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Public Opinion, by Carroll J. Glynn, Susan Herbst, Garrett J. O'Keefe, and Robert Y. Shapiro. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. 471 pp. $69.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8133-2916-7. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 0-8133-2917-5.
TOM W SMITH National Opinion Research Center University of Chicago
As its simple, unelaborated title suggests, Public Opinion is a comprehensive treatment of the nature and role of people's attitudes in contemporary American society. Glynn, Herbst, O'Keefe, and Shapiro start off with the basics, discussing the meaning of public opinion and considering how public opinion exists on both the micro (individual) and macro (societal) levels, how one aggregates micro public opinion to arrive at macro public opinion, and whether public opinion is the sum of private, undisclosed attitudes; open, shared attitudes; or some combination of both of these. Next, they briefly summarize the history of public opinion from classical to enlightenment to contemporary conceptualization of the topic. Then they operationalize the different ways...