Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction; 2. Consensus issues: admidst polarization, shared goals; 3. The measure and meaning of issue ownership; 4. Ruling out the policy and performance hypotheses; 5. Partisan priorities: the source of issue ownership; 6. How issue ownership distorts American politics; 7. Conclusion.

Americans consistently name Republicans as the party better at handling issues like national security and crime, while they trust Democrats on issues like education and the environment - a phenomenon called 'issue ownership'. Partisan Priorities investigates the origins of issue ownership, showing that in fact the parties deliver neither superior performance nor popular policies on the issues they 'own'. Rather, Patrick J. Egan finds that Republicans and Democrats simply prioritize their owned issues with lawmaking and government spending when they are in power. Since the parties tend to be particularly ideologically rigid on the issues they own, politicians actually tend to ignore citizens' preferences when crafting policy on these issues. Thus, issue ownership distorts the relationship between citizens' preferences and public policies.