Chapter 6 Further Reading

Foundational Texts

1. Converse, Philip E. "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics." In Ideology and Discontent, edited by David Apter, 206-261. New York: Free Press, 1964.

The foundational and still-controversial article in the field. Converse's empirical evidence for non-attitudes and the absence of ideological constraint in mass publics remains among the most influential findings in political science. Reading the original — rather than summaries — reveals the sophistication of his argument and the specific nature of his evidence. Start here if you want to engage seriously with debates about citizen competence and democratic theory.

2. Zaller, John R. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

The single most important theoretical framework in contemporary public opinion research. Chapters 2-4 (the RAS model) and Chapter 8 (the mainstream effect) are essential reading. Zaller writes clearly for a political science audience, and his empirical applications of the model to Vietnam War opinion, racial policy, and economic assessments demonstrate the framework's power. Somewhat technical in places, but accessible to motivated undergraduates.

3. Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922. (Many modern reprints available.)

Still fresh after a century. Lippmann's diagnosis of the pseudo-environment, stereotypes, and the manufactured nature of public opinion reads as remarkably contemporary in the age of social media. Chapters 1-3 and 15-27 are most directly relevant to this chapter's themes. Lippmann's skepticism about the rationality of public opinion should be read alongside his later, more hopeful The Phantom Public (1925) for a complete picture.

The Converse Debates

4. Stimson, James A. Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.

Stimson's "mood" concept shows that even if individual-level opinions are unstable (as Converse argued), aggregate opinion can be surprisingly coherent and responsive to policy and political change. An important corrective to overly pessimistic readings of Converse: the public may be more rational at the aggregate level than at the individual level.

5. Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

A controversial but rigorous challenge to the "folk theory" of democracy — the idea that citizens form coherent preferences and elections translate them into policy. Chapters 2 and 3 extend Converse's argument and integrate it with evidence about voter behavior. Essential for understanding the democratic stakes of non-attitudes research. Debates this book has generated are worth following in political science journals.

The Thermostatic Model

6. Wlezien, Christopher. "The Public as Thermostat: Dynamics of Preferences for Spending." American Journal of Political Science 39, no. 4 (1995): 981-1000.

The original and most cited presentation of the thermostatic model. Wlezien tests the hypothesis that public spending preferences react against actual spending levels across multiple policy domains. Clear empirical analysis, accessible methods. The core article for understanding how opinion and policy interact dynamically.

Social Influences on Opinion Expression

7. Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth. The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion — Our Social Skin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Noelle-Neumann's full presentation of her spiral of silence theory. She draws on both empirical studies and broader social theory to argue that fear of social isolation drives conformity in public opinion expression. The theory is provocative and its empirical status remains debated; reading the original gives you the full argument rather than a second-hand summary. Particularly relevant for understanding polling in politically polarized environments.

8. Berinsky, Adam J. In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Berinsky's empirical work on how elite polarization structures mass opinion, and how non-attitudes manifest in wartime contexts. Particularly strong on how the structure of elite debate — when both parties agree vs. when they disagree — shapes the range of opinion visible in surveys. Readable and empirically rich.

Measurement and Construction

9. Zaller, John, and Stanley Feldman. "A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences." American Journal of Political Science 36, no. 3 (1992): 579-616.

A more technical but highly influential paper that directly addresses the question of what survey responses measure. Zaller and Feldman model the survey response as a sampling process and derive predictions about the distribution of responses that the data confirm. Essential for anyone who wants to think carefully about the measurement implications of the RAS model.

10. Broockman, David, and Daniel Butler. "The Causal Effects of Elite Position-Taking on Voter Attitudes: Field Experiments with Elite Communication." American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 1 (2017): 208-221.

An experimental study that directly tests the RAS model's prediction that elite cues drive opinion change. Broockman and Butler work with state legislators to vary their expressed positions and measure downstream effects on constituent opinion. One of the cleanest causal tests of elite cueing available. Illustrates how scholars use experiments to test claims that Zaller tested with observational data.

11. Kull, Steven, Clay Ramsay, and Evan Lewis. "Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War." Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 4 (2003-2004): 569-598.

A case study in non-attitudes and opinion formation: the finding that many Americans who supported the Iraq War held factually incorrect beliefs about WMD, the Iraq-9/11 link, and world opinion. A vivid illustration of Lippmann's pseudo-environment and the role of misinformation in shaping opinion. The methodological approach — testing factual accuracy alongside opinion questions — is a model for measuring the informational basis of expressed opinions.

12. Stimson, James A. Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

A more accessible companion to Stimson's technical work on policy mood. Stimson argues that aggregate public opinion moves as a coherent signal that influences policy — a more optimistic reading of democratic responsiveness than Achen and Bartels. Reading both Stimson and Achen/Bartels together gives you the major sides of the ongoing debate about whether public opinion matters and whether it is coherent.