University of Michigan Press Electoral Democracy

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Electoral DemocracyTHE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESSCopyright © 2003University of MichiganAll right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-472-09820-0ContentsPreface.........................................................................................................................................................viiIntroduction Michael B. MacKuen and George Rabinowitz..........................................................................................................11 Belief Systems after Converse Donald R. Kinder...............................................................................................................132 Democracy with Attitudes Larry M. Bartel.....................................................................................................................483 The Political Psychology of Party Identification Herbert F. Weisberg and Steven H. Greene....................................................................834 Process Matters: Cognitive Models of Candidate Evaluation Marco R. Steenbergen and Milton Lodge..............................................................1255 Policy Issues and Electoral Democracy Stuart Elaine Macdonald, George Rabinowitz, and Holly Brasher..........................................................1727 The Heavenly Public: What Would a Fully Informed Citizenry Be Like? Robert C. Luskin.........................................................................2388 The Nature of Belief in a Mass Public Michael W. Traugott....................................................................................................2629 Electoral Democracy during Politics as Usual—and Unusual John Aldrich..................................................................................27910 Coming to Grips with V. O. Key's Concept of Latent Opinion John Zaller......................................................................................311Contributors....................................................................................................................................................337Name Index......................................................................................................................................................339Subject Index...................................................................................................................................................347Chapter OneBelief Systems according to ConverseDonald R. Kinder The Question of Capacity Whether common people are capable of offering sensible advice on affairs of state is both an ancient and timely question, and the answers provided by thoughtful analysts have not always been friendly to democratic aspirations. Plato, to take one notable example, was sure that the citizens of Athens possessed neither the experience nor the knowledge required for sound and independent judgment. Democracy, in his view, was dangerous (The Republic, 375, 376). Closer to our own time and place we find Walter Lippmann's thoroughgoing skepticism toward democratic possibilities, expressed first in Public Opinion (1922) and then, carried out to its logical and sour conclusion a few years later, in The Phantom Public (1925). Lippmann suggested that the ordinary person who wants to be a virtuous citizen was like a fat man who wishes to become a ballet dancer (1925, 39). Or consider Schumpeter's famous assault on what he called the "classical doctrine" of democracy. In the end, Schumpeter concluded, "the electoral mass is incapable of action other than a stampede" (1942, 282). For the most part, these arguments were expressed without benefit of systematic evidence. Schumpeter was right to say that in deciding whether the conditions for democracy are met requires "laborious appraisal of a maze of conflicting evidence" (1942, 254), but he did not undertake such an analysis himself. To be fair, in Schumpeter's time, there was not all that