Rüdiger Schmitt‐beck
Biographic Data
| ID | 4276100 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rüdiger Schmitt‐beck |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rüdiger |
| FAMILY NAME | Schmitt‐beck |
| SIGNATURE | BECK R S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Mannheim |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1673-6672 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 358 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Political Talk and the Triad of Democratic Citizenship
Deliberative democracy’s core practice of political discussion is often claimed to entail beneficial ‘self-transformative’ effects on those partaking in it. We examine the assumption that political talk makes for ‘better citizens’ with a special focus on individuals’ orientations toward democracy and their own roles within it. We conceptualize these orientations as a triad of democratic citizenship that encompasses three pillars: (1) the attitudi…
Do people like to discuss politics? A study of citizens’ political talk culture
As deliberative democracy is gaining practical momentum, the question arises whether citizens’ attitudes toward everyday political talk are congruent with this ‘talk-centric’ vision of democratic governance. Drawing on a unique survey we examine how German citizens view the practice of discussing politics in everyday life, and what determines these attitudes. We find that only a minority appreciates talking about politics. To explain these views,…
Asymmetric Communication and Internal Exclusion in Everyday Political Talk
Citizens' everyday political talk is the foundation and mainspring of deliberative democracy. Accordingly, citizens' equal and inclusive participation in political discussions is deemed crucial for this “talk-centric” vision of normatively superior democratic will-formation. Yet, discussing politics is a quite demanding activity, and research has shown that de facto not everyone has equal access to this arena of political communication. Some citi…
Prerequisites of deliberative democracy
Departing from a systemic perspective, the paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of ordinary citizens’ everyday political talk from a deliberative democratic point of view. Drawing on unique survey data collected in Germany it examines three prerequisites of deliberative democracy as a model of democracy that is rooted in political discussions among the citizenry at large: (1) The prerequisite of inclusivity expects citizens’ engagem…
From the Living Room to the Meeting Hall? Citizens’ Political Talk in the Deliberative System
Focusing on ordinary people’s political talk the paper contributes to the study of deliberative democracy from a systemic perspective. By examining citizens’ everyday communication, it focuses on an object that is rarely studied from a deliberative perspective, but crucial for the deliberative system’s democratic character. By investigating the couplings between different arenas of political talk between citizens, ranging from informal private, s…
Political Systems and Electoral Behavior
Comparative Corrective Action
The corrective action hypothesis predicts that people will take political action in response to media content they perceive to be biased against them, and evidence has accumulated in favor of it. However, research has not yet investigated the hypothesis in comparative context. This study fills that gap in the literature, relying on the Comparative National Election Project (N = 23,527), and analyzing data from 17 countries. Results show evidence …
Inept
In recent years, interest has surged in issue voting based on competence attributions to parties. To vote on policy competence, citizens need to attribute to at least one party the capacity to solve the problems they deem important. The article shows that this condition is often unmet, because voters see no party as competent. Using data collected at the 2009 and 2013 German Federal Elections, it demonstrates that beliefs about parties’ ineptness…
Die AfD nach der rechtspopulistischen Wende
Introduction
Introducing the special issue, section (1) provides an overview of the election campaign, (2) discusses major aspects of the election's outcome and (3) highlights the broader theoretical implications of the contributions to the special issue to the research literature
The ‘Alternative für Deutschland in the Electorate
The good result of the recently formed Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was a striking outcome of the 2013 Federal Election. This article explores why AfD supporters chose this party at the 2013 Federal Election and at the 2014 European and eastern German State (Land) Elections. At the Federal Election the AfD's electorate was composed of two groups: a minority of instrumental issue-voters that were drawn to the AfD by its emphasis and positioni…
Media and campaign effects on vote choice at national elections in Europe
This article reviews the empirical research literature on campaign and media effects on vote choice at national elections in European countries for the post-World War II period. Particular efforts are undertaken to obtain a comprehensive picture by including publications in many different languages. With regard to the amount of research, but also the topics addressed, the survey reveals considerable differences between countries. Studies of campa…
