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| Note: Each chapter includes a Conclusion, Suggested Reading, and Notes | |
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| Introduction | |
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| A Decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind | |
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| What is Public Opinion? | |
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| Public Opinion in Practice | |
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| The Approach of this Book | |
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| The People Speak: Public Opinion and the Democratic Dialogue | |
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| Public Opinion and the Democratic Dilemma | |
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| Recent Views on the Role of Public Opinion | |
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| Measuring Public Opinion: Survey Research | |
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| Types of Surveys Cross-Sectional Surveys versus Panel Studies | |
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| The Population and the Sample Probability | |
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| Sampling and Randomness | |
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| How Samples Can Be Biased Questions and the Questionnaire | |
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| Sampling Error and Other Errors | |
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| Advantages and Disadvantages of Survey Research | |
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| Two Variants of Survey Research | |
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| Who Conducts Public Opinion Research? | |
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| A Crisis in Survey Research? | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Gathering Survey Research Data | |
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| Measuring Public Opinion: Other Methods | |
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| Other Quantitative Methods | |
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| Qualitative Methods | |
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| Informal Ways to Measure Public Opinion | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Analysis of Community Opinion | |
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| The Context of Public Opinion | |
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| Organizing Public Opinion Party identification Ideology | |
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| Self-Placement on the Liberal-Conservative Continuum | |
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| The Relationship Between Party Identification and Ideology | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Classifying Students Along the Liberal-Conservative Continuum | |
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| Sources of Public Opinion: Political Socialization | |
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| The Significance of Political Socialization | |
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| The Socialization Process Agents of Socialization | |
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| Adult Socialization | |
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| The Mass Media and Public Opinion | |
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| The Importance of the Media to the Public and Democracy | |
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| Media Impact on Public Opinion: How Great? | |
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| Media in the Democratic Dialogue: Covering Public Opinion | |
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| The Democratic Dilemma and the Relationship Between the Media and the Public | |
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| Voices of the People: Public Opinions on Political Matters | |
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| Historical Development of Political Issues | |
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| The Four Issue Domains Why Opinions Change | |
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| Public Opinion Today Income: Economic and Social Welfare Issues | |
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| Gender and the Gender Gap | |
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| Race and Racial Issues | |
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| Is There a "Principle-Implementation Gap" Among Whites? | |
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| The Issue Domains | |
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| Today and the American Party System | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Analyzing Public Opinion | |
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| The People Speak: Expressing Public Opinion in Practice | |
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| Speaking Up: The People | |
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| Tell the Government | |
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| What They Think | |
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| Types of Political Engagement and Participation | |
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| Political Engagement and Participation by Groups | |
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| Participants' Opinions versus Nonparticipants' Opinions | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Political Socialization and Political Participation | |
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| The Government Listens: Taking the Pulse of the People | |
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| The History of Polling | |
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| Uses of Political Polling and Focus Groups | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Analysis of Opinions on Drunk Driving | |
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| Listening to the People? | |
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| Government Responsiveness to Public Opinion | |
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| Should Government Listen? | |
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| The Democratic Dilemma | |
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| The Political Capacity of the Public | |
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| The Case Against the Public (or the Incompetent Public) | |
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| The Rebuttal: The Rational Public | |
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| Public Support for Democracy | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Test Your Political Knowledge | |
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| Does the Government Listen? | |
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| The Democratic Dialogue | |
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| The Relationship Between Public Opinion and Public Policy | |
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| Does the Government Listen to the People? | |
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| Three Competing Views | |
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| The "New Referendum:" Presidential Approval | |
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| Public Opinion and Presidential Performance | |
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| Analyzing Presidential Approval | |
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| The Politics of Public Support | |
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| Interactive Learning Exercise: Using Presidential Approval to Apply What You've Learned | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Public Opinion and American Politics at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century | |
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| Revisiting the Democratic Dilemma | |
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| Distortions in the People's Voice | |
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| The People's Voice Grows | |