Develops a social theory of national identity and uses methods to examine the importance of identity in the American context.

Elizabeth Theiss-Morse is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where she has taught since 1988. She is the co-author of two award-winning Cambridge University Press books: Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes toward American Political Institutions (co-authored with John R. Hibbing), winner of the APSA's Fenno Prize in 1996 for the best book on Congress; and With Malice Toward Some: How People Make Civil Liberties Judgments (co-authored with George E. Marcus, John L. Sullivan and Sandra L. Wood), winner of the APSA's Best Book in Political Psychology Prize in 1996. A second book written with John Hibbing, Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work (Cambridge, 2002), was named an 'Outstanding Academic Title' by Choice magazine in 2003. She also co-edited with John Hibbing What Is It About Government that Americans Dislike? (Cambridge, 2001). She has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, Political Psychology, and Political Behavior, among others, and has received five National Science Foundation Grants.

1. The need for a social theory of national identity; 2. Commitment to the national group; 3. The setting of national group boundaries; 4. The desire to help the national group; 5. Loyalty in the face of criticism; 6. Is national identity good or bad?; Appendix.