The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means . By James L. Payne. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1991. 225p. $24.95.
The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means . By James L. Payne. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1991. 225p. $24.95.
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消费文化：为何国会入不敷出。
DOI：
10.2307/1964389
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发表时间：
1992
影响因子：
6.8
通讯作者：
J. Savage
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Savage
(4)强调经济或国际问题;（5）强调失业或通货膨胀。波普金接着认为，人们实际上在初选和大选中做出了理性的（而且，含蓄地说，是“好的”）选择。一旦人们认识到选民使用竞争力，候选人不断努力改变竞选的主流框架，有时成功，有时失败，那么对初选候选人的支持率的突然变化就很有意义了。此外，许多学者记录并试图理解的神秘竞选势头只不过是选民做出理性选择的结果。不像这里评论的其他两本书，推理选民提出了很少的定量分析。因此，波普金所展示的是仔细而系统地整合文献，然后得出结论的价值。我对每一本书都难免有一些吹毛求疵的地方。由于佩奇和夏皮罗无法控制调查和民意调查的时间，他们不能完全排除历史影响。此外，围绕政策建议的言辞可能比政策本身更能影响舆论。如果是这样的话，佩奇和夏皮罗可能低估了公职人员的行为在多大程度上起着支配作用。史汀生毫不掩饰地用认知的术语来解释情绪。也许这种情绪反映了公民对政府日益增长的愤怒。有鉴于此，了解记录在案的情绪变化是否主要发生在人口的某些部分（例如，越不感兴趣）。有时，波普金把其他人可能认为是一个开放的经验问题的事实提出来。这些吹毛求疵的话决不能减损这些作品的重要性。如果有任何疑问，请考虑政治科学家现在面临的两个问题。首先，如果目的是理解美国代议制民主中公众舆论的性质和作用，学者们是否应该全心全意地将注意力转向集体层面，而不是个人层面的分析？理性公众和舆论在美国的出现并不完全是偶然的。许多学科似乎朝着整体观点发展，混沌理论的出现就是一个例证。具有讽刺意味的是，这一学科内部的运动发生在政治心理学，一种高度还原的方法，获得了前所未有的突出地位的时候。简单而正确的答案是，我们需要这两种观点。无论一个人自己的选择是什么，这里所回顾的著作都把分析层次的问题提到了前面，确切地说是它应该在的地方。第二，作为一门学科，我们应该用什么标准来评价代议制民主？所有三个作品在这里回顾得出乐观的结论，在美国政治的舆论质量。佩奇、夏皮罗和波普金与其他人一样，认为线索提取是人们做出正确政治判断的有效手段。然而，有人可能会说，公民必须从政治家和其他精英那里寻找线索，这一事实凸显了大规模和日益复杂的政治体系的一个基本问题。通过线索“知道”可能等于也可能不等于通过拥有事实的、扎根于生活中的信息来知道。如果没有，普通公民无法获得有关数据，那又怎么办？或者，正如史汀生所说，情绪的变化是因为广大公民对政府计划不再抱有幻想，为什么这种幻想会持续下去？在很大程度上要感谢本杰明·佩奇、罗伯特·夏皮罗、詹姆斯·史汀生和塞缪尔·波普金，这些“大”问题比以往任何时候都更需要答案。舆论研究的未来充满挑战和令人兴奋。
(4) emphasizing economic or international issues; and (5) emphasizing unemployment or inflation. Popkin then goes on to argue that people in fact make reasoned (and, by implication, "good") choices in primary and general elections. The abrupt changes in support for primary candidates make good sense once one recognizes that voters use heuristics and that candidates continually strive, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to change the prevailing frame of the campaign. Moreover, the mystical campaign momentum that numerous scholars have documented and tried to understand is no more than a result of voters making reasoned choices. Unlike the other two books reviewed here, The Reasoning Voter presents little quantitative analysis. What Popkin has demonstrated, then, is the value of carefully and systematically integrating the literature and then deriving implications. I inevitably have a few quibbles about each book. Because Page and Shapiro had no control over the timing of the surveys and polls, they cannot completely rule out history effects. Moreover, it may be that the rhetoric surrounding policy proposals does more to influence opinion than the policies themselves. If so, Page and Shapiro may have underestimated how far the actions of public officials hold sway. Stimson unabashedly construes mood in cognitive terms. Perhaps mood reflects a growing anger on the part of citizens toward government. In this light, it would be helpful to know whether the documented changes in mood occur principally among certain segments of the population (e.g., the less interested). At times, Popkin presents as fact what others might consider an open empirical question. In no way should these quibbles detract from the significance of the works. If there is any doubt, consider two questions political scientists now face. First, if the purpose is to understand the nature and role of public opinion in American representative democracy, should scholars redirect their attention wholeheartedly to aggregate-level, rather than individual-level analysis? That The Rational Public and Public Opinion in America have just appeared is not completely happenstance. Many disciplines seem headed toward holistic perspectives, as exemplified by the emergence of chaos theory. Ironically, this movement within the discipline is occurring at the very time that political psychology, a highly reductionistic approach, has gained unprecedented prominence. The easy and perhaps correct answer is that we need both perspectives. Whatever one's own choice, the works reviewed here have brought the level-of-analysis problem to the fore, precisely where it belongs. Second, what criteria should we, as a discipline, bring to bear when evaluating representative democracy? All three works reviewed here reach optimistic conclusions about the quality of public opinion in American politics. Page, Shapiro, and Popkin, like others, view cue taking as an effective means by which people can make proper political judgments. One might argue, however, that the very fact that citizens must look to politicians and other elites for cues underlines a basic problem with largescale and increasingly complex political systems. "Knowing" via cues may or may not be equivalent to knowing via possessing factual, rooted-in-life information. If not and ordinary citizens cannot gain access to relevant data, what then? Or if, as Stimson argues, mood changes because the citizenry-at-large becomes disenchanted with government programs, why the continuing disenchantment? Thanks in good part to Benjamin Page, Robert Shapiro, James Stimson, and Samuel Popkin, these kinds of "big" questions beg answers more than ever before. The future of public opinion research could not be more challenging and exciting.