Jennifer Wolak is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She studies political behavior in the United States, with a particular focus on political psychology, public opinion, state politics, and gender.

"A willingness to compromise might be THE topic for political scientists to understand in this era of extreme polarization. Jennifer Wolak has done an absolutely masterful job with this critical, but difficult, topic." -- Marc Hetherington, Raymond Dawson Distinguished Bicentennial Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

"In this first ever deep look at public attitudes toward compromise, Wolak shows that people hold a principled belief in compromise because they are socialized to believe in it as a democratic value. Drawing on existing data and an innovative series of surveys and experiments, Wolak fully examines how context increases or diminishes support for compromise. Partisanship, conflict, and political environments all play a role in people's response to compromise, often in unexpected ways. This excellent book is essential reading for anyone interested in one of the most basic of democratic processes, the need for compromise." -- Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Willa Cather Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln