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Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology
The Macro Polity
The Macro Polity provides the first comprehensive model of American politics at the system level. Focusing on the interactions between citizen evaluations and preferences, government activity and policy, and how the combined acts of citizens and governments influence one another over time, it integrates understandings of matters such as economic outcomes, presidential approval, partisanship, elections, and government policy-making into a single model. The book's macro and longitudinal focus makes it possible to directly connect the behaviors of electorate and government.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 2001
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February 1, 2023They lost me in the final chapter, and I'm still unsure how the variables avoid collinearity. The variables all interlink, and each has sub-variables influencing them. It manages to operationalize a logical assumption, and the model itself is interesting.
October 2, 2024
Are they right though?
...............
the wild Amazone
Questionable Theories and Poor Writing
The underlying determinations of The Macro Polity have faced significant criticisms.
[Consider Paul Burstein - Why Estimates of the Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy are Too High: Empirical and Theoretical Implications. - Social Forces 84, No. 4 (2006): 2273-2289.]
[Also Achen and Bartels in Democracy for Realists.]
More importantly however, this book is so poorly organized that even a highly educated reader will struggle to pull out the main points. While I disagree with those that would remove the statistics and methodology, this appeared to be a book of essays, prepared for highly quantitative audiences, with limited efforts toward clarity and concrete conclusions up front.
js
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Strong Premise Sunk By Tedious Presentation
This is a book that deserves to be influential in the field of political science, for both good and bad reasons. The theories presented here deal with macro-level or system-wide trends in American political behavior.
If the authors can be believed, there was little previous work done in this area. Instead, political science focused on the behavior of individuals and then tried to aggregate the resulting data into system-wide theories.
The evidence indicates that the behavior of the public is not always "the sum of the parts" and there are specific phenomena at play that influence the larger electorate, at the system level. The authors have conducted an impressive amount of research, which probably took years, including macro-level data about voting patterns, partisanship, ideological trends, presidential approval, and public opinion.
Their conclusions about the existence of macro-level phenomena are generally believable and supported by the evidence, and their work will probably prove to be groundbreaking in the field.
On the other hand, this book embodies everything that is wrong with the academic side of political science these days. At least the authors will be accepted by their peers who value method more than insight.
Here it becomes more important to impress one's peers by piling on endlessly repetitive evidence and trotting out unnecessarily complex statistical equations, all to prop up points that were already made convincingly in prose form.
Each chapter in this book makes strong and believable points, but then degenerates into the worst of academic tedium, indicating that the authors chose (or were forced) to please ivory-tower editors and academic committees, rather than people in the outside world who could truly make use of their findings.
Hence, we have a book with strong and often illuminating conclusions, sunk by the worst in academic writing and presentation. Next time these authors (and their publishers) choose to release their findings for consumption by the public, they should realize that this audience expects insight, not long-winded theorizing and statistics.
doomsdayer520
//////
...............
the wild Amazone
Questionable Theories and Poor Writing
The underlying determinations of The Macro Polity have faced significant criticisms.
[Consider Paul Burstein - Why Estimates of the Impact of Public Opinion on Public Policy are Too High: Empirical and Theoretical Implications. - Social Forces 84, No. 4 (2006): 2273-2289.]
[Also Achen and Bartels in Democracy for Realists.]
More importantly however, this book is so poorly organized that even a highly educated reader will struggle to pull out the main points. While I disagree with those that would remove the statistics and methodology, this appeared to be a book of essays, prepared for highly quantitative audiences, with limited efforts toward clarity and concrete conclusions up front.
js
//////
Strong Premise Sunk By Tedious Presentation
This is a book that deserves to be influential in the field of political science, for both good and bad reasons. The theories presented here deal with macro-level or system-wide trends in American political behavior.
If the authors can be believed, there was little previous work done in this area. Instead, political science focused on the behavior of individuals and then tried to aggregate the resulting data into system-wide theories.
The evidence indicates that the behavior of the public is not always "the sum of the parts" and there are specific phenomena at play that influence the larger electorate, at the system level. The authors have conducted an impressive amount of research, which probably took years, including macro-level data about voting patterns, partisanship, ideological trends, presidential approval, and public opinion.
Their conclusions about the existence of macro-level phenomena are generally believable and supported by the evidence, and their work will probably prove to be groundbreaking in the field.
On the other hand, this book embodies everything that is wrong with the academic side of political science these days. At least the authors will be accepted by their peers who value method more than insight.
Here it becomes more important to impress one's peers by piling on endlessly repetitive evidence and trotting out unnecessarily complex statistical equations, all to prop up points that were already made convincingly in prose form.
