Critical Citizens Revisited (CCR) by Pippa Norris Is a Timely and Important Volume That

Critical Citizens Revisited (CCR) by Pippa Norris is a timely and important volume that will be an important contribution to the field. In each chapter, this well written study takes a more nuanced approach than previous research to address fundamental questions about the sources of growing distrust for politicians and government institutions. This trend is nevertheless accompanied by continuing support for democratic ideals and the book names these competing trends as the critical citizen syndrome. CCR begins with a diagnostic approach to examine the nature of the trend, to establish if it exists in countries around the world and among which demographic groups. The book then moves to identify the sources of influence on public disillusion. The study provides important and unprecedented insights into the trends and the nature of the syndrome in emerging democracies and developing countries.

I strongly recommend publication. The book goes beyond what is currently available to test theoretical explanations about what shapes political trust in new ways by relying on cross-national comparative and time-series data from the World Values Survey. The book also integrates data on government performance and on media performance into multilevel models to assess their influence on political trust. This combination of cross- national comparative focus with data at the individual-level, organizational-level (news reporting), and societal level (government quality indicators) is powerful. The length of the book is reasonable, as the choice, order and weighting of chapters.

The book should have a wide audience, ranging from students and scholars in various fields to journalists and policymakers.

The proposal thoroughly addresses the field of ‘competing’ publications. There actually is no book that competes with this study given the multiple and innovative approaches taken on comparing this phenomenon across nations. The author is a well known scholar whose work is widely cited. This clear and concise volume will be a most welcome follow-up to her earlier edited volume published in 1999 entitled Critical Citizens, which is widely cited.