U.S Government Chapter 7
political elites
persons with a disproportionate share of political power
A coherent and consistent set of beliefs about what policies government ought to pursue is referred to as
political ideology
According to the text, one reason that identification with a party has declined in recent years is that
young voters have weaker party identification
poll
A survey of public opinion
Some years ago, researchers at the University of Cincinnati asked 1,200 local residents whether they favored passage of the monetary Control Bill. What was the result
About 21% said they favored the bill, 25% said they opposed it, and the rest said they hadn't though much about the matter or didn't know. But there was no such thing as the Monetary Control Bill. The researchers made it up. About 26% of the people questioned in a national survey also expressed opinions on the same nonexistent piece of legislation. In many surveys, wide majorities favor expanding most government programs and paying less in taxes. On some issues, the majority in favor one month gives way to the majority opposed the next, often with no obvious basis for the shift.
How id it widely believed that geographic region affect political attitudes and in particular that southerners and northerners disagree significantly on many policy questions
At one time, white southerners were conspicuously less liberal than easterners, midwesterners, and westerners on questions such as aid to minorities, legalizing marijuana, school busing, an enlarging the rights of those accused of crimes. Although more conservative on these issues, they held views on economic issues similar to those of whites in other regions of the country. This helps to explain why the South was for so long a part of the Democratic party coalition: on national and economic and social welfare policies, southerners expressed views not very different from those of northerners. That coalition was always threatened, however, by the divisiveness produced by the issues fo race and liberty.
How are there also many areas of agreements between blacks and whites
Both blacks and white want our courts to be tougher in handling criminals, oppose the idea of marking abortion legal in all cases, agree that people have become to dependent government aid, and think that everyone has it in their own power to succeed.
How has research also made it clear that mass and elite opinions differ
By "elite" we do not mean people who are "better" than others. Rather, elite, is a term used by social scientists to refer to people who have a disproportionate amount of some valued resource- money, schooling, prestige, political power, or whatever. Not only do political elite know more about politics than the rest of us, they think differently about it- they have different views and beliefs. They are more likely than average citizens to hold amore or less consistent set of opinions about the policies govt. ought to pursue. The govt. attends more to the elite views than to popular views, at least on many matters.
gender gap
Difference in political views between men and women
However defined, how has public opinion and voting been determined differentlyin the U.S than in Europe
It is determined less by class in the U.S than in Europe, and the extent of class cleavage had declined in the last few decades in both the U. and Europe. In the 1950s, V.O. Key, Jr found that differences in political opinion were closely associated with occupation. He noted that people holding managerial or professional jobs have distinctly more conservative views on social welfare policy and more internationalist views on foreign policy than manual workers. During the next, decade, the pattern changed greatly. Opinion surveys don't in the late 1960s showed that business and professional people had views quite similar to those of manual workers on matters such as the poverty program, health insurance, American policy in Vietnam, and govt. efforts to create jobs.
Whatever this state of affairs (of crosscutting cleavaged) may mean for democracy, hoe does it create a messy situation for political scientists
It would be so much easier if everyone's opinion of political affairs reflected some single feature of his or her like, such as income, occupation, age, race, or, sex. Of course, some writers have argued that political opinion if a reflection of one such feature, social, class, usually defined in terms of income of occupation, but that view, though containing some truth, is beset with inconsistencies.
How is religious tradition one way in which the family forms and transmits political beliefs
Religious differences make for polittical differences, but the differences generally are more complicated than first meets the eye.
Wy do Americans speak of "social class" with embarrassment
The norm of equality tugs at out consciences, urging us to judge people as individuals, not as parts of some social group (such as "the lower class"). Social scientists speak of "class" with confusion. They know it exists but quarrel constantly about how to define it: by income? occupation? wealth? schooling? prestige? personality?
How is southern lifestyle in fact different from that of other regions of the country
The south has, on the whole, been more accommodating to business enterprise and less so to organize labor than, for example, the Northeast; it gave greater support to the 3rd-party candidate George Wallace in 1968, which was a protest against big government and the growth of national political power as well as against civil rights; and it was in the South that the greatest opposition arose to income-redistribution plans such as the Family Assistance Plan of 1969. Moreover, there is some evidence that white Southerners became by the 1970s more conservative than they had been in the 1950s, at least when compared to white northerners. Finally, white southerners have becomes less attached to the Democratic party; no Democratic candidate for president has won a majority of white southern votes since Lyndon Johnson did so in 1964; in 2008, Barack Obama won the presidency with about half the white vote nationally but only 30% of the white vote in the South
In the ensuring decades, however, how have other studies painted a somewhat more reassuring picture than in the 1940s
These studies suggested that, which most citizens are poorly informed about government and care little about most public policy issues, they are nonetheless pretty good at using limited information (or cues) to figure out what policies, parties, or candidates most nearly reflect their values or favor their interests, and then acting (or voting) accordingly.
