Instrumental and expressive preferences -- Influences over preference formation -- Preference aggregation through voting -- The formation of political preferences -- Anchor preferences and derivative preferences -- Preferences of elites and masses -- Policies that maximize political power -- Patriotism, propaganda, and the public interest -- Implications for democracy.

"Policies are designed by the elite and the masses actually have little say. While models of democratic decision-making tend to assume that voters have preferences, and that candidates and parties conform to those preferences, voters instead adopt the policies of those political elites -- they follow their leaders"--