Struggling up the hill
This paper examines the effects of three main forms of campaign communication on voter turnout in the 2013 German Federal Election – party contact, the news media’s political coverage and everyday political discussions. Our study is innovative in that it uses panel data to reduce the problems of endogeneity and examines the impact of each information source controlling for the other two. The results show that media exposure via broadsheet newspap…
A Two-Stage Theory of Discussant Influence on Vote Choice in Multiparty Systems
This article addresses two aspects of social network influence on voters’ electoral choices that are not well understood: the role of party systems as institutional contexts and the relationship between social pressure and information sharing as mechanisms of influence. It argues that in the cleavage-based multiparty systems of Western Europe, discussant influence at elections occurs in two stages. First, discussants place social pressure on vote…
Data Bases and Statistical Systems
Politische Kommunikation und Wählerverhalten
Sozialer und Politischer Wandel in Deutschland
Seeking the Soul of Democracy
This article provides a review of extant empirical research on ordinary citizens' everyday political communication, its phenomenology, determinants, consequences, and relevance for democratic politics. It highlights the recent upsurge in interest in the study of political conversations against the background of both classic and more recent developments in democratic theory and empirical research that served as intellectual inspirations. The artic…
Why Voters Decide Late
Against the background of a substantial rise of the number of late-deciding voters at recent elections the paper simultaneously tests four complementary hypotheses on the background of contemporary electors' timing of decision making. The traditional floating voter hypothesis fares best in this analysis: lacking partisan predispositions and a general detachment from politics appear as the main reasons why people take longer to make up their minds…
Short-term factors versus long-term values
The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2009 German General Election
This article analyses the 2009 German federal election campaign with specific emphasis on the three categories of actors that play key roles in contemporary election campaigns – parties and their candidates, the mass media, and the voters. Mainly aiming at a theoretically informed comprehensive description, the article addresses some key themes of the recent literature on electioneering. The Bundestag election on 27 September 2009 was preceded by…
New democracies without citizens?
Social networks and mass media as mobilizers and demobilizers
Paul F. Lazarsfeld/Bernard Berelson/Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice. How the Voter Makes Up his Mind in a Presidential Campaign, New York/London 1944
AuszugDie 1944 veröffentlichte, nach der Erhebungsregion oft als Erie County — Studie bezeichnete Untersuchung ist die erste der beiden bahnbrechenden Wahlanalysen der Columbia-Schule der Wahl-, Einstellungs- und Kommunikationsforschung. Zehn Jahre später folgte die so genannte Elmira-Studie (). Beide Projekte wurden durchgeführt am Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) der New Yorker Columbia University unter der Leitung von Paul Felix Lazars…
Polls that Mattered
Journal Article Polls that Mattered: Effects of Media Polls on Voters' Coalition Expectations and Party Preferences in the 2005 German Parliamentary Election Get access Thorsten Faas, Thorsten Faas Thorsten Faas is research associate at the Chair of Political Science I, University of Mannheim. His research focuses on elections, election campaigns, and election studies. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Chris…
The ‘Alternative für Deutschland in the Electorate
The good result of the recently formed Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was a striking outcome of the 2013 Federal Election. This article explores why AfD supporters chose this party at the 2013 Federal Election and at the 2014 European and eastern German State (Land) Elections. At the Federal Election the AfD's electorate was composed of two groups: a minority of instrumental issue-voters that were drawn to the AfD by its emphasis and positioni…
Mass Communication, Personal Communication and Vote Choice
In recent years, both mass communication and personal communication have attracted increased interest as sources of persuasive information which influence individual voting decisions. However, few efforts have so far been made to investigate how mass communication and personal communication interact with regard to electoral decision making. Katz and Lazarsfeld's ‘filter hypothesis’ maintains that personal communication mediates the influence of m…
Why Voters Decide Late
Against the background of a substantial rise of the number of late-deciding voters at recent elections the paper simultaneously tests four complementary hypotheses on the background of contemporary electors' timing of decision making. The traditional floating voter hypothesis fares best in this analysis: lacking partisan predispositions and a general detachment from politics appear as the main reasons why people take longer to make up their minds…
Trust in Democratic Institutions in Germany
2002). Trust in Democratic Institutions in Germany: Theory and Evidence Ten Years After Unification. German Politics: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 35-58
Shaky attachments
Individual voters’ identification with a political party is believed to be a highly stable core of the political personality, and an ‘unmoved mover’ of political behaviour. In this article, the authors take advantage of a unique longitudinal database – the German Socio‐Economic Panel (GSOEP) – to test the basic premise of partisanship's high persistence. Analysing individual‐level data from 18 annual panel waves conducted in West Germany between …
Social networks and mass media as mobilizers and demobilizers
Die AfD nach der rechtspopulistischen Wende
Mass Media, the Electorate, and the Bandwagon. A Study of Communication Effects on Vote Choice in Germany
The paper addresses two propositions: (1) that by publishing news stories about the electoral strength of parties or candidates, the mass media contribute to shaping the voters' expectations about the likely outcome of an upcoming election; (2) that these expectations in turn stimulate a bandwagon effect, i.e. they influence vote choice to the advantage of the apparent future winner of the election. Analyzing media content and survey data gathere…
Polls that Mattered
Journal Article Polls that Mattered: Effects of Media Polls on Voters' Coalition Expectations and Party Preferences in the 2005 German Parliamentary Election Get access Thorsten Faas, Thorsten Faas Thorsten Faas is research associate at the Chair of Political Science I, University of Mannheim. His research focuses on elections, election campaigns, and election studies. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Chris…
A Two-Stage Theory of Discussant Influence on Vote Choice in Multiparty Systems
This article addresses two aspects of social network influence on voters’ electoral choices that are not well understood: the role of party systems as institutional contexts and the relationship between social pressure and information sharing as mechanisms of influence. It argues that in the cleavage-based multiparty systems of Western Europe, discussant influence at elections occurs in two stages. First, discussants place social pressure on vote…
The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2009 German General Election
This article analyses the 2009 German federal election campaign with specific emphasis on the three categories of actors that play key roles in contemporary election campaigns – parties and their candidates, the mass media, and the voters. Mainly aiming at a theoretically informed comprehensive description, the article addresses some key themes of the recent literature on electioneering. The Bundestag election on 27 September 2009 was preceded by…
From the Living Room to the Meeting Hall? Citizens’ Political Talk in the Deliberative System
Focusing on ordinary people’s political talk the paper contributes to the study of deliberative democracy from a systemic perspective. By examining citizens’ everyday communication, it focuses on an object that is rarely studied from a deliberative perspective, but crucial for the deliberative system’s democratic character. By investigating the couplings between different arenas of political talk between citizens, ranging from informal private, s…
The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2005 German General Election
The 2005 election was preceded by one of the most intense and turbulent campaigns in recent German political history. This article describes the main parties' campaign strategies. According to opinion polls published prior to the election, a victory of the oppositional CDU/CSU and FDP seemed to be a foregone conclusion for much of the campaign. The SPD was forced to fight a political battle on two fronts – against the Christian Democrats and Libe…
Still the same with a new name? Bündnis 90/Die Grünen after the fusion
More than two years after German unification, the Greens finally created a joint party organisation with their ally in the east, Bündnis 90. This article analyses the most important junctures on the path towards the new party, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, and defines its most important organisational, ideological and social characteristics. The Achilles heel of the new party, which is more moderate than the Greens of the 1980s, remains their lack of a …
Comparative Corrective Action
The corrective action hypothesis predicts that people will take political action in response to media content they perceive to be biased against them, and evidence has accumulated in favor of it. However, research has not yet investigated the hypothesis in comparative context. This study fills that gap in the literature, relying on the Comparative National Election Project (N = 23,527), and analyzing data from 17 countries. Results show evidence …
A myth institutionalized
Do people like to discuss politics? A study of citizens’ political talk culture
