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"Why is national identity such a potent force in people's lives? And is the force positive or negative? In this book, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse develops a social theory of national identity and uses a national survey, focus groups, and experiments to answer these important questions in the American context. Her results show that the combination of group commitment and the setting of exclusive boundaries on the national group affects how people behave toward their fellow Americans. Strong identifiers care a great deal about their national group. They want to help and be loyal to their fellow Americans. By limiting who counts as an American, though, these strong identifiers place serious limits on who benefits from their pro-group behavior. Help and loyalty are offered only to "true Americans," not Americans who do not count and who are pushed to the periphery of the national group."--Jacket

"Respect is in trouble in American politics. Many Americans think that respecting other citizens is a virtue of a democratic society, yet many struggle to respect opposing partisans. It is especially liberal citizens, who hold respect as central to their robust view of democratic equality, who struggle the most granting respect to others. In Respect and Loathing in American Democracy, political theorist Jeff Spinner-Halev and political psychologist Elizabeth Theiss-Morse team up to explain why respect is important to democracy and yet so lacking in contemporary US politics. Drawing on evidence from extensive focus groups, national surveys, survey experiments, and the views of political theorists, Spinner-Halev and Theiss-Morse develop a theoretical framework that places respect squarely in the context of a polarized United States. They elucidate how clashing, moralized worldviews undergird partisan conflict and shape its character and intensity. The authors argue that liberals and conservatives are less divided on issues than many believe, but they are divided on which issues they moralize. That liberals moralize their social justice worldview and conservatives their national solidarity worldview makes it hard for them to grant respect to each other, despite so many people believing in the importance of respect. The authors differentiate between two types of respect and distinguish respect from tolerance. Respect is both far reaching and difficult to give in ways that many citizens and theorists fail to recognize. Deep-seated tension exists between respect and justice, and political theorists and citizens alike need to acknowledge that tension. Spinner-Halev and Theiss-Morse argue that respect is connected to pluralism, and propose a possible path forward that is challenging but far from impossible for scholars and citizens to traverse"--

"Respect is in trouble in American politics. Many Americans think that respecting other citizens is a virtue of a democratic society, yet many struggle to respect opposing partisans. It is especially liberal citizens, who hold respect as central to their robust view of democratic equality, who struggle the most granting respect to others. In Respect and Loathing in American Democracy, political theorist Jeff Spinner-Halev and political psychologist Elizabeth Theiss-Morse team up to explain why respect is important to democracy and yet so lacking in contemporary US politics. Drawing on evidence from extensive focus groups, national surveys, survey experiments, and the views of political theorists, Spinner-Halev and Theiss-Morse develop a theoretical framework that places respect squarely in the context of a polarized United States. They elucidate how clashing, moralized worldviews undergird partisan conflict and shape its character and intensity. The authors argue that liberals and conservatives are less divided on issues than many believe, but they are divided on which issues they moralize. That liberals moralize their social justice worldview and conservatives their national solidarity worldview makes it hard for them to grant respect to each other, despite so many people believing in the importance of respect. The authors differentiate between two types of respect and distinguish respect from tolerance. Respect is both far reaching and difficult to give in ways that many citizens and theorists fail to recognize. Deep-seated tension exists between respect and justice, and political theorists and citizens alike need to acknowledge that tension. Spinner-Halev and Theiss-Morse argue that respect is connected to pluralism, and propose a possible path forward that is challenging but far from impossible for scholars and citizens to traverse"--

"In this 15th edition of Political Behavior of the American Electorate, noted authors Elizabeth Theiss-Morse and Michael Wagner again continue the tradition of Flanigan and Zingale, using American National Election Study data to provide a thorough analysis of the 2020 elections and of American political behavior more generally. The authors explore get-out-the-vote efforts and the reasons people voted the way they did, as well as the nature and impact of partisanship, issues, and news media coverage in 2020-all with an eye toward understanding the trends that led up to the historic results"--

Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People's wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people's largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making. Hibbing and Theiss-Morse conclude by cautioning communitarians, direct democrats, social capitalists, deliberation theorists, and all those who think that greater citizen involvement is the solution to society's problems