Information and Democracy: Public Policy in the News. By Stuart N. Soroka and Christopher Wlezien. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 300p. $99.99 cloth. $34.99 paper.

known place where rehearsing one’s identity and communication was possible without the scrutiny or pressure of frontstage performance” (p. 150). Gradually, about half its members gained enough confidence and taste for politics to move frontstage by coming out as Democratic activists. They described it as an empowering liberation similar to that experienced by other oppressed groups. One even later ran for city council. In this respect the CWG served as an underground Democratic Party, funneling new activists from its private underground into the official, public-facing party. This new democratic life, Van Duyn believes, had real effects beyond the activists themselves. Although the evidence is only suggestive, she notes that the Texas county enjoyed “steady growth” in turnout and registered voters (p. 165). These metrics both increased after CWG formed and did so at a faster rate than in an adjacent rural county. Thus, the local Democratic Party, which had been previously moribund, seems to have been revitalized by CWG. One party regular even “said that CWG was the party’s ‘secret weapon’” (p. 140). For this reason, Van Duyn argues that our political parties should consider developing a secret wing. As she concludes, “Reaching members who are a political minority in their community will require a hybridity for political parties” (pp. 208–9). That would be an interesting reminder of how polarization has turned the political tables upside down. In midcentury America, during the height of our national consensus, the Communist Party USA had a secret wing. Now, it seems, the mainstream parties need to follow the communists’ example to protect the moderates who once constituted a vital center. Like any good book, Democracy Lives in Darkness left me wanting more at times. For example, Van Duyn observes local meetings but not CWG activists out in the community, practicing their new civil skills. Relatedly, one never gets a very textured feel for the county itself, except insofar as it is filtered through reports from CWG members. In these ways Van Duyn never seems to leave the shadowy world of her subjects, even when they themselves ultimately venture out. Theoretically, the book also might have saidmore about the larger relationship between secrecy or “darkness” and democratic ideals, especially given the American populist and Progressive legacy that too easily celebrates transparency and openness. After all, the decline of secret “smokefilled rooms” delivered us presidents like Donald Trump, and some contend that sunshine laws increased extremism in Congress. To her credit, however, Van Duyn is also a careful writer, reluctant to theorize too far beyond her evidence. But even if these are shortcomings, they point to one of the book’s strengths. In opening up an interesting world, it is natural that it leaves readers wanting to learn even more about it. More generally, Van Duyn’s book highlights the need for more ethnographic research in American political science. How are we going to understand the evolution of secret organizations like the CWG if political scientists do not spend time immersing themselves within them and observing them? Duyn shows the power of participant observation to reveal what other methods cannot. More importantly, VanDuyn’s book compels readers to rethink the relationship between “darkness” and democracy—and it invites everyone to think in new, concrete ways about howwemightmitigate the effects of coarsening polarization. As the book rightly insists, “People keep democracy going not just despite darkness, but because of it” (p. 4). This is particularly so when there is light at the end of the tunnel, as there was in CWG’s case.