As deliberative democracy is gaining practical momentum, the question arises whether citizens’ attitudes toward everyday political talk are congruent with this ‘talk-centric’ vision of democratic governance. Drawing on a unique survey we examine how German citizens view the practice of discussing politics in everyday life, and what determines these attitudes. We find that only a minority appreciates talking about politics. To explain these views,…
Struggling up the hill
This paper examines the effects of three main forms of campaign communication on voter turnout in the 2013 German Federal Election – party contact, the news media’s political coverage and everyday political discussions. Our study is innovative in that it uses panel data to reduce the problems of endogeneity and examines the impact of each information source controlling for the other two. The results show that media exposure via broadsheet newspap…
Short-term factors versus long-term values
Intermediation Environments of West German and East German Voters
The networks of interpersonal communication and the system of mass communication can be seen as intermediation environments that provide individual voters with links to the distant world of politics. This paper argues that, in order to gain an adequate impression of voters' relevant communication relationships during election campaigns, both intermediation environments must be studied simultaneously. Taking the example of the first all-German gen…
Prerequisites of deliberative democracy
Departing from a systemic perspective, the paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of ordinary citizens’ everyday political talk from a deliberative democratic point of view. Drawing on unique survey data collected in Germany it examines three prerequisites of deliberative democracy as a model of democracy that is rooted in political discussions among the citizenry at large: (1) The prerequisite of inclusivity expects citizens’ engagem…
Bad News
Successful consolidation of new democracies involves not only implementation of a new constitution and democratic procedures of decision making. Rather, the viability of democracy is equally dependent on the emergence of a civic culture that is supportive of the new political order. Without active citizens the majority of whom believe that democracy is the best way to govern the country, the survival of new democracies is seriously at risk (Linz …
A myth institutionalized
Intermediation Environments of West German and East German Voters
The networks of interpersonal communication and the system of mass communication can be seen as intermediation environments that provide individual voters with links to the distant world of politics. This paper argues that, in order to gain an adequate impression of voters' relevant communication relationships during election campaigns, both intermediation environments must be studied simultaneously. Taking the example of the first all-German gen…
Still the same with a new name? Bündnis 90/Die Grünen after the fusion
More than two years after German unification, the Greens finally created a joint party organisation with their ally in the east, Bündnis 90. This article analyses the most important junctures on the path towards the new party, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, and defines its most important organisational, ideological and social characteristics. The Achilles heel of the new party, which is more moderate than the Greens of the 1980s, remains their lack of a …
Mass Media, the Electorate, and the Bandwagon. A Study of Communication Effects on Vote Choice in Germany
The paper addresses two propositions: (1) that by publishing news stories about the electoral strength of parties or candidates, the mass media contribute to shaping the voters' expectations about the likely outcome of an upcoming election; (2) that these expectations in turn stimulate a bandwagon effect, i.e. they influence vote choice to the advantage of the apparent future winner of the election. Analyzing media content and survey data gathere…
Politische Kommunikation und Wählerverhalten
Bad News
Successful consolidation of new democracies involves not only implementation of a new constitution and democratic procedures of decision making. Rather, the viability of democracy is equally dependent on the emergence of a civic culture that is supportive of the new political order. Without active citizens the majority of whom believe that democracy is the best way to govern the country, the survival of new democracies is seriously at risk (Linz …
Trust in Democratic Institutions in Germany
2002). Trust in Democratic Institutions in Germany: Theory and Evidence Ten Years After Unification. German Politics: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 35-58
Mass Communication, Personal Communication and Vote Choice
In recent years, both mass communication and personal communication have attracted increased interest as sources of persuasive information which influence individual voting decisions. However, few efforts have so far been made to investigate how mass communication and personal communication interact with regard to electoral decision making. Katz and Lazarsfeld's ‘filter hypothesis’ maintains that personal communication mediates the influence of m…
Werner Wirth / Edmund Lauf / Andreas Fahr (Hrsg.)
