¹ Prothro, James W. and Grigg, C. W., “Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 22 (Spring, 1960), pp. 276–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs? (New Haven, 1961)Google Scholar, ch. 28.

³ Stouffer, Samuel A., Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties (New York, 1955)Google Scholar.

⁴ Key, V. O., “Public Opinion and the Decay of of Democracy,” Virginia Q. Rev., Vol. 37 (Autumn, 1961), pp. 481–94Google Scholar. See also Truman, David B., “The American System in Crisis,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 74 (Dec., 1959), pp. 481–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Plamenatz, John, “Cultural Prerequisites to a Successfully Functioning Democracy: a Symposiium,” this Review, Vol. 50 (March, 1956), p. 123Google Scholar.

⁵ deTocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America (ed. Bradley, Phillips, New York, 1945), II, p. 8Google Scholar; I, pp. 392, 322. The difficulty of specifying the values which underly democracy, and on which consensus is presumed to be required, is illusrated in the exchange between Ernest S. Griffith, John Plamenatz, and J. Roland Pennock, cited above, pp. 101–37. The problem of certifying he “fundamentals” of democratic consensus is directly discussed by Pennock, pp. 132–3. See also Bachrach, Peter, “Elite Consensus and Democracy,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 24 (August, 1962), pp. 449–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Lowell, A. L., Public Opinion and Popular Government (New York, 1926), p. 9Google Scholar.

⁷ Cf., for example, Wirth, Louis, Community Life and Social Policy (Chicago, 1956), pp. 201–3, 381–2Google Scholar. For a critique of “consensus theory” and the several definitions of consensus see Horowitz, Irving L., “Consensus, Conflict, and Cooperation: a Sociological Inventory,” Social Forces, Vol. 41 (Dec., 1962), pp. 177–188CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Cf. Bell, Daniel, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, 1960), pp. 369–75Google Scholar; Shils, Edward, “Ideology and Civility: on the Politics of the Intellectual,” Sewanee Review, Vol. 66 (Summer, 1958), pp. 450–1Google Scholar; Louis Wirth, op. cit., pp. 202–3.

⁹ A persuasive case for considering liberal democracy as an ideology is made by Williams, Bernard, “Democracy and Ideology,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 32 (October–December, 1961), pp. 374–84Google Scholar. The nature of ideology in America and some of the other questions addressed in the present paper are discussed by McCloskey, Robert G., “The American Ideology,” in Irish, Marian D. (ed.), Continuing Crisis in American Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1963), pp. 10–25Google Scholar.

¹⁰ See Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and American Democracy (New York, 1944)Google Scholar, ch. 1. For a comprehensive review of the American value system and evidence concerning its stability over time, see Kluckhohn, Clyde, “Have There Been Discernible Shifts in American Values during the Past Generation?” in Morison, E. E. (ed.), The American Style: Essays in Value and Performance (New York, 1958), pp. 145–217Google Scholar. Kluckhohn concludes (p. 152) that despite some changes, the American value system has been “remarkably stable” since the 18th century and remains “highly influential in the life of the United States.”

¹¹ McClosky, Herbert, Hoffmann, Paul J., and O'Hara, Rosemary, “Issue Conflict and Consensus Among Party Leaders and Followers,” this Review, Vol. 44 (June, 1960), pp. 406–27Google Scholar.

¹² “High” refers to a score made by the upper third of the popular distribution on the scale in question. For example, in the case of the “political indulgence” scale approximately one-third (actually 30.6%) received scores of five or above. Hence, anyone making a score of five or above on this scale is considered to have scored high on “political indulgence.” “Low” refers to scores made by the lower third of the distribution.

¹³ Prothro and Grigg, loc. cit.; Hyman, Herbert and Sheatsley, Paul B., “The Current Status of American Public Opinion,” in Katz, Daniel et al. (eds.), Public Opinion and Propaganda (New York, 1954), pp. 33–48Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Cf. Lane's, Robert report on his “Eastport” sample, in Political Ideology (New York, 1962), pp. 461–2Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Hyman and Sheatsley, op. cit., pp. 40–2; Prothro and Grigg, op. cit.

¹⁶ Robert A. Dahl. loc. cit. For data on the failure of some people to perceive the relevance of democratic principles for concrete situations see Wiebe, G. D., “The Army-McCarthy Hearings and the Public Conscience,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 22 (Winter 1958–1959), pp. 490–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ See also Stouffer, op. cit., ch. 2.

¹⁸ These inferences are drawn not only from the few items presented in Table V, but from data previously reported by H. McClosky, P. J. Hoffmann, and R. O'Hara, op. cit., p. 413; and from the responses to dozens of items in the present study that express attitudes and opinions toward the private enterprise system, taxes, private property, profits, socialism, etc. On the whole, little enthusiasm is registered among either the elite or the masses for a drastic revision of the economy or a major redistribution of the wealth.

