Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process / Edition 1

by Susan Herbst

Overview

Public opinion is one of the most elusive and complex concepts in democratic theory, and we do not fully understand its role in the political process. Reading Public Opinion offers one provocative approach for understanding how public opinion fits into the empirical world of politics. In fact, Susan Herbst finds that public opinion, surprisingly, has little to do with the mass public in many instances.

Herbst draws on ideas from political science, sociology, and psychology to explore how three sets of political participants—legislative staffers, political activists, and journalists—actually evaluate and assess public opinion. She concludes that many political actors reject "the voice of the people" as uninformed and nebulous, relying instead on interest groups and the media for representations of public opinion. Her important and original book forces us to rethink our assumptions about the meaning and place of public opinion in the realm of contemporary democratic politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226327471
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	10/11/1998
Series:	Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion
Edition description:	1
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Susan Herbst is university professor of political science and president emeritus at the University of Connecticut. She is author of many books and articles including Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in America. She is coeditor of the Studies in American Politics series, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: The "Construction" of Public Opinion: Looking to Lay Theory
2: Policy Experts Think about Public Opinion, Media, and Legislative Process
3: Journalistic Views of Public Opinion
4: Conceptions of Public Opinion and Representation among Partisan Activists
5: Meanings of Public Opinion: Lay Theory Meets Democratic Theory
App. A: Notes on Interviews and Building Grounded Theory
App. B: Interview Protocols
App. C: Survey Form
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Lawrence R. Jacobs

Susan Herbst has produced a fascinating study of the conflicting meanings and place that political actors and journalists assign citizens, and she demonstrates that the lively debate over democratic governance within the academy today is more than matched within the political establishment. -- University of Minnesota

Editorial Reviews

Herbst (political science and communications, Northwestern U.) draws on ideas from political science, sociology, and psychology to explore how legislative staffers, political activists, and journalists evaluate and assess public opinion. She concludes that many political actors rely on interest groups and the media for representations of public opinion. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews