The volume contains 14 valuable articles that highlight the significance of the study of public attitudes about government performance, and taken together, raise many fascinating questions. To varying degrees, the individual chapters are consistent with Hibbing and Theiss-Morse's proposition that public dislike of government is rooted in the means rather than the ends of democracy in America. Indeed, their proposition rejecting the importance of the substance of political outcomes as the cause for the negative affect rests on the strong assumption that such a public interest can and does exist. [Even if a seemingly uncontested collective outcome were present, it cannot it be assumed that it is necessarily desirable, particularly if the political process systematically advantages some Americans, salt-of-theearth or otherwise.] A second assumption worth scrutinizing is the notion that a polity with a lot of positive affect toward leaders and institutions is good, for the position begs the question: How much affect, and good for what and for whom?

One need only consider the unprecedented public support of the U.S. president in particular and of institutions of government in general in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Bush administration's subsequent use of this backing to ensure swift passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, as a reminder of the power of high levels of public support. The law has substantial influence on the process or means of democracy, and has been opposed by groups on both ends of the political spectrum for its constriction of rights and civil liberties. Further, the strategic use of the characterization of public support of the government as patriotic versus disapproval as “un-American” has both the imperative and chilling effect of silencing productive dissent. Just as caution must be taken to refrain from blindly assuming more deliberation is better, pause should also prevent one from reflexively seeking more public support for government without considering for what ends it is sought. Discerning how political actions create negative affect toward the government may indeed be very useful for “taking steps to limit activities that cast government in a bad light” (p. 153), particularly for those interested in covering processes that result in bad ends.

Apart from more extensive consideration of what Hibbing and Theiss-Morse call the “so what” question (p. 206), the strength of the research in the volume lies in the effort to specify the attitudes that constitute negative affect toward the government, and the analysis of the patterns and determinants of those opinions. The set of attitudes is indeed large, encompassing trust, approval, legitimacy, competence, confidence, dislike, mood, faith, satisfaction, popularity, and happiness. The chapter by Diana Owen and Jack Dennis in the fourth part of the volume is useful for the suggestions regarding measurement of public dissatisfaction, and Tom Tyler's contribution in this section examines the relationship between government disapproval and compliance behavior.

This material is preceded by three parts, the first containing four articles analyzing patterns of public disapproval of government over time, with articles by Jack Citrin and Samantha Luks documenting trends over time in the trust questions from the American National Election Study, a longitudinal analysis by John Alford that points to the significance of external threat for public approval of government, Stephen Earl Bennett's article examining the modern heyday of public regard for government during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and a chapter by Virginia Chanley, Thomas Rudolph, and Wendy Rahn on the impact of trusting attitudes on policy positions. The second part of the volume attempts to disaggregate government, and analyzes differences in the public's dislike for various institutions of U.S. government. In particular, Lilliard Richardson, David Houston, and Chris Sissie Hadjiharalambous find that while the president is evaluated primarily as a function of party loyalties, assessments of political actors in the courts are not influenced by either partisanship or concerns about economic performance. Jeffrey Bernstein's piece looks at the relationship between approval for Congress and the president, and the two chapters by Eric Uslaner, and Marc Hetherington and John Nugent compare public attitudes toward government at the state and federal levels. Finally, the third section of the book addresses the question of the extent to which behaviors of members of Congress encourage negative affect in the public. Articles by Amy Fried and Douglas Harris, and David Brady and Sean Theriault suggest that the public's dislike of government is fueled by negative rhetoric and strategic behavior propagated by members of Congress. Finally, Carolyn Funk's chapter examines the consequences that different forms of debate—cordial or acrimonious— have on public attitudes.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse foreground each part of What Is It About Government that Americans Dislike? with helpful summaries of each of the articles, and conclude with a brief chapter integrating the findings of the individual chapters. This collection of original research on public attitudes about government performance is well organized and thought provoking. It is well worth reading, and should spur additional research on this important topic.