¹⁹ Evidence is accumulating that the distrust of politics, often thought to be peculiar to the United States, is also found in many other countries. In fact, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba report in their cross-cultural study of citizenship that political interest is higher in the United States than it is in the four other countries they studied (United Kingdom, West Germany, Italy, and Mexico); and that Americans, if anything, are less negative toward politics than are the citizens of the other countries. See The Civic Culture (1963), chs. III–IV.

²⁰ See also the Michigan data on voters' sense of “political efficacy” in Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald, and Miller, Warren E., The Voter Decides (Evanston, 1954), pp. 187–94Google Scholar.

²¹ For other data on ambivalent attitudes toward government, see Hyman and Sheatsley, op. cit.

²² Similar findings are reported by Agger, Robert E., Goldstein, Marshall N. and Pearl, Stanley A., “Political Cynicism: Measurement and Meaning,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 23 (1961), pp. 477–506CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Almond and Verba, op cit., ch. IV. One can, of course, imagine circumstances, such as political disorganization or revolutionary crises, in which the generalization would not hold—in which, indeed, the political elite might lead the struggle against the existing governing institutions. I am speaking, in the present context, of politics under “normal” conditions in established democracies.

²⁴ See also Key, V. O., Public Opinion and Democracy (New York, 1961), pp. 51–2Google Scholar.

²⁵ McClosky, Hoffmann, and O'Hara, op. cit.

²⁶ For other findings on the state of ideological development among the electorate, see Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., The American Voter (New York, 1960)Google Scholar, chs. 8–10.

²⁷ For a similar conclusion on this point, see Key, V. O., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York, 1961), pp. 41, 49Google Scholar. The second chapter of this volume contains an excellent discussion of opinion consensus among the electorate, and touches on a number of the points dealt with in this paper. Evidence on the infrequency of “ideological” thinking among the voters is presented in Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes, op. cit., p. 249. By the criteria used the authors were able to classify only 3.5% of the voters as “ideologues” and 12% as “near-ideologues.”

²⁸ V. O. Key, “Public Opinion and the Decay of Democracy,” loc cit.

²⁹ For additional data on the homogeneity of social characteristics and values among American elite groups, see Rosenau, James N., “ConsensusBuilding in the American National Community: Hypotheses and Supporting Data,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 24 (November, 1962), pp. 639–661CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Newcomb, Theodore M., “The Study of Consensus,” in Merton, R. K. et al. (eds.), Sociology Today (New York, 1959), pp. 277–92Google Scholar.

³¹ Op. cit., p. 201.

³² For a discussion of this point, see Bachrach, Peter, “Elite Consensus and Deomocracy,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 24 (August, 1962), pp. 439–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man, (New York, 1960), p. 27Google Scholar. Chapter I of this volume provides a stimulating and valuable discussion of the relation of conflict and consensus to the operation of democracy.

³⁴ McClosky, Herbert, “McCarthyism: The Myth and the Reality,” unpublished paper delivered at the American Psychological Association, New York, September, 1957Google Scholar. See also Wiebe, loc. cit.

³⁵ Lipset, op. cit., pp. 21–2.

³⁶ Cf., for example, Campbell, et al., op. cit.; Berelson, Bernard R., Lazarsfeld, Paul F., and McPhee, William N., Voting (Chicago, 1954)Google Scholar, especially ch. 14; Shils, Edward A. and Janowitz, Morris, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the German Wehrmacht in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 12 (1948), pp. 280–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, “Conservatism and Personality,” this Review, Vol. 52 (March, 1958), pp. 27–45Google Scholar; Adorno, T. W. et al. The Authoritarian Personality, (New York, 1950)Google Scholar, ch. XVII; Crutchfield, Richard, “Conformity and Character,” American Psychologist, Vol. 10 (1955), pp. 191–198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Robert G. McCloskey, loc. cit., suggests that the American political tradition is marked by “ambivalence” toward certain of our fundamental values and that this may discourage the achievement of “consensus” in the usual sense. He believes, however, that Americans have learned to live with, and even to ignore, inconsistencies in the value system, in keeping with our “pragmatic spirit.” Whether this ability is uniquely American or whether it is characteristic of all “open,” democratic societies is a question well worth investigating. It could, conceivably, be a natural outgrowth of democratic ideology itself, no element of which can be conceived and enforced absolutely without infringing other elements. On this last point, see Hook, Sidney, The Paradoxes of Freedom (Berkeley, 1962), pp. 14–62Google Scholar.

³⁸ Cf. Bell, Daniel, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, 1960), pp. 369–375Google Scholar; S. M. Lipset, op. cit., pp. 403–17; Edward Shils, loc. cit.