Political Sociology series

William T. Armaline, Davita Silfen Glasberg, and Bandana Purkayastha, The Human Rights Enterprise: Political Sociology, State Power, and Social Movements

Daniel Béland, What is Social Policy?
Understanding the Welfare State

Miguel A. Centeno and Elaine Enriquez, War & Society

Cedric de Leon, Party & Society: Reconstructing a Sociology of Democratic Party Politics

Nina Eliasoph, The Politics of Volunteering

Hank Johnston, States & Social Movements

Richard Lachmann, States and Power

Siniša Malešević, Nation-States and Nationalisms: Organization, Ideology and Solidarity

Andrew J. Perrin, American Democracy: From Tocqueville to Town Halls to Twitter

John C. Scott, Lobbying and Society: A Political Sociology of Interest Groups

John Stone and Polly Rizova, Racial Conflict in Global Society

David L. Weakliem, Public Opinion

The right of David L. Weakliem to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2020 by Polity Press

Polity Press
65 Bridge Street
Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press
101 Station Landing
Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2949-0

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weakliem, David L., author.
Title: Public opinion / David L. Weakliem.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2020. | Series: Political sociology series | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Why your opinions are not necessarily your own”--Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020000114 (print) | LCCN 2020000115 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509529469 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509529476 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509529490 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Public opinion.
Classification: LCC HM1236 .W43 2020 (print) | LCC HM1236 (ebook) | DDC 303.3/8--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000114
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020000115

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com

Acknowledgments

In a sense, this book began when I was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in 1996–7. During that year, I began to think seriously about public opinion and explore some of the issues discussed in this book. I thank the Center for providing an excellent setting for research and reflection.

I also thank the students in my class in Public Opinion and Mass Communication at the University of Connecticut, who listened to me work out my ideas. I especially thank the students in the Fall 2019 class who gave me comments on drafts of chapters.

At Polity Press, Jonathan Skerrett suggested that I write a book on this topic and provided useful suggestions on how to approach it. Karina Jákupsdóttir encouraged me to keep going, even as I repeatedly fell behind schedule. Finally, six reviewers provided excellent comments on the manuscript.

I have drawn heavily on the collections of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Unless otherwise indicated, survey questions mentioned in this book were obtained from the Roper Center’s iPoll database. I also made use of SDA (Survey Documentation and Analysis) for analyses using the General Social Survey and American National Election Studies, and the World Values Survey website for analyses using the WVS.

Finally, I thank my wife Judith Milardo and stepdaughter Laura Spalding for putting up with many distracted silences while I worked on this book.