Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

The Dynamics of Public Opinion, EPUB eBook

EPUB

Please note: eBooks can only be purchased with a UK issued credit card and all our eBooks (ePub and PDF) are DRM protected.

Description

A central question in political representation is whether government responds to the people.

To understand that, we need to know what the government is doing, and what the people think of it.

We seek to understand a key question necessary to answer those bigger questions: How does American public opinion move over time?

We posit three patterns of change over time in public opinion, depending on the type of issue.

Issues on which the two parties regularly disagree provide clear partisan cues to the public.

For these party-cue issues we present a slight variation on the thermostatic theory from (Soroka and Wlezien (2010); Wlezien (1995)); our "implied thermostatic model." A smaller number of issues divide the public along lines unrelated to partisanship, and so partisan control of government provides no relevant clue.

Finally, we note a small but important class of issues which capture response to cultural shifts.

Information

Information