ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies four shifts in the political mindset of the public that occurring in the early 1990s and discusses some of their general implications. These four shifts–in how political scientists think about the presidency, the functions and structure of government, the nature of political representation, and the character of democratic deliberation–involve some extensive transformations in the nature of American politics. Perhaps the most obvious shift during the early 1990s has occurred in the way Americans think about the presidency and current or potential presidents. A third shift in the public mindset, even more elusive and ill defined than the shift in the conception of government, may be an alteration in our conception of legislative representation. Throughout American history, political deliberation and policy choice were expected to occur primarily among elected or appointed government officials who had been selected for their position in a constitutional manner, with some linkage to a public mandate.
