POLITICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Democratic institutions, participation, and political influence
2
CIVIC PARTICIPATION
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic
Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
ANNOTATION
Verba, Schlozman, and Brady study why some Americans participate in politics more than others
and how resources, recruitment, and psychological engagement shape participation. The book
examines voting, campaigning, contacting officials, donating, community activity, and protest, and it
pays close attention to differences associated with socioeconomic resources and organizational
involvement. This source is useful for political science research because it provides a detailed model
of political participation rather than reducing participation to voting alone. Its large survey-based
research also helps a researcher examine how civic engagement and unequal resources can affect
who has a political voice.
CIVIC CULTURE
Almond, Gabriel A., and Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in
Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
ANNOTATION
Almond and Verba compare political attitudes and orientations in five countries to investigate how
citizens' beliefs and dispositions relate to democratic political systems. The study develops the idea
of a civic culture that combines different forms of political involvement and trust rather than
assuming that citizens must all participate in the same way. It is useful for political science because
it links individual political attitudes with broader institutional and cultural settings. The comparative
design also gives students a foundation for thinking about how political participation and democratic
stability can be studied across countries rather than only within one national case.
POLICY
REPRESENTATION
Gilens, Martin, and Benjamin I. Page. 2014. "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest
Groups, and Average Citizens." Perspectives on Politics 12(3): 564-581.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592714001595
ANNOTATION
Gilens and Page compare several theories of political influence in the United States using a dataset
covering 1,779 policy issues. They test whether changes in policy are associated with the
preferences of average citizens, economic elites, and organized interest groups within a common
statistical framework. The article is useful because it makes competing theories explicit and
evaluates them with a large empirical dataset rather than discussing representation only at the level
of political theory. It is also a useful source for teaching students how empirical political science can
operationalize abstract ideas about representation and influence.