Each chapter in this book makes strong and believable points, but then degenerates into the worst of academic tedium, indicating that the authors chose (or were forced) to please ivory-tower editors and academic committees, rather than people in the outside world who could truly make use of their findings.
Hence, we have a book with strong and often illuminating conclusions, sunk by the worst in academic writing and presentation. Next time these authors (and their publishers) choose to release their findings for consumption by the public, they should realize that this audience expects insight, not long-winded theorizing and statistics.
doomsdayer520
//////
December 20, 2009
This is one of the most interesting and important books on public opinion published in recent years. It is a direct descendant of V. O. Key's wonderful little book, "The Responsible Electorate."
Erikson et al. explore the dynamics related to the "macro polity." Many works on political behavior and public opinion fo0cus on individuals, using survey research results. This book aggregates the survey results to the level of the citizenry at large, and traces changes (and their effects) in the public mind over time. The authors follow the public mind from the Eisenhower through the Clinton years. On the one hand, this is only a limited slice of American history. On the other hand, this is the period (starting with Eisenhower) when we have the most useful survey data.
This is an academic work, and readers need to understand that. To critique this as too academic is to misunderstand the focus and purpose of this work. Nonetheless, even nonacademics can learn a great deal from this work if they persevere.
Studies of individual citizens'' attitudes and behavior are not flattering. Individuals are rather ill-informed, don't have a great deal of accurate knowledge of politics, and express attitudes and opinions that they may not really have. But a study of the "macro polity" yields another picture--of a collective wisdom that is far more astute than the individual level data might suggest. That's a key point of this book (as well as others like Page's and Shapiro's "The Rational Public").
On page xxi, the authors state this explicitly: "It is true that individual Americans have a weak grasp on the essentials of economics and economic policy, and it is also true that Americans, in the aggregate, are highly sensitive to real economic performance." In short, ". . .electorates are not myopic. . . ."
One of the most important aspects of this work is its demonstration that public policy decisions by government actually seem to be affected by changes in aggregate public political views. By examining the relationship between policy decisions by various government entities (Congress, President, Supreme Court, for example), the authors conclude that (page 314)"Public opinion influences public policy."
In an interesting experiment, the authors simulate what would have happened to the public mind, to party control of government, and so on if Jimmy Carter had won re-election in 1980. Chapter 10 is a provocative chapter, exploring "What might have been."
All in all, this is one of the more important and well done volumes focusing on public opinion--and its impact on politics (and the effects of politics on public opinion) in recent years. For academics, a great read. For nonacademics, this may be a tougher read, but it would be well worthwhile to persevere.
Erikson et al. explore the dynamics related to the "macro polity." Many works on political behavior and public opinion fo0cus on individuals, using survey research results. This book aggregates the survey results to the level of the citizenry at large, and traces changes (and their effects) in the public mind over time. The authors follow the public mind from the Eisenhower through the Clinton years. On the one hand, this is only a limited slice of American history. On the other hand, this is the period (starting with Eisenhower) when we have the most useful survey data.
This is an academic work, and readers need to understand that. To critique this as too academic is to misunderstand the focus and purpose of this work. Nonetheless, even nonacademics can learn a great deal from this work if they persevere.
Studies of individual citizens'' attitudes and behavior are not flattering. Individuals are rather ill-informed, don't have a great deal of accurate knowledge of politics, and express attitudes and opinions that they may not really have. But a study of the "macro polity" yields another picture--of a collective wisdom that is far more astute than the individual level data might suggest. That's a key point of this book (as well as others like Page's and Shapiro's "The Rational Public").
On page xxi, the authors state this explicitly: "It is true that individual Americans have a weak grasp on the essentials of economics and economic policy, and it is also true that Americans, in the aggregate, are highly sensitive to real economic performance." In short, ". . .electorates are not myopic. . . ."
One of the most important aspects of this work is its demonstration that public policy decisions by government actually seem to be affected by changes in aggregate public political views. By examining the relationship between policy decisions by various government entities (Congress, President, Supreme Court, for example), the authors conclude that (page 314)"Public opinion influences public policy."
In an interesting experiment, the authors simulate what would have happened to the public mind, to party control of government, and so on if Jimmy Carter had won re-election in 1980. Chapter 10 is a provocative chapter, exploring "What might have been."
All in all, this is one of the more important and well done volumes focusing on public opinion--and its impact on politics (and the effects of politics on public opinion) in recent years. For academics, a great read. For nonacademics, this may be a tougher read, but it would be well worthwhile to persevere.
August 14, 2008
This book uses micro data to clarify the macro.
This is an excellent evaluation and explanation of political perception and voter discoing making.
This is an excellent evaluation and explanation of political perception and voter discoing making.
March 27, 2009
It's an important book in poli sci, don't get me wrong. But I hated reading it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews