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Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics
Abstract
Tracking trends in American public opinion, this study examines moods of public policy over time. James Stimson looks at shorter term movements as the public approves or disapproves politicians, trusts or distrusts government. His book is distinctive in that it focuses on determining the unobserved true opinion that lies beneath superficial polls. It argues that public opinion is decisive in American politics and identifies the citizens who produce influential change as a relatively small subset of the American electorate.
... Whereas Stimson (1981, 1989) initially argued that race-related policies constituted the only example of issue evolution in American politics, public attitudes on issues ranging from abortion to gender equality were soon found to increasingly align with party identification (Abramowitz, 1994;Adams, 1997;Layman, 2002;Layman & Carsey, 2002;Layman et al., 2006;Stoker & Jennings, 2008;Stimson, 2004). Following Carmines and Stimson's original reasoning, we expect emerging issues to differentially affect generations because they mark distinct historical political socialization periods. ...
American political elites have increasingly polarized over the past decades, which has inspired much research into mass polarization. We study whether there is a gen-erational component to mass polarization by disentangling period, age, and cohort differences while distinguishing two forms of mass polarization: partisan sorting and ideological divergence. Drawing from General Social Survey and American National Election Studies data, we find that partisan sorting has increased across long-standing and emerging issues, while ideological divergence has not. Contrary to expectations, overtime increases in sorting are clearly driven by changes within generations rather than by generational replacement. On several issues, newer generations turn out to be less sorted than those they replace. This tentatively suggests that, partially as a consequence of demographic changes, generational replacement will gradually lead to less polarization in American public opinion as it converges toward more liberal positions.
This study investigates the relationship between political orientation, government change, and public satisfaction with food policies in the Republic of Korea. Utilizing data from the Consumer Behavior Survey for Foods (CBSF) conducted by the Korea Rural Economic Institute from 2020 to 2021, we employ fixed effects models to examine the impact of political orientation, the presence of a conservative government, and their interactions on satisfaction across various dimensions of food policy. We also analyze the change in satisfaction levels from 2020 to 2021 based on shifts in political orientation. The results reveal complex dynamics between political alignment, government performance, and public perceptions. While conservatives and liberals exhibit higher satisfaction with labeling policies, they show lower satisfaction with safety and redress policies. The presence of a conservative government is associated with higher satisfaction in specific policy areas but lower overall satisfaction. Changes in political orientation significantly influence policy satisfaction, with shifts away from conservatism and towards liberalism leading to decreased satisfaction. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the nuanced preferences of different political groups and the need for responsive and transparent food policy frameworks. This study advances the theoretical understanding of the political economy of policy satisfaction and provides novel policy implications for effective governance.
Changes in party systems do not always occur gradually. While structural changes in societies lead to new tensions and potential conflicts, these conflicts often become politicized in the wake of ‘triggering events’. However, such events do not always lead to the politicization of an issue. This study addresses the question why potentially triggering events sometimes produce extensive political attention and conflict around an associated issue, whereas in other circumstances very similar events do not generate much political attention or contestation. Some scholars highlight the strategic incentives of party political elites (the top-down perspective) whereas others focus on the key role of political challengers in politicizing issues (‘the bottom-up perspective)’. We focus on three events that potentially trigger the politicization of immigration (9–11, Banlieus riots and the Cartoon crisis) and identify anti-immigration parties as challengers of government parties. Based on political claims analysis of newspapers in seven European countries, we find that government parties exert strong control over the political agenda, both in terms of salience as in positional terms. However, when anti-immigration parties are large and in opposition, they do play an important role in politicizing the issue of immigration. Since anti-immigration parties have increased their vote share over the past decade and typically remain in the opposition nevertheless, it is likely that future events will lead to further politicization of the issue of immigration.
Public sentiment towards the police is a matter of great interest in the United States, as reports on police misconduct are increasingly being published in mass and social media. Here, we test how the public’s perception of the police can be majorly shaped by media reports of police brutality and local crime. We collect data on media coverage of police brutality and local crime, together with Twitter posts from 2010-2020 about the police in 18 metropolitan areas in the country. Using a range of model-free approaches building on transfer entropy analysis, we discover an association between public sentiment towards the police and media coverage of police brutality. We cautiously interpret this relationship as causal. Through this lens, the public’s sentiment towards the police appears to be driven by media-projected images of police misconduct, with no statistically significant evidence for a comparable effect driven by media reports on crimes.
Resumo O artigo analisa a polarização ideológica dos deputados federais brasileiros entre 2005-2021. Utiliza como base empírica surveys realizadas com parlamentares durante o período (Brazilian Legislative Survey [BLS] e o Latin American Elites project of the University of Salamanca [PELA-USAL]). São encontradas evidências que os parlamentares brasileiros se tornaram mais liberais em temas culturais e com posições em favor do mercado acerca das questões econômicas. Quando as posições são analisadas por partido e sua localização no eixo esquerda/direita, encontraram-se evidências de uma maior diferenciação entre os partidos à medida que nos afastamos de 2005. Porém, isso não significa que estejamos diante de um sistema partidário polarizado. O mais correto seria afirmar que estamos diante de um quadro de partidos mais diferenciados num sistema não polarizado.
We study whether and how governments influence public opinion about immigration policies in Europe. At the European level, conflicts about policy are generally territorial in nature – that is, they involve conflicts between member states, which are represented by their governments. Distinguishing between four types of situations, depending on whether the national governments support or oppose EU policy proposals, we formulate and test hypotheses concerning the positions of incumbent and opposition voters/non-voters on four different asylum-policy proposals in 16 European countries. We test both direct effects of incumbent cues on voters' preferences, and moderating effects, where the cueing affects the way in which individual attitudes to immigration and European integration translate into specific preferences for EU asylum and immigration policies. Our results suggest that voters, indeed, follow the cues provided by their governments when forming their preferences on EU policies.
A partisan divide over LGBT rights has emerged in the U.S. Yet unlike other issues on which the parties have traded places or polarized, most of the change on gay rights has occurred within one party, the Democrats. How did this unusual change occur? LGBT rights was originally a fringe cause, rejected by most politicians in both parties. As gay rights activists slowly became more prominent in the Democratic Party, many politicians adapted, abandoning earlier positions informed by their personal backgrounds and state or district constituencies. Meanwhile, incorporating the religious right led most Republicans to maintain the anti-LGBT rights stand that was once common to both parties, even as public opinion shifted. The result was a partisan divide in this issue area that had consequences for policy. The role of adaptation by incumbents in producing it—contrary to some prominent models—is evident in both Congressional co-sponsorship and roll-call data. The growing party divide is also evident in platforms. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of how party position change occurs.
Animal welfare legislation in Australia is influenced by “community expectations.” Given a major source of publicly available information on animal welfare law is that from media articles, it is likely the information discussed online could be influencing public opinion and consequently shaping animal welfare legislation reform efforts. This study examined the social media discourse in response to news articles on animal welfare law in Australia. A content analysis was applied to Facebook comments from posts originating from a formal news agency discussing animal cruelty and penalties over a 6-month period between 1 June 2019 to 1 December 2019. All posts were screened against eligibility criteria and imported into NVivo for inductive coding. A total of 24 Facebook posts with an accumulative 1,723 comments were coded and thematically analyzed. Six primary themes were generated from the analysis: (1) failure of the court system; (2) failure of the legislation; (3) failure of the government; (4) emotive reactions; (5) risk of violence; and (6) mistrust in the media. The social media discourse was scathing of the legal system, with a particular focus on failings of the animal welfare law justice system. It is likely that this type of discourse surrounding animal law enforcement could be playing an influential role over the “expectations” influencing animal welfare legislation reform in Australia.
What has caused the marked, cross-national, and unprecedented trends in European electoral results in the 21st century? Scholarly explanations include social structure and challenger party entrepreneurship. We argue that these electoral changes more proximally result from public issue salience, which results from societal trends and mainly affects rather than is caused by party agenda setting. We use aggregate-level panel data across 28 European countries to show that the public issue salience of three issues—unemployment, immigration, and the environment—is associated with later variation in the results of the conservative, social democrat, liberal, radical right, radical left, and green party families in theoretically expected directions, while the party system issue agenda has weaker associations. Public issue salience, in turn, is rooted in societal trends (unemployment rates, immigration rates and temperature anomalies), and, in some cases, party agenda setting. We validate our mechanism at the individual-level across 28 European countries and using UK panel data. Our findings have implications for our understanding of the agency of parties, the permanency of recent electoral changes, and how voters reconcile their social and political worlds.
