Acknowledgments

number of people provided invaluable feedback and advice as I Acompleted this project. First, I thank David Campbell. His comments at the Harvard University Political Psychology and Behavior Workshop led me to design the study presented in this book. I am also indebted to the members of my dissertation committee for their guidance and training: Barry Burden, Theda Skocpol, and Sidney Verba. My sincere thanks go to the many friends, colleagues, anonymous referees, and conference participants who have commented on this project. I specifically thank Ben Bishin (who put me in contact with Temple University Press), Merike Blofield, Louise Davidson-Schmich, Jeff Drope, Bob Huckfeldt, Kosuke Imai, Gary King, Lisa Klein, Scott McClurg, David Nickerson, Meredith Rolfe, Tony Smith, Hillel Soifer, Anand Sokhey, John Stevenson, Laura Stoker, Elizabeth Stuart, and Kathy Walsh. I also am very grateful to Mary Rouse, former dean of students and former head of the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for her insight and encouragement. Finally, I will always be indebted to Mike Fischer, Jack Dennis, and the University of Wisconsin Survey

Center for giving me my start in this field.

A number of agencies supplied monetary and research support for this project. I am deeply indebted to the University of Wisconsin Survey Center for administering the studies presented in this book. Grants from the American National Election Studies, the Harvard University Center for

xii	Acknowledgments

American Political Studies, and the University of Miami helped to defray the cost of this research. I am also indebted to the National Science Foundation, the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies, the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the University of Miami for financial support through various fellowships and awards.

My thanks go to Louis Menand for permission to reprint a portion of his article “The Unpolitical Animal,” which appeared in the August 30, 2004, edition of the New Yorker (published by Condé Nast). I am also grateful to the following journals for permission to reprint previously published material: Social Forces (with permission from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) for Casey A. Klofstad, “The Lasting Effect of Civic Talk on Civic Participation: Evidence from a Panel Study,” vol. 88 (2010): 2353–2375; Public Opinion Quarterly (with permission from Oxford University Press) for Casey A. Klofstad, Scott McClurg, and Meredith Rolfe, “Measurement of Political Discussion Networks: A Comparison of Two ‘Name Generator’ Procedures,” vol. 73 (2009): 462–483; American Politics Research (with permission from Sage Publications) for Casey A. Klofstad, “Civic Talk and Civic Participation: The Moderating Effect of Individual Predispositions,” vol. 37 (2009): 856–878; and Political Research Quarterly (with permission from Sage Publications) for Casey A. Klofstad, “Talk Leads to Recruitment: How Discussions about Politics and Current Events Increase Civic Participation,” vol. 60 (2007): 180–191.

Finally, my sincere thanks go to the 2003–2004 and 2007–2008 firstyear undergraduate classes of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as well as to my editor, Alex Holzman, and the rest of the staff at Temple University Press. Without their help, this book would not have been possible.

Civic Talk