A01=John Brehm
A01=R. Michael Alvarez
Abortion
Abortion law
Affirmative action
African Americans
Ambiguity
Ambivalence
Americans
Attitude (psychology)
Author_John Brehm
Author_R. Michael Alvarez
Authoritarianism
Category=JHBC
Category=JPWA
Central tendency
Coefficient
Confirmatory factor analysis
Consideration
Criticism
Democracy
Determinant
Dummy variable (statistics)
Egalitarianism
Elite
Employment
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Estimation
Euthanasia
Explanation
Factor analysis
Foreign policy
General Social Survey
Ideology
Individualism
Inference
Internal conflict
Jews
Likert scale
Measurement
Military elite
Normal distribution
Opinion poll
Percentage
Peter Feaver
Policy
Political campaign
Political philosophy
Political science
Politician
Politics
Prediction
Probability
Probit
Probit model
Public opinion
Public policy
Quantity
Racial politics
Racism
Religiosity
Respondent
Responsiveness
Result
Social issue
Standard error
Statistical significance
Symbolic racism
Tax
The Other Hand
Uncertainty
Variance
Variance function
Voting
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
Welfare
White Americans
Product details
- ISBN 9780691096353
- Weight: 369g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 21 Jul 2002
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Those who seek to accurately gauge public opinion must first ask themselves: Why are certain opinions highly volatile while others are relatively fixed? Why are some surveys affected by question wording or communicative medium (e.g., telephone) while others seem immune? In Hard Choices, Easy Answers, R. Michael Alvarez and John Brehm develop a new theory of response variability that, by reconciling the strengths and weaknesses of the standard approaches, will help pollsters and scholars alike better resolve such perennial problems. Working within the context of U.S. public opinion, they contend that the answers Americans give rest on a variegated structure of political predispositions--diverse but widely shared values, beliefs, expectations, and evaluations. Alvarez and Brehm argue that respondents deploy what they know about politics (often little) to think in terms of what they value and believe. Working with sophisticated statistical models, they offer a unique analysis of not just what a respondent is likely to choose, but also how variable those choices would be under differing circumstances.
American public opinion can be characterized in one of three forms of variability, conclude the authors: ambivalence, equivocation, and uncertainty. Respondents are sometimes ambivalent, as in attitudes toward abortion or euthanasia. They are often equivocal, as in views about the scope of government. But most often, they are uncertain, sure of what they value, but unsure how to use those values in political choices.
R. Michael Alvarez is Professor of Political Science at the California Institute of Technology and the author of "Information and Elections". John Brehm is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of "The Phantom Respondents" and the coauthor of "Working, Shirking, and Sabotage".
