complex theoretical structure will otherwise limit its readership to advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on social movements.
Robert C. Das
(Willamette University)
Few would doubt that appeals to emotions are an integral part of political advertising and campaigning; however, studies exploring whether and how emotional appeals impact on the electorate have been limited. Ted Brader's book Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work aims to fill this gap. The book is rooted in Brader's PhD thesis and further develops the points raised in his 2005 article ‘Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions’ (American Journal of Political Science, 49 (2), pp. 388–405). It forms part of Susan Herbst and Benjamin Page's longs-tanding series ‘Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion’ and is aimed at both academic and non-academic readers.
Concentrating on audio-visual cues of televised political adverts in US election campaigns Brader selects enthusiasm and anxiety as the most appropriate types of emotions for his research: both feature prominently in political campaigns and have been the focus of much psychological research. The relevant psychological theories are discussed in great detail. Special attention is being paid to the affect transfer hypothesis (the viewer transfers the emotional affect triggered by the music and images in an advert on to something/someone else) and the theory of affective intelligence. Extending the latter and applying it to the area of political communications Brader develops a set of hypotheses which are tested against the insights gained from experimental research and content analysis. The former was run during a 1998 gubernatorial campaign while the latter covers campaign adverts from 1999 and 2000. The study finds support for some of the conventional wisdoms relating to emotions and political campaigning (politicians do frequently appeal to the electorate's emotions) yet challenges others (strong emotional appeals do not necessarily entail an absence of logical argument or informed policy debate; less-informed voters are not necessarily more likely to be influenced by emotional appeals).
Brader's work lives up to its promise. The methodology, data and argument are presented in a clear, easily accessible and informative manner while maintaining academic rigour. Throughout the book a multitude of tables and figures is used to illustrate the argument and further details such as questionnaire-wording and coding rules are provided in three appendices. Especially useful are several pages with black and white stills from the political adverts referred to in the text. The work, albeit limited to an American context, is a welcomed addition to filling the existing knowledge gap.
Tobias Jun
(University of Edinburgh
This edited volume provides a comprehensive examination of the role played by gender in shaping elections in the United States. The contributing scholars investigate such issues as the gendering of presidential elections, the persistent gender gap in vote choice and how this affects campaign strategies, the role of institutions like the media, the parties and women's organizations in affecting elections and the intersectionality of race and gender in US electoral politics. Each chapter in the book includes a historical perspective which contributes to a greater understanding of the significance of the contemporary situation. In addition, each chapter offers not only a good review of the extant literature but also important and original empirical analysis. Combined with the relevant examples and interesting anecdotes, the book would appeal to undergraduates, graduate students and scholars of gender politics alike.
This book is well conceived and fits a strong need in the field of gender politics. The contributors go far in providing a thorough explanation for the lack of gender parity in political representation in the United States. The authors focus on almost all aspects of electoral politics in the United States from the presidency to the Congress to the state legislatures, and examine how the gendering of politics persists at all levels. In particular, these authors find the media continue to play an important role in shaping gender stereotypes regarding political candidacies, women have lower political ambition than men and therefore do not run at the same rate, African-American women continue to face formidable obstacles in seeking office and certain regions of the country continue to be particularly difficult for female candidates. At the same time, they do an excellent job highlighting the advances that have been made (some only quite recently) including greater equality between the sexes in fund-raising capabilities, more formal organizations designed to assist women, including African-American women, in office-seeking and greater, positive attention by the media to women candidates. The only limitation of the book is that it does not include a discussion of local politics and gender. However, most scholars of gender politics find local politics difficult to study given the problem obtaining data and also the difficulty with being able to make broad theoretical claims about unique localities. Despite this limitation, this book is very well written and, unlike many edited volumes, the chapters fit together overall in a coherent and meaningful way making for a significant contribution to the field of gender politics.
Elizabeth S. Smit
(Furman University)
In The Mediated Presidency, Farnsworth and Lichter offer a study of the media treatment of successive US presidents by television and to a lesser extent newspapers. The main part of the book is based on a content analysis of television coverage provided by the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, through which Farnsworth and Lichter examine the depiction of the performance and character of politicians and determine the branches of government from which sources are drawn, before evaluating tone of coverage and the circumstances and patterns that lie behind positive or negative assessments by the media.
