Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics

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.

This is a well written book, accessible to the well read layperson. Stimson does a fine job of laying out the thesis that he has elaborated upon in more academic research. On page xvi, he lays out the central theme of this work: "Tracing movements and showing conseuences is the central theme of this book. It claims that change over time is what moves politics. Its design is to look at change over time in many different facets of public preferences, behavior, and response." One disclosure that I probably ought to make: Jim Stimson was one of my professors in graduate school at the State University of New York at Buffalo (as it was then called), and his work and passion for the study of politics is something that has stuck with me over time. In some senses, the culminatuion of this volume begins in chapter 3. Here, Stimson notes the evolution of policy preferences over time. His data analysis clearly suggests oscillations in Americans' political preferences (liberal to conservative as one of the examples) over time (from 1960 to 2000). In Chapter 4, he examines a sampling of presidential elections and asks what they meant (if anything). He also inquires into the effects of presidential debates. Chapter 5 looks at public opinion regarding government between elections. Much data are presented in an accessible and illuminating manner. In the end, he contends (page 171), ". . .citzens--in the aggregate and at the margin--do succeed in communicatinjg their preferences to government." This should be considered in terms of a conclusion that he and colleagues made in another work, "The Macro Polity," that government in the United States does respond to public opinion. All in all, a good work for well informed laypersons. . . .