ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Despite its orzgms in explorations of the political and institutional history that had become unfashionable in History departments, the Political Science subfield of American Political Development (APD) has drifted toward the "historyjrom-below" view against which it was originally a reaction. Perhaps this is a normal tendency in democratic cultures that ground their legitimacy on the will of the people. But it may also be due to a failure <if APD scholars to appreciate that even in a (nominally) democratic country such as the United States, the state may acquire autonomy from the public will because <if the vast scope of state activity, and the restricted ability <if the people to monitor, understand, and control that activity. Philip E. Converse's signal contribution to the public-opinion literature can thus be the starting point for a revision of American political history with an eye to the autonomy that political elites may gain from public ignorance <if their actions.
