Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics [Paperback]

James A. Stimson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 13, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0521601177 | ISBN-13: 978-0521601177

Tracking trends in American public opinion, this study examines moods of public policy over time. James Stimson looks at shorter term movements as the public approves or disapproves politicians, trusts or distrusts government. His book is distinctive in that it focuses on determining the unobserved true opinion that lies beneath superficial polls. It argues that public opinion is decisive in American politics and identifies the citizens who produce influential change as a relatively small subset of the American electorate.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Stimson deftly interprets mathematical analysis of large quantities of public answers to survey questions. Highly recommended." CHOICE June 2005

"The book is well written and a rare example of successful integration of state-of-the-art research and passing on knowledge to a wider audience...the book could be used as a benchmark for comparative research exploring the evolution in public opinion and the effects of campaigns and debates in other institutional settings...an excellent book, which deserves to be widely read." Political Studies Review

"...scholars and their students will find much to appreciate as well in this clearly written and engaging book, filled with interesting time series data and colorful examples about politicians and campaigns we all remember...Stimson believes that the most important thing in American politics is public opinion but says we have only 'scratched the surface' in understanding opinion movement (p. xvi). His work has done much more than scratch the surface, and in Tides of Consent, he accomplishes his goal of making his research accessible to a broader audience than he has reached before." Political Science Quarterly, Fay Lomax Cook, Northwestern University

"This is excellent work by a scholar who is, by all measures, top in his field. Stimson writes about the single most important element in American politics: public opinion. He traces movement in public opinion over time and shows that it moves politics." Janet Box-Steffensmeier, Ohio State University

"Tides of Consent is an ambitious attempt to integrate the findings of a half-century of public opinion research in an effort to draw convincing conclusions about the political implications and electoral consequences of public opinion. Too often public opinion is presented as filler, a spot on the evening news when nothing else is available.Rarely do we look at public opinion in its contemporary context and almost never do we attempt to understand its significance over the long haul. In this book, Stimson offers us new insights into public preferences and understanding of the links between public preferences and public policy that are often lost in coverage of the daily news or the political campaign." John McIver, University of Colorado

"James Stimson has written a very important - and very readable - book. In a world of erratic sound bites, Stimson's analysis provides the underlying coherence of a symphony. Anyone who wishes to better understand the ebb and flow of American politics should read Tides of Consent"' Richard J. Tofel, Newspaper Executive

"Tides of Consent is an excellent work. This book could be used as a textbook in an undergraduate course on public opinion, and it also makes a very good starting point for a graduate seminar on the same topic. Finally, it is simply interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable reading material that I would recommend to any political scientist."
Perspectives on Politics

"James A. Stimson has written another important book on American public opinion, this time geared to show a general audience how one fundamental aspect of 'democracy' works: that public opinion, contrary to its critics, looks sensibe and 'citizens succeed in communicating their preferences to government'" - Robert Y. Shapiro, Columbia University

Book Description

This book tracks movement in American public opinion. It examines moods for public policy that cycle over decades. It looks at shorter term movements as the public approves or disapproves politicians, trusts or distrusts government. It is distinctive in that it focuses always on locating the unobserved true opinion that lies beneath, turning away from the superficial polls by which we come to know the real thing. It argues that public opinion is decisive in American politics and it locates the citizens who produce this influential change as a quite small subset of the American electorate.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521601177
• ISBN-13: 978-0521601177
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging Deep Analysis Going to the heart of Democracy November 5, 2008

By Mark Early

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I read political/social theory as a hobby and try to be helpful by passing on useful kernels to a few close friends who are local elected officials. "Tides of Consent", "Doing Democracy" (by Bill Moyer, not the PBS fellow) and "The Logic of Collective Action - Public Goods and the Theory of Groups" (by Mancur Olson) are right at the top of my current list of recommended must read titles. The breadth of insight distilled by the long career of James Stimson is not to be missed. Many thanks to his pioneering work.

5.0 out of 5 stars Who Really Drives? October 24, 2012

By The Ancient Simplicity

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James Stimson is certain that the "drive wheel" of American politics is public opinion change. Politicians know they can ignore public opinion because the public rarely cares enough to act on its concerns. But the movement of public opinion is another matter, it changes only when people care. Politicians who do not pay attention to this will be swamped, for these movements of public opinion, in Stimson's metaphor, are like the tides, and cannot be halted. The public, therefore, really does govern.

There is a remarkable phenomenon how public opinion moves over time. It is well-demonstrated that when a Republican occupies the White House public opinion grows more liberal and when a Democrat is in charge public opinion moves more conservative. There are a number of possible ways to explain this phenomena.

Stimson's way is to argue that the bulk of the American public is moderate relative to the two political parties. He writes, "think about what the public wants and what it gets from government. It wants middle of the road but has to choose in elections between a party of the right and a party of the left. Thus it is not a coincidence that it is on average dissatisfied by what it gets."

The case Stimson makes depends partly on the fact that great movements to the left or right only take a change by a small number of people. To see who these people are he segments citizens into three categories: (1) The ideologically committed, whose ranks include the best informed and most politically involved; the most important fact, for our purposes, about the committed is they rarely switch sides; (2) The scorekeepers, these tend to be non-ideological pragmatists who do not see politics as a contest of worldviews but are focused predominately on outcomes; (3) The uninvolved, these tend to lack interest in politics and mostly do not pay attention; Stimson writes, that since "they are inattentive...the movements of the uninvolved have a random character."

Given the above, to understand political change we need to understand what moves scorekeepers. Scorekeepers are not focused on the specifics of what government is doing but mainly how things are going. Thus they are going to change with the times, that is, when times are good, as measured by things such as peace and prosperity, they stick with the in-party and vice versa.

The scorekeepers "are committed to nothing but good outcomes...their natural response to policy excess is to reverse direction." Unless I misunderstand there is an unstated assumption, in Stimson, that "policy excess" leads to bad outcomes.

One counter-intuitive implication of Stimson's ideas is that the great movements to the left or the right are "produced not by true ideologues...but by people who judge policy by its effects, not its logic."

My main caveat is a conventional one: the model gives scorekeepers too much credit for being able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Given that outcomes are bound up with contingency, Napoleon had the right idea, to paraphrase, "give me lucky politicians." But, all-in-all, the book is clearly written with interesting data and ideas on nearly every page, highest rating.

5.0 out of 5 stars For a dull topic, its pretty well written June 25, 2012

By Andrew

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book was actually assigned to me by the author, my professor of Political Science at UNC Chapel Hill, James Stimson. Its not the most interesting topic and is very dense, but its also very well written in as entertaining a manner as you can manage when talking about voter politics.