Using data from the National Election Study (NES) surveys in the seven election years between 1984 and 1996, this paper examines stability and change in both the levels of support and the explanations for support of two social welfare programs--Social Security and Food Stamps. An explanatory...

Does deliberation lead to improvements in public opinion quality? The answer depends upon what standards are used. I argue that two widely used criteria ­ stability and consistency ­ should be modified for use in deliberation research. When citizens discuss politics we often desire instability...

Some characterize public opinion as fickle, volatile, or subject to abrupt change. Yet, empirical evidence from Page and Shapiro (1992) reveals the opposite. This study re-examines the issue of public opinion stability because the six-percentage point criterion Page and Shapiro used ignored the...

Democracy, according to most accounts, is supposed to involve policymakers paying attention to ordinary citizens. One way that policy elites might be expected to demonstrate their attention to the public is by explicitly acknowledging, mentioning, and discussing public opinion. In this paper we...