Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2010

Abstract

What are election campaigns for? Not much, according to Professor James A. Gardner – or, at least, not nearly as much as the critics of American election campaigns would have us believe. In his new book, What Are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics, Professor Gardner contends that instead of serving as settings for extended discussion or in depth reflection concerning political beliefs, the ideal election campaign does little more than make it more likely that the voter will cast a ballot consistent with the beliefs that he or she held before the start of the campaign. Nor, to turn to the subtitle of Professor Gardner’s book, is there much role for persuasion in electoral politics. “[V]oters are not persuaded during a campaign to embrace, or even in most cases to contemplate, ideas that are unfamiliar or that challenge their existing beliefs.” Instead of a forum for debate and persuasion, a campaign is really just an exercise in, to use his words, “tabulation,” that is, “counting heads.”

Disciplines

Election Law | Law

Included in

Election Law Commons

Share

COinS