M&K Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft , Seite 134 - 135
The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2005 German General Election
The 2005 election was preceded by one of the most intense and turbulent campaigns in recent German political history. This article describes the main parties' campaign strategies. According to opinion polls published prior to the election, a victory of the oppositional CDU/CSU and FDP seemed to be a foregone conclusion for much of the campaign. The SPD was forced to fight a political battle on two fronts – against the Christian Democrats and Libe…
Shaky attachments
Individual voters’ identification with a political party is believed to be a highly stable core of the political personality, and an ‘unmoved mover’ of political behaviour. In this article, the authors take advantage of a unique longitudinal database – the German Socio‐Economic Panel (GSOEP) – to test the basic premise of partisanship's high persistence. Analysing individual‐level data from 18 annual panel waves conducted in West Germany between …
Manfred Güllner, Hermann Dülmer, Markus Klein, Dieter Ohr, Markus Quandt, Ulrich Rosar und Hans-Dieter Klingemann
Paul F. Lazarsfeld/Bernard Berelson/Hazel Gaudet, The People’s Choice. How the Voter Makes Up his Mind in a Presidential Campaign, New York/London 1944
AuszugDie 1944 veröffentlichte, nach der Erhebungsregion oft als Erie County — Studie bezeichnete Untersuchung ist die erste der beiden bahnbrechenden Wahlanalysen der Columbia-Schule der Wahl-, Einstellungs- und Kommunikationsforschung. Zehn Jahre später folgte die so genannte Elmira-Studie (). Beide Projekte wurden durchgeführt am Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) der New Yorker Columbia University unter der Leitung von Paul Felix Lazars…
Polls that Mattered
Journal Article Polls that Mattered: Effects of Media Polls on Voters' Coalition Expectations and Party Preferences in the 2005 German Parliamentary Election Get access Thorsten Faas, Thorsten Faas Thorsten Faas is research associate at the Chair of Political Science I, University of Mannheim. His research focuses on elections, election campaigns, and election studies. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Chris…
New democracies without citizens?
Social networks and mass media as mobilizers and demobilizers
The Campaign and its Dynamics at the 2009 German General Election
This article analyses the 2009 German federal election campaign with specific emphasis on the three categories of actors that play key roles in contemporary election campaigns – parties and their candidates, the mass media, and the voters. Mainly aiming at a theoretically informed comprehensive description, the article addresses some key themes of the recent literature on electioneering. The Bundestag election on 27 September 2009 was preceded by…
Why Voters Decide Late
Against the background of a substantial rise of the number of late-deciding voters at recent elections the paper simultaneously tests four complementary hypotheses on the background of contemporary electors' timing of decision making. The traditional floating voter hypothesis fares best in this analysis: lacking partisan predispositions and a general detachment from politics appear as the main reasons why people take longer to make up their minds…
Short-term factors versus long-term values
Politische Kommunikation und Wählerverhalten
Sozialer und Politischer Wandel in Deutschland
Seeking the Soul of Democracy
This article provides a review of extant empirical research on ordinary citizens' everyday political communication, its phenomenology, determinants, consequences, and relevance for democratic politics. It highlights the recent upsurge in interest in the study of political conversations against the background of both classic and more recent developments in democratic theory and empirical research that served as intellectual inspirations. The artic…
Data Bases and Statistical Systems
Media and campaign effects on vote choice at national elections in Europe
This article reviews the empirical research literature on campaign and media effects on vote choice at national elections in European countries for the post-World War II period. Particular efforts are undertaken to obtain a comprehensive picture by including publications in many different languages. With regard to the amount of research, but also the topics addressed, the survey reveals considerable differences between countries. Studies of campa…
Struggling up the hill
This paper examines the effects of three main forms of campaign communication on voter turnout in the 2013 German Federal Election – party contact, the news media’s political coverage and everyday political discussions. Our study is innovative in that it uses panel data to reduce the problems of endogeneity and examines the impact of each information source controlling for the other two. The results show that media exposure via broadsheet newspap…
Political science (35 works) · Politics (28 works) · Law (26 works) · Law (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (20 works) · Social Media and Politics (20 works) · Political economy (18 works) · German (15 works) · Economics (12 works)