In general terms, the authors describe a decline in coverage since the Reagan years (with a number of blips along the way), as well as a marginal ‘liberal bias’ in the assessment of political figures among a number of media outlets (although without taking proper account of what many see as the far-from-liberal instincts behind what is deemed to be newsworthy in the first place). They also offer confirmation of the supremacy of the political personality in the mediation of politics. In particular, their evidence suggests that television has consolidated the dominance of the executive branch of government over the legislature, so that the potentially emotive figure of the president continues to dominate ‘the mostly faceless crowd of lawmakers on Capitol Hill’ (p. 31). A similar emphasis on the executive emerges from the more limited section of the book looking at the front pages of a selection of nationally and regionally influential newspapers, although the importance of personality is manifest in still another way there, with the Senate (and its more powerful individuals) featuring more prominently and more favourably than Congress.
On the negative side, some of the data seem worthy of a more emphatic interpretation, and while the lack of hyperbole is admirable, the implications for the democratic role of the media are sometimes understated. Even so, this book provides a useful check for many of those patterns of media coverage we are tempted to take for granted. It emphasises that a successful ‘mediated presidency’ can be better understood by substantial analysis and by understanding practices of efficient (or manipulative) communications management, rather than by recourse to narratives of decline or technological change. The Mediated Presidency will be of interest both to researchers seeking a critical survey of the US media and politics and to those interested in drawing international comparisons.
Michael Higgin
(University of Sunderland)
In Defense of Negativity focuses upon an important US political phenomenon, in terms of scale, dollars spent and American exceptionalism, which has significant impact and coverage outside of the beltway: negative presidential campaign advertisements. The traditional view, that ‘attack ads’ are counterproductive and downright damaging to the American political and democratic ideal, has remained so for the past half-century. Geer challenges this conclusion and argues that attack ads serve a valid and essential purpose for American democracy. The utility of negative campaigning, Geer argues, is that it highlights salient political issues that ‘positive ads’ often omit. In other words, attack ads from one candidate balance the often sterile, positive ads of their target and give the voting public an even-handed view of all candidates. Moreover, when the target subsequently defends himself against such attacks, a ‘competitive dynamic’ is created (p. 13) which further promotes a ‘rich information environment’ (p. 13). ‘Negativity’, Geer states, ‘promotes democracy’ (p. 7).
In order to ‘jettison’ (p. 6) the prevailing view that negativity hurts democracy, Geer analyses, from ‘normative, empirical and theoretical perspectives’, a wide selection of campaign material, ranging from the 1960s Kennedy/Nixon and Johnson/Goldwater campaigns to the 2004 Bush/Kerry standoff, the latter being ‘the most negative in the last 40 years’ (p. 36). Geer demonstrates well the extra information that negative advertisements contain and, by implication, the prejudiced, saccharine messages often contained in positive commercials.
Geer's weighty emphasis on statistics inevitably necessitates a broader view of some campaigns than others, yet the effect is not a detrimental one. Not only are the statistical representations clear and understandable, they focus upon some unique relationships including: the volume of negative campaigning over time, Democrat and Republican campaign trends, the effect of the ‘convention bounce’ on negative campaigning and the emergence of negative commercials that, ironically, attack the negative commercials of the opponent. These statistical comparisons complement well those campaigns that are studied in detail: specifically the Johnson/Goldwater, Bush/Dukakis and Bush/Clinton/Perot campaigns.
Overall, this book is well written, well argued and logical and steers the reader to the counterintuitive conclusion that political mudslinging can be beneficial. It certainly has implications for critics who cry ‘immobilisme’ at the sight of adversarial politics in the British system. For political advertising scholars in particular, this book provides an alternative, refreshing viewpoint on the subject. Political junkies of all denominations however would also benefit from reading this insightful book.
