Elaine B. Sharp

The Sometime Connection: Public Opinion and Social Policy (Suny Series in Urban Public Policy) Elaine B. Sharp

Explores the role that public opinion plays in the development of social policy in the United States.

The Sometime Connection introduces a variety of theoretical perspectives on the connection between public opinion and policy and applies them to six social policy topics: abortion, affirmative action, welfare, Social Security, corrections, and pornography. The book provides complete policy histories, information on trends in public opinion, and a diagnosis of the role that public opinion has played in the development of policy for each of the six topics discussed.

"A key contribution of The Sometime Connection is the recognition of the limitations of contemporary models of representation that blindly assume the empirical validity of either the responsiveness of political elites to public pressures or the manipulation of the mass public by public officials. Sharp argues persuasively that a variety of factors influence the nature of the representational process and hence lead to different outcomes under different contexts and contingencies. She also offers a series of fascinating case studies that illustrate the variations of responsiveness, or lack thereof, of public policy to public preferences. The first chapter, designed to organize these case studies, offers a comprehensive theoretical picture that can overlay the wide variety of inconsistent single policy research findings published in the discipline over the last several decades. As such the book offers a template for past and future policy researchers." -- John P. McIver, University of Colorado

"The Sometime Connection sheds light on the dynamic interrelationships between opinion and policy across domains, something that political scientists are only beginning to explore systematically." -- Christopher Wlezien, University of Houston