The American Public Mind

What is the real nature of substantive conflict in mass politics during the postwar years in the United States? How is it reflected in the American public mind? And how does this issue structure shape electoral conflict? William J. M. Claggett and Byron E. Shafer answer by developing measures of public preference in four great policy realms - social welfare, international relations, civil rights, and cultural values - for the entire period between 1952 and 2004. They use these to identify the issues that were moving the voting public at various points in time, while revealing the way in which public preferences shaped the structure of electoral politics. What results is the restoration of policy substance to the center of mass politics in the United States.

William J. M. Claggett is Associate Professor of Political Science at Florida State University.
Byron E. Shafer is Glenn B. and Cleone Orr Hawkins Chair of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Preface	p. ix
The Structure of Public Preferences	p. 1
A Dataset, Some Theory, and a Method	p. 4
Organization of the Book	p. 9
The Established Issues: Social Welfare	p. 11
Item Selection	p. 12
Exploratory Analysis	p. 17
Confirmatory Analysis	p. 25
Social Welfare in the Public Mind	p. 37
The Established Issues: International Relations	p. 41
Item Selection	p. 42
Exploratory Analysis	p. 47
Confirmatory Analysis	p. 59
International Relations in the Public Mind	p. 69
The New Issues: Civil Rights	p. 74
Item Selection	p. 75
Exploratory Analysis	p. 78
Confirmatory Analysis	p. 87
Civil Rights in the Public Mind	p. 97
The New Issues: Cultural Values	p. 101
Item Selection	p. 102
Exploratory Analysis	p. 109
Confirmatory Analysis	p. 120
Cultural Values in the Public Mind	p. 130
Blended Items: True, False, and Obscure	p. 134
Face Content and Appropriate Placement	p. 135
Cultural Values Revisited	p. 154
Blended Items in the Public Mind	p. 157
Some Consequences of The Structure	p. 161
Cross-Domain Analysis	p. 164
A Voting Model	p. 170
Voting Behavior: The Established Issues	p. 177
Presidential Voting and the Pure Politics of Policy Choice	p. 180
Social Welfare and Presidential Voting	p. 184
International Relations and Presidential Voting	p. 194
The Established Issues and the Vote	p. 204
Voting Behavior: The New Issues	p. 210
Civil Rights and Presidential Voting	p. 213
Cultural Values and Presidential Voting	p. 220
Major Independent Candidates for President	p. 228
The New Issues and the Vote	p. 236
Voting Behavior: The Rest of the Story	p. 241
Partisan Attachment, Policy Preference, and Voting Behavior	p. 243
Electoral Eras in Postwar Politics	p. 259
The Issue Structure of Mass Politics	p. 266
An American Public Mind	p. 267
Issue Evolution in Postwar Politics	p. 270
Mini-Eras in Postwar Politics	p. 272
A Responsible Electorate?	p. 275
Appendix: Alternative Policy Domains?	p. 277
Bibliography	p. 283
Index	p. 291
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The American Public Mind

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