PLS 302
Public Opinion and American Democracy

Roger C. Lowery, Ph.D.

Textbook
Chapter Outlines
& Handouts



  1. 
Public Opinion in the Democratic Societies
          · Two Basic Summary Statistics
          ·
Centrist Public v. Polarized Government

  2. 
Polling: The Scientific Assessment of Public Opinion
          · 2004 Presidential trial-heats - nationwide
          · 2004 Presidential trial-heats - state-by-state
          · Direction-of-country polls
          ·
The Case for Weighting Partisan Identification

  3. 
Micro-level Opinion: The Psychology of Opinion Holding
          · Political Personality Test

  4. 
Macro-level Opinion: The Flow of Political Sentiment
          · Presidential Job Approval in Historical Perspective
          · Job Approval for Bush/Clinton/Bush
          ·
Job Approval for 2-Term Presidents
          ·
Job Approval for President Bush, 2001-present


  5. 
Political Socialization and Political Learning

  6.  Public Opinion and Democratic Society
          · The Iraq Syndrome


  7. 
Group Differences in Political Opinions

  8. 
The News Media and Political Opinions

  9. 
Elections as Instruments of Popular Culture 
          · Voter Turnout Study

10. 
The Public and Its Elected Representatives

11. 
Public Opinion and the Performance of Democracy