Many studies of media effects use self-reported news exposure as their key independent variable without establishing its validity. Motivated by anecdotal evidence that people's reports of their own media use can differ considerably from independent assessments, this study examines systematically...

Shared mental models: ideologies and institutions / Arthur T. Denzau and Douglass C. North -- The institutional foundations of political competence: how citizens learn what they need to know / Arthur Lupia and Mathew D. McCubbins -- Taking sides: a fixed choice theory of political reasoning /...

Analysts make competing claims about when and how politicians can use fear to gain support for suboptimal policies. Using a model, we clarify how common attributes of fear affect politicians' abilities to achieve self-serving outcomes that are bad for voters. In it, a politician provides...

Can the President or the Senate affect the balance of power in the House? We find that they can. Our answer comes from a model that links House leadership decisions to the constitutional requirement to build lawmaking coalitions with the Senate and President. Changing the ideal point of a...

The success and influence of survey-based electoral research is fueling the ambitions of survey analysts and producers. As a result, many new forms and uses of survey data are emerging. These new activities bring with them important questions about credibility. I address several of these...