The study of public opinion, although at one level preoccupied with the transient issues and political personalities of the day, takes its direction at a deeper level from a recurring consideration of a small number of enduring themes integral to the understanding of democratic politics. We want to take this opportunity to engage perhaps the most fundamental of these themes – the competence of ordinary citizens to discharge the responsibilities expected of them in modern democratic politics.

There is, of course, a distinguished literature deeply skeptical of the ordinary citizen's understanding of public affairs. But our concern here is not with the classic essays of Walter Lippman or Graham Wallas, notable and enduringly instructive as they are. Rather, we are concerned with more recent studies that purport to demonstrate that ordinary citizens lack attitudes on the important issues of the day.

Our concern is both normative and empirical. Democratic ideals cannot be reduced to issues of fact. But ideals, whether ethical or political, are subject to evaluation, and their evaluation cannot be indifferent to matters of fact. No one can be under an obligation to do what he or she does not have a capacity to do, and it cannot make sense to hold out as an ideal of conduct a standard of behavior that citizens cannot reach. The more imperfect ordinary citizens' understanding of political ideas, the less capable they are of grounded judgment, the more crabbed a creditable conception of democratic citizenship must be.