- The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: The Distinctiveness and Necessity of American Political Development
- Pathways to the Present: Political Development in America
- Analyzing American Political Development as It Happens
- Political Economy and American Political Development
- Liberalism and American Political Development
- Gender and the American State
- Political Culture: Consensus, Conflict, and Culture War
- APD and Rational Choice
- Comparative Politics and American Political Development
- American Political Development and Political History
- Qualitative Methods and American Political Development
- The American State
- Congress and American Political Development
- The Presidency and American Political Development: The Advent—and Illusion—of an Executive-Centered Democracy
- Law and the Courts
- Bureaucracy and the Administrative State
- Federalism and American Political Development
- The States and American Political Development
- Cities and Urbanization in American Political Development
- Representation
- Patterns in American Elections
- How Suffrage Politics Made—and Makes—America
- Political Parties in American Political Development
- Polarization and American Political Development
- Public Opinion
- Interest Groups and American Political Development
- Social Movements and the Institutionalization of Dissent in America
- The Color Line and the State: Race and American Political Development
- The Welfare State
- The Carceral State and American Political Development
- Identity and Law in American Political Development
- Seeing Sexuality: State Development and the Fragmented Status of LGBTQ Citizenship
- The Family
- The Political Development of the Regulatory State
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Public opinion warrants increasing attention in research on American political development. It is central to the study of democratic politics, and it is involved with political processes that are sensitive to time and historical context. It can be studied using the methods of social and political historians and increasingly through data from opinion polls. Studies of democracy in action are arguably the most important, focusing on the causal relationship between public opinion and government policymaking, including the institutional processes and mechanisms that link the two. Given that public opinion can have important effects on what leaders, institutions, and governments do, it has become increasingly important to study the influences on both public opinion overall and different segments of it that might be most politically consequential. These influences include especially mass communication processes and also “policy feedback” effects on the public’s behavior broadly.
Keywords: public opinion, social history, political history, democracy, representation, survey research, leadership, mass communication, policymaking
Robert Y. Shapiro is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, and served as acting director of Columbia's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy during 2008-2009. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was a 2006-2007 Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Shapiro specializes in American politics with research and teaching interests in public opinion, policymaking, political leadership, the mass media, and applications of statistical methods.
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- The Oxford Handbook of American Political Development
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: The Distinctiveness and Necessity of American Political Development
- Pathways to the Present: Political Development in America
- Analyzing American Political Development as It Happens
- Political Economy and American Political Development
- Liberalism and American Political Development
- Gender and the American State
- Political Culture: Consensus, Conflict, and Culture War
- APD and Rational Choice
- Comparative Politics and American Political Development
- American Political Development and Political History
- Qualitative Methods and American Political Development
- The American State
- Congress and American Political Development
- The Presidency and American Political Development: The Advent—and Illusion—of an Executive-Centered Democracy
- Law and the Courts
- Bureaucracy and the Administrative State
- Federalism and American Political Development
- The States and American Political Development
- Cities and Urbanization in American Political Development
- Representation
- Patterns in American Elections
- How Suffrage Politics Made—and Makes—America
- Political Parties in American Political Development
- Polarization and American Political Development
- Public Opinion
- Interest Groups and American Political Development
- Social Movements and the Institutionalization of Dissent in America
- The Color Line and the State: Race and American Political Development
- The Welfare State
- The Carceral State and American Political Development
- Identity and Law in American Political Development
- Seeing Sexuality: State Development and the Fragmented Status of LGBTQ Citizenship
- The Family
- The Political Development of the Regulatory State
- Index