Mark Thomas Ric
(Coventry University)
John Hasnas's new book has both large and small targets, simultaneously: a focused, narrow evaluation of what he calls ‘white-collar crime’ (lack of compliance with federal rules on honest dealing and corporate regulation) and a broader discussion of situations where one is torn between doing what one thinks is good or right, and doing what one is obligated to by law, personal role or some other duty.
The book proceeds in two parts: the first is primarily descriptive and lays out the author's nuanced view of white-collar crime, how it has developed and why it is morally problematic. The second part is normative, and critically evaluates the way that the current federal criminal law creates new ethical dilemmas for business people, namely by creating disincentives for ethical behaviour by businesses. Ultimately, Hasnas concludes that the only legitimate punishments for the commission of white-collar crime (whether committed by corporations or individuals) are financial penalties. Imprisonment, he says, is ‘too blunt an instrument’ to encourage honest business dealing (p. 94). While I would have liked to see him address more seriously the possibility of collective responsibility, he makes a nice argument to support this conclusion.
Hasnas asks the reader to consider their reaction to a case similar to the Martha Stewart scandal. His goal is to show that ethics and compliance with the law are not coextensive (p. 90). In the Martha Stewart case, for example, the corporation is legally insulated from damage from the alleged insider trading by severing ties with Stewart and giving up her records and communications. But, says Hasnas, ethics would imply a duty of loyalty to Stewart that might conflict with the best legal option for the corporation. The main complaints that I have with the book rest, then, on Hasnas's coverage (or lack thereof) of the notion of ‘ethical’. He makes several short passes at trying to provide a definition or explanation, but ultimately seems to provide little to clarify what ‘ethical’ really means, even when in conflict with ‘legal’. Ethics could be maximizing utility, or meeting ‘community standards’ or participating in the ‘Kingdom of Ends’ but it is not clear which usage of ‘ethics’ is at play here. Much more should be said about what ethics is, considering that ethical action is the central contrast case in the book. Regardless of this gap, this book would make a nice addition to a business ethics or management course, particularly given its clarity and brevity.
Eric M. Rovi
(Georgia State University)
Given the central place of Alexis de Tocqueville in the intellectual life of the United States, it is surprising that the story of his reception has not been the subject of more scholarly interest. In this provocative work, Matthew Mancini, Director of American Studies at St Louis University and author of an important study of convict leasing in the American south, sets out to remedy the defect.
Organized chronologically, the book begins with an astute look at Tocqueville's use by public intellectuals at the turn of the twenty-first century. Subsequent chapters discuss initial American responses to Democracy in America, later nineteenth-century engagements with the Democracy (here independently confirming Olivier Zunz's recent emphasis on the importance of the Civil War generation) and reactions to the Old Regime and the Revolution. Mancini concludes with Tocqueville's alleged decline and re-emergence, strenuously contesting this ‘oblivion’ thesis.
The strengths of the book are considerable, not least the demonstration that Tocqueville has never truly disappeared from the American landscape. Especially noteworthy are Mancini's excavations of the Johns Hopkins connection and of Tocqueville's direct and indirect appropriation by American Catholics and Progressives. More than one Tocqueville scholar (this reviewer included) will wish to have employed more nuanced prose about ‘eclipses’ and ‘revivals’. Finally, there are some nuggets of superb explication. Mancini illuminates the distorting ‘Teutonic’ reception of the Old Regime among historians, for example, by flushing out the subtext of reviews that were ‘brimming with unstated implications’ (p. 88).
The book sometimes falters, however, through a lack of command over its narrative. There are curious imbalances in coverage and analysis. Mancini digresses and circumlocutes, never pointlessly but often distractingly. Pages spent on Francis Lieber's resemblance to Samuel Johnson or on Frances Bowen's scholarly peccadilloes might better have been spent presenting Mancini's own analysis of the significance of Tocqueville's emergence as a cultural artifact. Interviews with Tocqueville scholars could have been digested and condensed. These lapses are unfortunate, since Mancini – himself an accomplished Tocquevillean – has a talent for sophisticated and empathetic reconstruction of the views of others and a fine ear for the distinction between valid interpretation and sterile evocation in scholarly turf wars. His book represents a real scholarly contribution that opens up fascinating interpretive possibilities.
Cheryl B. Welc
(Simmons College)
Marginal Man by Alexander John Watson is an intellectual biography of Harold Innis (1894–1952), the Canadian economic historian and communications theorist. Innis's name will be familiar to students of Canadian economic history where he is seen as the name most associated with the staples thesis, which interprets the development of Canada in terms of trading relationships in which manufactured goods were shipped from the metropole to the hinterland, and primary materials like fish and fur were shipped from the hinterland to the metropole. The demands imposed by dependence on trade in a few staples shaped settlement patterns and the routes adopted for transportation infrastructure. Innis explored such trading relations in works like The Fur Trade in Canada (1930) and The Cod Fisheries (1940). In his later career, he pursued studies in communications that influenced the subsequent work of communications theorists like McLuhan.
The title Marginal Man reflects one of the themes of Watson's book, Innis's belief that the intellectual advances on which the future of civilization depended were likely to come from intellectuals on the periphery who refused simply to accept already existing schools of thought. Innis, Watson tells us, saw himself as such an intellectual in the Political Economy Department at the University of Toronto in Canada, on the geographical periphery, removed from the metropolitan centres of either Europe or the United States, committed to deriving from the study of Canada theoretical insights that can be applied more broadly. Innis, Watson relates, was profoundly affected by his experience as a soldier in the First World War which impressed upon him the crucial nature of the relation between knowledge and power. Innis's view was that the scholar was more likely to exercise a beneficial influence on society through a dedication to basic research than through activism or immediate responses to current events.
Watson is clearly an admirer of Innis but the portrait he paints is not entirely sympathetic. Innis's intense commitment to a long-term research project led to a neglect of family, constant involvement in academic politics and pressure for publications that produced what Watson acknowledges was a questionable methodology in Innis's communications studies.
Marginal Man represents a worthwhile contribution to the study of Canadian intellectual history. Canadians and scholars in such fields as economic history, political economy, communications and Canadian studies will find it well worth reading.
James G. Mello
(University of Western Ontario)
Centering on two cases where American courts or Congress have faced claims for compensation for historic injustices, Weiner investigates how debates about restitution have been framed. He relates the issues in the debates to opposed views in American history about the relevance of the past to present obligations, as embodied in the pronouncements of Jefferson and Lincoln. Supporting Lincoln's position, he argues that citizens, by being part of an intergenerational political society, acquire a historical identity and a collective responsibility for remembering and rectifying its past wrongs.
Weiner's main thesis is that in understanding and dealing with historic injustices, we should adopt a political framework, rather than a juridical, theological or therapeutic approach. This means that efforts to make amends should be forward rather than backward looking. Acts of rectification should aim to overcome the alienation of victims or descendants, to make trust possible, to re-establish ties sundered by the injustice or to make it possible for bonds between groups to exist. Rectification should be a political process involving public discussion and symbolic acts of national significance. Inspired by Arendt's writings on forgiveness, Weiner thinks that a public apology for past wrongs, as in the case of the apology of the American government to Japanese-Americans incarcerated during the Second World War, can transform political identity. It can encourage citizens to recognize the relevance of history and see themselves as belonging to a nation that takes responsibility for its past so that it can act more effectively and responsibly in the future.
Weiner's framework requires that citizens identify with their nation in a way that makes them open to accepting responsibility for the past. Whether they do, or should, is a matter of contention, and he has to deal with the views of those who believe that national identity means adherence to present institutions, or who think that national allegiances are disappearing, are divisive rather than uniting or are the breeding ground of chauvinistic attitudes. The ways in which history is manipulated by interest groups, and often by governments, do not augur well for a political transformation that is supposed to unite citizens in accepting responsibility for the past.
However, Weiner's book is well written and generally persuasive. It combines a well-researched examination of debates about particular claims, along with a plausible account of how facing up to dark episodes in a nation's history could transform its political life for the better.
Janna Thompson Cac
(La Trobe University)
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