The main goal of James A. Stimson's book is to show how the dynamics of public opinion impinge on the the American political process. This is a broad and potentially difficult task, particularly for such a succinct text. Nevertheless, I believe the book achieves its objectives quite convincingly.

Stimson begins by laying out his central premise: Although individual-level attitudes may be fragmentary and inconsistent, aggregate public opinion is both coherent and responsive to external events in the political world. The second chapter presents the basic descriptive evidence, using information from several decades of survey research to show that mass opinions on different issues tend to track one another over time.

In the third chapter, Stimson elaborates upon the preceding description in several ways. First, he uses the concept of issue evolution to explain how new policy controversies move onto the public agenda. Second, he introduces the idea of a broad, general dimension underlying the seemingly separate issues that lie at the center of the political world. Third, he points out that the public's movement along this dimension precedes, rather than follows, election outcomes and governmental policies. Fourth, he points to “conflicted conservatives” (people who call themselves conservatives but hold liberal positions on specific issues) as a major source of temporal movement in public opinion, since they represent a subset of the electorate that is potentially amenable to appeals from all sides of the political spectrum.

The fourth and fifth chapters consider two elements of public opinion that are, themselves, often the focus of popular scrutiny: the “horse race” that occurs during presidential election campaigns and the ongoing approval ratings of elected officials and of government in general. Both cases are characterized by temporally smooth patterns and predictability, rather than constantly changing shifts that signify responses to idiosyncratic external stimuli.

The final chapter returns to the book's overall theme: The American electorate is engaged in an ongoing, interactive relationship with government; each one reacts coherently to the signals broadcast by the other. But the dynamic elements of the public's role in this process are dominated by a relatively small subset of people. The remainder of the mass public are either too set in their preferences or too disengaged from the political world to evince coherent, significant change over time. Nevertheless, the amount of opinion change that occurs “at the margins” is sufficient to demonstrate that the aggregated shape of public opinion is mirrored in the track of public policy.

There are many things to like about Tides of Consent. First, it is very well written. Stimson presents his arguments in a thoughtful and engaging style. Systematic evidence from time series of opinion data is combined very nicely with anecdotal support drawn from specific episodes of recent American politics. The result comprises a narrative that is, quite frankly, fun to read.

Second, the discussion does a great job of integrating a number of influential ideas and concepts from recent research on public opinion. It is a testament to Stimson's stature as a scholar that several of these are drawn from his own work. But, of course, the book also builds upon work from other scholars. And the way it does so leads to what I believe is a third strong feature: the author grounds his arguments and conclusions about aggregate patterns of opinion directly within the vast amount of research that has been aimed at explicating individual-level political orientations. One of the most notable contributions from the book is its perspective that an interactive system of coherent public opinion and responsive government is possible, even if the vast majority of the public is relatively disengaged and inactive.

Of course, the book has a few weaknesses as well. A critic might grumble that some of the discussion is relatively speculative, with only loose connections to direct empirical evidence (e.g., some of the material on the media, pollsters, and consultants in presidential campaigns, presented in Chapter 4). And some of the more ambiguous empirical findings are given fairly quick consideration (e.g., the meaning of the second dimension underlying the public's issue opinions, discussed in Chapter 3). But too much should not be made of these points. For one thing, there is definitely nothing in the verbal discussion that, in any way, contradicts the public opinion data. And at the same time, the book is not really intended for an audience of specialists. Instead, it is aimed at “telling a story for general readers” (p. xviii). Hence, the standards of evidence might be relaxed a bit in order to facilitate the narrative. It should also be emphasized that Stimson freely admits when the available evidence is just not sufficient to point toward any particular interpretation or conclusion. So, taken together, there are no serious substantive problems that detract from the book's strong points.

From a different perspective, this book may not make a similarly positive impression among at least a portion of its intended audience (i.e., people with an interest in American politics, but without specialized academic training in the field). One potential problem is its emphasis on the regular trends and overall long-term predictability of public opinion. This contradicts many of the features that make politics interesting to the lay public—the excitement of the ongoing game, the influential personalities of the actors, the apparent impact of events, the anticipation of the unexpected, and so on. Similarly, Stimson's arguments presuppose that empirical phenomena (like opinion trends) can be divided into a systematic portion and an additional, idiosyncratic, component. While this kind of thinking may be commonplace among the ranks of social scientists, I am just not sure how prevalent it is among people who have had no prior exposure to statistical methods.

Putting aside any questions about its potential audience, Tides of Consent is an excellent work. It provides a concise description of the “shape” of American public opinion and makes a convincing argument that opinion really does matter for the course of government and policy in the United States. This book could be used as a textbook in an undergraduate course on public opinion, and it also makes a very good starting point for a graduate seminar on the same topic. Finally, it is simply interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable reading material that I would recommend to any political scientist.