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Marc J. Hetherington, Vanderbilt University, marc.j.hetherington@vanderbilt.edu

Consistent with the dual themes of change and complexity, which organize the 2009 program, I encourage proposals that ask and answer questions about the role of both subjects in understanding contemporary politics and its historical roots. Since the 2009 meeting is the first to occur outside American borders, I also encourage proposals that focus on public opinion in comparative perspective.

Scholars of public opinion have often searched for change, but, more often than not, have uncovered stability. The present political context, especially in the U.S., seems a particularly opportune period to uncover evidence of change. Public opinion polls tell candidates and scholars alike that ordinary people crave change. But what does political change mean to citizens? Which issues are important, and which are not? What feelings and dispositions are the sources of these preferences? What are the likely consequences? What is the nature of the mass-elite linkages on such issues? The answers to all these questions are fraught with complexity, both substantively in specifying questions and methodologically in crafting ways to answer them.

Change is particularly obvious in increasing participation rates over the last few elections. What complementary roles have changes in political alternatives and changes in technology played in helping us to understand this normatively important change in behavior? This is a particularly important question to answer since young people, a particularly important constituency for those in the academy, have been at the forefront of this change. I welcome proposals that employ new data sources that might open new avenues to test hypotheses. In general, I encourage proposals that connect the entire menu of public opinion topics ranging from partisanship and ideology to the importance of cognition and social networks to normatively important political questions.