Public opinion provides policy makers with meaningful information on how the public feels towards a certain issue. Stance detection in social media is the problem of automatically determining the standpoint expressed in a specific tweet towards a target of interest such as a topic or an issue. One such application of stance detection is to gauge public opinion from Twitter data as an alternative to traditional methods such as surveys and polls. In this paper, we define user-based stance and claim that the aggregation of user-based stance is more aligned with the goal of gauging public opinion than the aggregation of tweet-based stance. Our analysis shows that tweet-based stance aggregation leads to significantly different results than user-based stance aggregation, and the effect size varies per stance class. This paper provides the basis and argument for user-based stance to measure public opinion from Twitter data.KeywordsData analysisPublic opinionStance detectionStance analysis
A multitude of political science research assumes that the same ideological dimension guides the interaction between citizens and elites. Public opinion research has repeatedly underlined that this assumption is unlikely to apply to the entire public. In this article, I test the expectation that the interplay between exposure to public debate information and partisan identities makes citizens align their preferences with the elite ideological dimension. I develop a joint scaling model for citizens’ and legislators' preferences that allows for heteroscedastic deviations of citizens’ policy preferences from the elite model. Applications to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study of 2008–2012 and the Senator Representation Study show that elite ideology can be a more reliable constraint on political preferences for exposed partisans, compared to unexposed non-partisans. The findings have implications for studies of party strategies, representation and political behavior that build on the assumption of shared ideological dimensions.
How can public opinion research help achieve badly needed criminal justice reforms? Unfortunately, public opinion has frequently been used in ways that help construct barriers to reform. Understanding the reasons—the influences on public opinion about crime and justice, the popularity of punitiveness and reform, and the way political actors interpret opinion—for this is important. But there is also promise in public opinion research for achieving a more just system, and public opinion research can also be a tool in elevating structurally marginalized voices, as well as those most impacted by crime and justice processes. Doing so requires a commitment to involving diverse voices inside and outside the academy, as well as a thoughtful and mutually beneficial integration of theory and public opinion research.
Much of the political rhetoric that facilitated mass incarceration was predicated on the promise of reducing fear among the public. Yet, it remains unclear whether the large increases in imprisonment experienced in many areas made residents feel less afraid. We examine this issue by integrating geographic data on imprisonment with individual-level data on fear from the General Social Survey (GSS). We find that people from states and counties with greater “cumulative imprisonment” rates were no less afraid than their counterparts from areas that imprisoned many fewer people. These findings hold for the public overall and for non-Latino whites and members of the working and middle classes, who frequently were target audiences for political rhetoric linking mass incarceration era policies to fear reduction. Our study supports growing calls to decouple crime and criminal justice policy from politics and electoral cycles, and to develop evidence-based punishment approaches organized around transparent normative principles.
The scholarly exchange over approaches to measuring public preferences in the American states dates back several years. This introduction to the debate attempts to provide broad perspective on how scholars have conceptualized and measured policy mood among state mass publics in the past and the implications of those choices for theoretical and empirical questions in state politics. We frame the discussion around two questions: (1) what is the concept to be measured? and (2) how does the concept fit with the research question? We conclude with some insight on the future of the debate and its implications for state politics research.
To fully understand state policy outcomes or elections in the US, we need valid over-time measures of state-level public opinion. We contribute to the research on measuring state public opinion in two ways. First, we respond to Berry, Fording, Hanson, and Crofoot’s (BFHC) critique of Enns and Koch’s measure of state policy mood. We show that when BFHC’s analysis is performed using the same states and examining annual change, it validates the Enns and Koch measure and raises questions about the Berry, Ringquist, Fording, and Hanson measure. Second, we generate a new measure of state policy mood building on Enns and Koch’s approach. The new measure has even better properties than the previous measure and relates to state presidential vote and state policy liberalism in similar ways to Caughey and Warshaw’s measure of state economic liberalism. We conclude with recommendations for using the various direct measures of state public opinion.
