Study Questions for
Persily, Nathaniel, Jack Citrin, and Patrick J. Egan. 2008. Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy. New York: Oxford University Press.

You are to write an essay on the Persily book of three to five pages. The question will be distributed on October 9, and you are to submit your essay no later than October 16.

Studying the answers to the following questions will help prepare you to write the essay on Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy.

    Introduction
  1. Explain the difference between today's situation and Tocqueville's 19th Century observation on political controversy and the judiciary.
  2. What do the authors believe are the two chief contribution their book makes to contemporary debates on the place of public opinion in the constitutional order? How do the data inform debates on these issues?
  3. What is popular constitutionalism?
  4. What is the countermajoritarian difficulty? How can the degree of difficulty be assessed?
  5. What is the source of the judiciary's legitimacy?
  6. Should the Constitution keep up with the times? If so, how? If not, why not?
  7. What is cohort replacement and how might it explain changes in public opinion on constitutional issues?
  8. List issues where public opinion has become more liberal over time?
  9. What social and political characteristics are highly related to "moral values" issues?
  10. What effect do Supreme Court decisions have on public opinion? What are "legitimation," "backlash," and "polarization"?
  11. What is the nature of court decisions' effects on public opinion?
  12. What affects the reaction of elites to court decisions?
  13. How should the Court react to public opinion? How does the Court react to public opinion? How should public opinion react to the Court? How does public opinion react to the Court?
  14. What is the "slingshot effect"?
  15. Who are among the "swayable" public?
  16. What is necessary for polarization to occur?

    Chapter 14, The 2000 Presidential Election Controversy

  17. What have scholars previously found regarding the public's opinion of the Court itself when it renders a controversial decision?
  18. Explain Figures 14.1 and 14.2.
  19. What are the competing approaches to understanding the effect of controversial decisions on the public's opinion of Court legitimacy?
  20. What is the "negativity bias"?
  21. What are "specific support" and "diffuse support"?
  22. What are the "positivity frames" hypotheses?
  23. Explain Table 14.1.-14.4.
  24. Why was the Court able to weather Bush v. Gore?