1. Democratic Ideals and Realities
2. The Elusive Mandate: Elections and the Mirage of Popular Control
3. Tumbling Down into a Democratical Republick: "Pure Democracy" and the Pitfalls of Popular Control
4. A Rational God of Vengeance and of Reward? The Logic of Retrospective Accountability
5. Blind Retrospection: Electoral Responses to Droughts, Floods, and Shark Attacks
6. Musical Chairs: Economic Voting and the Specious Present
7. A Chicken in Every Pot: Ideology and Retrospection in the Great Depression
8. The Very Basis of Reasons: Groups, Social Identities, and Political Psychology
9. Partisan Hearts and Spleens: Social Identities and Political Change
10. It Feels Like We're Thinking: The Rationalizing Voter
11. Groups and Power: Toward a Realist Theory of Democracy
Appendix: Retrospective Voting as Selection and Sanctioning.