What may some people, reflecting on the many gaps between what the givernment does and what the people want, think about out system of govt.
They may become cynical and think our system is democratic in name only. That would be a mistake. There are several very good reasons why govt. policy often appears to be at odds with public opinion.
How do class differences remain
Unskilled workers are more likely than affluent white-collar workers to be Democrats and to have liberal votes on economic policy. And when economic issues pinch- for example, when farmers are hurting or steelworkers are being laid off- the importance of economic interests in differentiating officials of various groups rises sharply
Second, how is it not as easy as one may suppose to know what the public thinks
We are so inundates these days with public opinion polls that we may imagine that they tell us what the public believes. That may be true on a few rather simple, clear-cut, and widely discussed issues, but it is not true with respect to most matters on which the government must act. The best pollsters know the limits of their methods, and citizens should know them as well.
Ironically today what are the only circumstances under which elected leaders can get away with sounding the least bit the way the Framers did (questioning "rule by the people" or doubted the majority opinions)
When public opinion polls get the public talking about how little most people know about govt. ro civics. That happened briefly in Aplril 2011 when "Newsweek" magazine released the results of a 25-item "U.S Citizen Test." Among other results, only 14% of the people knew that the U.S House of Reps. has 435 voting memebrs; only 39% know that U.S senators serve 6-year terms; over a quarter didn;t know the name of the sitting vice president of the U.S (at the time, Joe Biden), and only 12% could identify any one writer of "The Federalist Papers" (Madison, Alexander Hamilton, or John Jay).
political ideology
a more or less consistent set of beliefs about what policies government ought to pursue
What did the first major academic study of public opinion and voting, published in the 1940s, paint
a distressing picture of American democracy. The studies found that, while a small group of citizens know lots about government and had definite ideas on many issues, the vast majoriity knew next to nothing about government and had only vague notions even on much-publicized public policy matters that affected them directly.
African Americans are more likely than whites to
all answers are correct
Studies of opinion-policy congruence suggest that the rate at which the government adopts policies supported by majorities in polls has
been declining since 1980
One reason that political elites are more consistent in their ideological beliefs than the average citizen is that they are
better informed
When an individual's views are consistently conservative or liberal, we say that person is ideologically
constrained
The Preamble to the US Constitution lists all of the following goals of government except
democracy
Cleavages in public opinion are more common in the United States than in many other countries because the United States
has a socially heterogeneous population
What does nobody fully understand about public opinion
hoe public opunion influences everything from who wins an election to what gets politicians' attention to whether given bills become law.
public opinion
how people think or feel about particular things.
Most blue-collar workers in the United States think of themselves as
middle-class
V.O. Key's classic research in the 1950s found that differences in public opinion were closely associated with
occupation
elite
people who have a disproportionate amount of some valued resource
Most high school students share the same party identification as
their parents
What political party do most African Americans support
African Americans are overwhelmingly Democratic, though younger ones are a bit more likely than older ones to identify with the Republican party. Younger black are also much more likely to support the idea of using school vouchers to pay for education than older ones.
Despite the differences how are there broad areas of agreement between Latinos and non-Hispanic whites
Almost exactly the same percentage of both groups favor allowing people to invest some of their social Security taxes into stock-market funds. We would like to know more about these opinions, but pollsters have not yet fully explored Hispanic attitudes.
How has democratic advantage among women, especially women aged 18-29, widened in recent years
Behind this gender gap in partisan self-identification are differences between men and women over prominent political issues and which issues matter most. For example, as result from the 2008 American National election survey suggested, women are 50% more likely than mento favor universal health care, nearly 50% more likely than men to favor same-sex marriage, somewhat more likely than men to say than abortion is an important issue, and somewhat less likely than men to approve of recent military interventions.
In what can the greater ideological consistency of politcal elites be seen
Congress. Democratic members of Congress tend to be consistently liberal, and Republican members of Congress tent to be consistently conservative- far more consistently than Democratic voters and Republicnan voters. By the same token, the delegates to presidential nominating conventions are far more ideological (liberal in the Demoratic convention, conservative in the Republican one) than is true of voters who identify with the Democratic or Republican party.
