Just received in the mail: the newest addition to the Routledge Approaches to History series, on information and power in history, the remainder of a fruitful conference held in Amsterdam three years ago and the result of a hard-working editorial team.

With Wim de Jong, I have written a contribution on the role Dutch electoral researchers have played in politics and media: ‘Electoral research, pollsters, and the performative power of information about the “public”: The Netherlands and the transatlantic connection (1945–1990)’ We show that these experts cannot be ignored as important actors in history. They mediate public opinion, providing frames and concepts for the public to interpret political and social reality. They make the faceless mass readable and transparent for political and media elites. Politicians base strategies on this information, and journalists use it to grasp the relationship between politics and the electorate.

Click here if you want to know more about our contribution.