Additional reading

Note: An explanation of the disconnect between operational and ideological opinions has usually been grounded in general terms: It reflects Americans’ general ambivalence about the role of the federal government, for example, or it showcases the randomness that is inherent when asking people to conceptualize politics ideologically. For the most thorough examinations of this topic, see the sources marked * below.  

Conover, Pamela J., and Stanley Feldman. 1980. The origins and meaning of liberal-conservative self identifications. American Journal of Political Science 25:617-45.

Feldman, Stanley, and John Zaller. 1992. The political culture of ambivalence: Ideological responses to the welfare state. American Journal of Political Science 36:268-307.

*Free, Lloyd A., and Hadley Cantril. 1967. The political beliefs of Americans: A study of public opinion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Jacoby, William G. 1986. Levels of conceptualization and reliance on the liberal-conservative continuum. Journal of Politics 48:423-432.

———. 1991. Ideological identification and issue attitudes. American Journal of Political Science 35:178-205.

——— .1995. The structure of ideological thinking in the American electorate. American Journal of Political Science 39:314-35.

———. 2000. Issue framing and public opinion on government spending. American Journal of Political Science 44:750-67.

Kellstedt, Lyman A., and David C. Leege (eds). 1993. Rediscovering the religious factor in American politics. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Layman, Geoffrey. 2001. The great divide: Religious and cultural conflict in American party politics. New York: Columbia University Press.

Schiffer, Adam J. 2000. I’m not that liberal: Explaining conservative democratic identification. Political Behavior 22:293-310.

*Stimson, James. 1999. Public opinion in America. 2d ed. Boulder, Co: Westview Press.

———. 2004. Tides of consent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.