“Thinking About American Public Opinion: Past and Present”
Published: 18 January 2023
Tuesday 14 March 2023, 6pm - Professor Susan Herbst, University of Connecticut
14 March, 6pm, Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre
Also available to stream online
“Thinking About American Public Opinion: Past and Present”
Professor Susan Herbst, University of Connecticut
American politics and public discourse have changed rapidly since 2015 and the election of President Trump. Political scientists, journalists, and engaged citizens have been surprised by the extraordinary acceleration of partisan polarization, for example. Of the contemporary American political dynamics, which current tendencies – conspiratorial thinking, partisan warfare, crudity and hatred in discourse, and anti-science attitudes – were present already, and which are new? What can we learn about today’s worrisome politics from a look back to the 1930s, the key decade in the development and measurement of public opinion? And is there any way out of our current dilemma, characterized by so much strife and negativity in the United States?
First published: 18 January 2023