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The first comprehensive textbook on political psychology, this user-friendly volume explores the psychological origins of political behavior. Using psychological concepts to explain types of political behavior, the authors introduce a broad range of theories and cases of political activity to illustrate the behavior. The book examines many patterns of political behaviors including leadership, group behavior, voting, race, ethnicity, nationalism, political extremism, terrorism, war, and genocide. Text boxes highlight current and historical events to help students see the connection between the world around them and the concepts they are learning. Examples highlight a variety of research metho...
Based on in-depth interviews with tribal Sheiks involved in the Awakening and their American military counterparts, Confronting al Qaeda is a study of decision-making processes and the political psychology of the Sunni Awakening in al Anbar. It traces the change in American military strategy that made the Awakening collaboration between the Sunni tribes and the U.S. forces possible. It explains how the evolution of the tribal leaders’ perspective and of the American military strategy led to defeat al Qaeda in al Anbar. The process of these changing mutual images is detailed as well as how the cooperation between groups led to further evolution of perceptions. Political and military realities urgently forced these perceptual and social identity shifts initially, but the process of cooperation and engagement accelerated these shifts through increasingly mutually beneficial cooperation and interaction during the battle with al Qaeda in Iraq.
Cottam explains the patterns of U.S. intervention in Latin America by focusing on the cognitive images that have dominated policy makers' world views, influenced the procession of information, and informed strategies and tactics. She employs a number of case studies of intervention and analyzes decision-making patterns from the early years of the cold war in Guatemala and Cuba to the post-cold-war policies in Panama and the war on drugs in Peru. Using two particular images-the enemy and the dependent-Cottam explores why U.S. policy makers have been predisposed to intervene in Latin America when they have perceived an enemy (the Soviet Union) interacting with a dependent (a Latin American country), and why these images led to perceptions that continued to dominate policy into the post-cold-war era.
The revolution in Nicaragua was unique in that a large percentage of the combatants were women. The Role of Female Combatants in the Nicaraguan Revolution and Counter Revolutionary War is a study of these women and those who fought in the Contra counter revolution on the Atlantic Coast. This book is a qualitative study based on 85 interviews with female ex-combatants in the revolution and counter revolution from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, as well as field observations in Nicaragua and the autonomous regions of the Atlantic Coast. It explores the reasons why women fought, the sacrifices they made, their treatment by male combatants, and their insights into the impact of the revolution...
This second edition offers an overview of world politics since 1945 that is designed to be of interest to students of international relations, foreign policy, history, and economics or to those interested in post-war history and current events.
Why is national identity such a potent force in people's lives? And is the force positive or negative? In this thoughtful and provocative book, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse develops a social theory of national identity and uses a national survey, focus groups, and experiments to answer these important questions in the American context. Her results show that the combination of group commitment and the setting of exclusive boundaries on the national group affects how people behave toward their fellow Americans. Strong identifiers care a great deal about their national group. They want to help and to be loyal to their fellow Americans. By limiting who counts as an American, though, these strong identifiers place serious limits on who benefits from their pro-group behavior. Help and loyalty are offered only to 'true Americans,' not Americans who do not count and who are pushed to the periphery of the national group.
Buried in many people and operating largely outside the realm of conscious thought are forces inclining us toward liberal or conservative political convictions. Our biology predisposes us to see and understand the world in different ways, not always reason and the careful consideration of facts. These predispositions are in turn responsible for a significant portion of the political and ideological conflict that marks human history. With verve and wit, renowned social scientists John Hibbing, Kevin Smith, and John Alford—pioneers in the field of biopolitics—present overwhelming evidence that people differ politically not just because they grew up in different cultures or were presented w...
The most thorough account yet available of a revolution that saw the first true agrarian reform in Central America, this book is also a penetrating analysis of the tragic destruction of that revolution. In no other Central American country was U.S. intervention so decisive and so ruinous, charges Piero Gleijeses. Yet he shows that the intervention can be blamed on no single "convenient villain." "Extensively researched and written with conviction and passion, this study analyzes the history and downfall of what seems in retrospect to have been Guatemala's best government, the short-lived regime of Jacobo Arbenz, overthrown in 1954, by a CIA-orchestrated coup."--Foreign Affairs "Piero Gleijeses offers a historical road map that may serve as a guide for future generations. . . . [Readers] will come away with an understanding of the foundation of a great historical tragedy."--Saul Landau, The Progressive "[Gleijeses's] academic rigor does not prevent him from creating an accessible, lucid, almost journalistic account of an episode whose tragic consequences still reverberate."--Paul Kantz, Commonweal
This comprehensive, user-friendly introductory textbook to political psychology explores the psychological origins of political behavior. The authors introduce readers to a broad range of theories, concepts, and case studies of political activity to illustrate that behavior. The book examines many patterns of political behaviors, including leadership, group behavior, voting, race, ethnicity, nationalism, terrorism, war, and genocide. It explores some of the most horrific things people do to one another for political purposes, as well as how to prevent and resolve conflict -- and how to recover from it. The goal is to help the reader understand the enormous complexity of human behavior and th...