"I can hardly exaggerate my sense of the importance of this book’s conclusions, not only for political scientists and others concerned with understanding transitions to democracy, but for policy makers as well. Learning Democracy is strikingly original and more hopeful than most interpretations and forecasts."

Robert A. Dahl, author of On Democracy

"This path-breaking book reveals the enormous political capacity of common citizens to exercise informed democratic choices, even, or perhaps especially, in the most demanding of circumstances. The book’s findings resonate with democratic experiences not only in Latin America, but also across much of Africa."

Anne Pitcher, author of Transforming Mozambique

"Learning Democracy makes a powerful and convincing argument that the electorate in Nicaragua over the 1990-2001 period made a deliberate, reasoned choice as it confronted three different presidential elections. This is a landmark work in the area of analyzing vote choice in a Latin American democratizing context on the basis of extensive survey data."

Jonathan Hartlyn, author of The Struggle for Democratic Politics in the Dominican Republic

"This is a work that makes the reader a better political scientist, telling a fine story in the process. Steeped in the voting behavior literature as it has developed during the last half-century in the U.S., Learning Democracy also offers broader lessons having to do with how individuals struggle to make decisions when institutions are developing. A classic of how to do electoral analysis through time and polls, this book’s audience is likely to include people interested in voting behavior, democratic development, Latin American politics, and decision-making. It will serve as a model of how to do comparative research."

Bryan D. Jones, coauthor of Politics and the Architecture of Choice