2 - Changing levels of support for individual institutions

Summary

In Chapter I we provided an overview of explanations for public dissatisfaction with the entire political system, and a critique of the prevalent theoretical frameworks used to understand that dissatisfaction. In this chapter we offer an overview of research on public attitudes toward individual political institutions, as well as a critique of existing data available to address these attitudes. By the beginning of the third chapter, where we turn to our own data and theorizing, readers should have gained substantial familiarity with the literature and with the theoretical and evidential problems surrounding the important task of understanding the American public's feelings toward its political system and institutions.

THE NEED FOR STUDYING INDIVIDUAL INSTITUTIONS

The more global and impressionistic writings referenced in Chapter I, while useful, are beset with problems. Some problems flow from the inadequacies of the Eastonian theoretical constructs, and some flow from the fact that the evidence used to support the explanations is simply not up to the challenge. Ehrenhalt, Dionne, and the Kettering Foundation offer only anecdotal support for their views (for a withering critique of the “methodology” employed in the Kettering Report, see Polsby, 1993a); Lipset and Schneider primarily rely upon the narrow and flawed Harris question about confidence in the leaders of institutions; and Miller, Citrin, and Craig all utilize the National Election Studies battery on citizen trust and related concepts – a helpful if somewhat tired set of questions posed only once every two years.