Fenno (1975) famously posited that the mass public’s assessments of the U.S. Congress are rooted in a paradox, with citizens holding negative evaluations of the collective Congress while holding favorable views of their individual members of Congress. Since the conceptualization of “Fenno’s Paradox,” Congress underwent pronounced changes due to increased ideological polarization between increasingly homogeneous parties comprised of more partisan loyal, ideologically extreme legislators. In this article, we ask whether this partisan polarization shifted the public’s assessments of Congress and their individual representatives over time. Leveraging over 45 years of new data measuring the monthly approval of Congress and legislators with generalized error correction models, we find that greater polarization lowers the approval rating of both over time, suggesting that greater polarization weakens Fenno’s Paradox by considerably lowering legislator approval. We explore the underlying mechanism of this finding at the individual level, finding that co-partisan support for Congress and opposing-partisan support for legislators has collapsed since 1980. Taken together, our results suggest that partisan polarization plays a large role in motivating the historic decline in congressional approval and the ability of legislators to amass a personal incumbency advantage.
The end of the Cold War and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in a new unipolar international system that presented fresh challenges to international relations theory. Since the Enlightenment, scholars have speculated that patterns of cooperation and conflict might be systematically related to the manner in which power is distributed among states. Most of what we know about this relationship, however, is based on European experiences between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, when five or more powerful states dominated international relations, and the latter twentieth century, when two superpowers did so. Building on a highly successful special issue of the leading journal World Politics, this book seeks to determine whether what we think we know about power and patterns of state behaviour applies to the current 'unipolar' setting and, if not, how core theoretical propositions about interstate interactions need to be revised.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
The American Congress Reader provides a supplement to the popular and updated American Congress undergraduate textbook. By the same authors who drew upon Capitol Hill experience and nationally recognized scholarship to present a crisp introduction and analysis of Congress's inner mechanics, the Reader compiles the best relevant scholarship on party and committee systems, leadership, voting, and floor activity to broaden and illuminate the key features of the text.
This report gives the results of the analysis of data collected from a subset of the respondents in the 1980 Presidential Election Study, which ascertained what time of day the person voted, what election night news they heard, and when they heard that news. This analysis indicates that many people heard projections of the presidential election outcome before the local polls closed, that hearing news of the projected outcome decreased the likelihood of voting among those who had not already voted, and that exposure affected the likelihood of turnout among Republicans more than among Democrats (although Democrats were less likely than Republicans to vote late on election day).
Using survey data in the states from 1981 to 2000, we explore the nature of public sentiment toward members of the U.S. Senate, compare aggregate senator approval to congressional approval, and examine the impact of several factors that may influence approval of both senators and their legislative institution. We hypothesize that presidential approval, partisanship, consumer expectations, inter-branch discord, national scandals, and rally-around-the-flag events will influence both senator and congressional approval. We find evidence that supports the conventional argument that constituents “love” their senators but “hate” Congress. Senators appear to be relatively insulated from factors that sway presidential and congressional approval.
The election projection of the 1980 presidential contest by NBC raised much speculation concerning its possible impact on voting in states where the polls were still open. Research on the subject has started from different assumptions, used different data and methods, and come to different conclusions concerning the real-world effects of such early calls. Using district-level voting and demographic data and focusing on deviations from normal voting patterns, this study finds the early call to have had a small but measurable impact on presidential and congressional turnout, and a somewhat larger impact on depressing the vote for Democratic candidates at both levels. In addition, higher income, white collar, and better educated populations appear to have been affected to a greater extent. While the overall impact was too small to have affected the outcome of the presidential race, at the congressional level as many as fourteen races were won by margins smaller than the estimated impact of the early call in those districts.
There has been a general shift towards liberalism during the post World War II period. A plurality of attitude trends have moved in the liberalism direction. There is, however, some evidence that this liberal shift has weakened, but not reversed during the last decade. Topical disaggregation show that the liberal movement has not been uniform across subjects. Attitudes towards abortions, civil liberties, race relations, and religion have moved most consistently in the liberal direction while crime/violence and spending/taxation items have showed more conservative trends.
The main causes of the general liberalism trend were modernization and liberal idealism assisted by the New Deal Realignment and institutional leadership. The main countervailing forces to liberalism were found to be stagflation, taxation level, and crime. Despite the waning of liberalism in recent years there is no evidence to support the idea that most liberal advances over the past four decades will be reversed in the immediate future.