In Defense of Pluralism

Éric Montpetit is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. He is the author of Misplaced Distrust: Policy Networks and the Environment in France, the United States and Canada, which won the American Political Science Association's Lynton Keith Caldwell Prize for the best book on environmental politics and policy in 2006. He has published work in the Policy Studies Journal, Comparative Political Studies, Environmental Politics, Policy Sciences, Governance, the Journal of European Public Policy, the Journal of Public Policy, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Public Administration, World Politics and Political Studies.

• 1. Introduction: shouts, shoes, and insults; 2. Disagreement and tone in the media; 3. Frames, metaphors and disagreement in the media; 4. Measuring disagreement among policy actors; 5. Do contentious actors stall policy?; 6. Who disagrees with whom and why?; 7. Appreciating the pluralist politics of policy-making; Appendix.

'Politics, and especially the interest-group struggle, gets a bad rap. In this spirited defense of democratic, pluralist politics, Éric Montpetit compares the practice of politics with what the media says about that process in biotechnology policy. He finds serious distortions in media depictions that, he argues, need redressing. Montpetit's defense is straightforward, solidly empirical, and his case is well-made. The book is a must-read for policy scholars, students in public policy courses, journalists covering politics, and policy activists. It is a needed bromide for today's overly cynical view of the democratic political process.' Bryan D. Jones, University of Texas, Austin