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The American Public's View of Congress

  • John R Hibbing and Christopher W Larimer
Published/Copyright: October 9, 2008
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The Forum
From the journal The Forum Volume 6 Issue 3

Congress has long been unpopular with the American public, with approval numbers above fifty percent serving as the exception rather than the norm. In this essay we argue that such disapproval stems not from calculated reaction to policy outcomes or partisan attachments. Rather, people tend to disapprove of Congress for exactly the thing it was designed to be: an open and deliberative lawmaking body. The more Congress does its job, the more the public tends to disapprove.

Keywords: Congress; public opinion
Published Online: 2008-10-9

©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.2202/1540-8884.1263
Keywords for this article
Congress; public opinion

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Article
  2. Evaluating Majority Party Leaders in Congress
  3. The Politics of Constraint: House Republicans in Retrospect and Prospect
  4. Senate Republican Leadership in Tough Times
  5. Orchestrators of Unorthodox Lawmaking: Pelosi and McConnell in the 110th Congress
  6. Assessing Nancy Pelosi
  7. The American Public's View of Congress
  8. Commentary
  9. East European 'Model' to Cuban Freedom
  10. Response or Comment
  11. Comment on "Searching for Voters along the Liberal-Conservative Continuum"
  12. Review
  13. Review of Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
  14. Review of Unequal Democracy
  15. Review of Unequal Democracy
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