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Reading Public Opinion: How Political Actors View the Democratic Process. By Susan Herbst. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. x, 256 pp. Cloth, $41.00, ISBN 0-226-327469. Paper, $16.00, ISBN 0-226-32747-7.)
Susan Herbst is a pioneer in the study of public opinion. Her latest contribution, Reading Public Opinion, studies the "lay theories" of democracy implicit in how "political actors" talk about public opinion. It reveals a fascinating diversity of views about what public opinion means and how it influences politics.
Herbst treats public opinion as a "contested and malleable concept"-as something that is "socially constructed" in ways that have "vital implications for democratic theory and practice." In the first chapter, she elaborates on the forces that "construct" public opinion in particular contexts: prevailing models of democracy, the methods of opinion measurement, the rhetoric of political leaders,...