Political Attitudes

“From the outside the field of political science or studies seems left behind in terms of time, techniques and issues addressed. This book brings together, for the first time, the various strands that together might make up a new direction for the field - that of using computational approaches to understand how political attitudes, beliefs and thinking might result in the macro political outcomes reported in the press and media. There have been some brave researchers who have attempted to introduce computer models in the field, but they have been widely scattered and largely ignored. By bringing together all these approaches within a coherent framework the author shows how much work has been done and its future potential. But she also places these within a systematic framework showing how they might relate. The coverage of this book is astounding, covering history, theoretical bases, cognitive perspective, computational details and all the main approaches that have been developed. This makes the book a valuable reference work, enabling researchers to see the power of the approach and giving them a solid foundation from which to develop future work. “ Dr. Bruce Edmonds, Research Professor, Director of the Centre for Policy ModellingManchester Metropolitan University Business School

Camelia Florela Voinea, Department of Political Science, International Relations and Security Studies, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania