Politics is a trial in which those in government - and those who aspire to serve - make proposals, debate alternatives, and pass laws. Then the jury of public opinion decides. It likes the proposals or actions or it does not. It trusts the actors or it does not. It moves, always at the margin, and then those who benefit from the movement are declared winners. This book is about that public opinion response. Its most basic premise is that although public opinion rarely matters in a democrac...

Public opinion matters. It registers itself on the public consciousness, translates into politics and policy, and impels politicians to run for office and, once elected, to serve in particular ways.This is a book about opinion?not opinions. James Stimson takes the incremental, vacillating, time-trapped data points of public opinion surveys and transforms them into a conceptualization of public mood swings that can be measured and used to predict change, not just to describe it. To do so, h...

Much of the science of public opinion focuses on individuals, asking if they perceive or misperceive and why. Often this science will emphasize misperceptions and the psychological processes that produce them. But political debates have outcomes in the aggregate. This Element turns to a more systematic approach, emphasizing whole electorates and examining facts through a dynamic lens. It argues public opinion will converge toward truth over time and frequently finds correct views of facts ...

The description for this book, Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics, will be forthcoming.

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 cue...

Public opinion in the United States contains a paradox. The American public is symbolically conservative: it cherishes the symbols of conservatism and is more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal. Yet at the same time, it is operationally liberal, wanting government to do and spend more to solve a variety of social problems. This book focuses on understanding this contradiction. It argues that both facets of public opinion are real and lasting, not artifacts of the survey con...

This study focuses on Jesus as Messiah as a beginning point for considering Matthew's perspective of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus' important teachings are explored and we find how they shape our Christian lives today. They give the churchâ€"as the community of faithâ€"directions for its mission and ministries in the world.The Six Themes Everyone Should Know series introductes biblical books and their main themes. Each volume consists of six chapters that p...

What does it mean to be an Indigenous man today? Between October 2010 and May 2013, Sam McKegney conducted interviews with leading Indigenous artists, critics, activists, and elders on the subject of Indigenous manhood. In offices, kitchens, and coffee shops, and once in a car driving down the 401, McKegney and his participants tackled crucial questions about masculine self-worth and how to foster balanced and empowered gender relations.Masculindians captures twenty of the...