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Class:
Fall Semester, 2009
Monday, 3:00-600 p.m.
104 South Kedzie HallInstructor:
William G. Jacoby
319 South Kedzie Hall
Hours: Wed., 2:00-5:00
E-mail: jacoby@msu.edu
Phone: (517) 353-3287
This course will cover the political science research literature on American public opinion. We will address the dominant themes in the field, as well as several ideas that should probably receive more attention from scholars. We will read most of the major empirical works on the various topics covered in the course syllabus; our approach will be rigorous and, in general, highly critical. We will scrutinize the methodological aspects of public opinion research, as well as the degree to which previous analyses have contributed to the development of substantive theories.
Over the past fifty years, social scientists have come a long way in discerning the ways that ordinary citizens think about and react to the political world. Similarly, there has been quite a bit of recent research that seeks to explicate the various linkages between public opinion, the actions of political elites, and public policies. Nevertheless, there remains an enormous amount of work to be done. Hopefully, this seminar will point out some promising avenues for future explorations of American public opinion.
A brief note about the graphical display that appears at the top of this page, and on several other pages within this website: The line plot traces James A. Stimson's yearly measure of policy mood from 1952 through 2008. The data used to create the graph were downloaded from his website, http://www.unc.edu/~jstimson/. The procedure used to create the public mood variable is covered in: Stimson, James A. (1999) Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings (Second Edition). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.