For what is the fisrt of 3 reasons why these self- identification survey averaged not really tell us much at all about how or whether most people think about politics in an ideological manner
First, except when asked by pollsters, most Americans do not actually employ the words liberal, conservative, or moderate in explaining or justifying their preferences for parties, candidates, or policies, and not many more than hald can give plausible definitions of these terms. The vast majority of Americans simply do not think about politics in an ideological or very coherent manner.
How much confidence should we place in surveys that presumably tell us "what the American people think" about legislation and other issues, and how should we assess "public opinion"?
For businesses, understanding how people think or feel about particular things- for example, knowing whether consumers are likely to want a new product or be willing to pay more for an old one- can spell the difference between profit and loss. In the early 20th century, corporations and marketing firms pioneered attempts to systematically measure public news, and political scientists were not far behind them
How have the closer scholars studied public opinion on particular issues, the less uninformed, indifferent, or fickle it has appeared to be
For example, a study by political scientist Terry M. Moe analyzed public opinion concerning whether the government should provide parents with pubicly funded grants, or vouchers, that they can apply toward tuition at private schools. He found that although most people are unfamiliar with the voucher issue, "they do a much better job of formulating their opinions than skeptics would lead us to expect." When supplied with basi information, average citizens adopt t"theie rplisitions for good substantive reason, just as the informed do."
How are there sharp differences between white and black attitudes on many public policy questions
For example, blacks are much more likely than whites to support affirmative action, to think that the criminal justice system is biased against them, to oppose the use of military force, to doubt that all should be willing to fight for out country, and to think that believing in God is essential for person to be moral.
How are there also sizeable age-related differeces in opinions on several issues
For example, in 2010 citizens under 30 supported hay marriage by a margin of 24% more than those aged 65 and older. In some ways, the opinions of younger citizens break old ideological molds. Compared to older Americans, for example, citizens aged 18 to 29 have been more likely to favor gay marriage and women's rights (generally labeled the liberal view), but also more likely to favor giving parents tax money in the form of vouchers for private or religious schools and letting people invest in some oftheir Social Security contribution in the stock market (generally lable the conservative view) More generally, a majority to today;s 18-24 yar olds think elected officials have priorities different from their own, but only 1/5 thinks politics is not relevant to their lives at present.
How are there limits to how much influence elites can have on the public
For instance, elites do not define economic problems- people can see for themselves the existence of unemployment, raging inflation, or high interest rates. Elite opinion may shape the policies, but it does not define the problem, Similarly, elite opinion has little influence on whether we think there is a crime or drug problem; it is, after all, out purposes being snatched, cars being stolen, and children being drugged. On the other hand, elite opinion does define the problem as well as the policy options with respect to most aspects of the foreign affairs; the public has little firsthand experience with which to judge what is going on in Iraq.
How do opinions about politics and government vary not ony across but also within given reliious traditions
For instance, table 7.2 shows 4 Christian religious groups' respective opinions on 4 issues. As the table illustrates, while evangelicals and black Protestants hold similar views on environmental regulation, same-sex marriage, and faith-based initiatives, but differ over more aid to the poor.More generally, table 7.3 shows that all people of whatever religion who attend worship services regularly are considerably less likely to vote Democratic than otherwise comparable persons who attend worship services rarely or never.
Where do such political vies come from
In most families, the dinner table is not a seminar in political philosophy but a place where people discuss school, jobs, dates, and chores. In some families, however, the dinner table is a political classroom. Studies of the participants in various student radical movements in the 1960s suggested that college radicals often were the sons and daughters of people who had themselves been young radicals; some commentators dubbed them the "diaper-red babies." Presumably, deeply conservative people come disproportionately from families that were also deeply conservative. This transfer of political beliefs from one generation to the next reflects both heredity and, to a lesser extent, family teaching.
Even if properly conducted, how are polls hardly infallible
Since 1952, most major polls have in fact picked the winner of the presidential election. Likewise, exit polls, interviews with randomly selected voters conducted at polling places on election day in a representative sample of voting districts, have proven quite accurate. But as a result of sampling error and for other reasons, it is very hard for pollsters to predict the winner in a close election.
Still how are many of the issues than now lead us to choose which party to support and that t determines whether we think of ourselves as liberals or conservatives noneconomic issues
In recent ears, our political posture has been shaped by the positions we take on race relations, abortion, school prayer, environmentalism, and terrorism, issues that do not clearly affect the rich differently than the poor (or at least do not affect them as differently as do the union movement, the minimum wage, and unemployment). Moral, symbolic, and foreign policy matters do not divide the rick and poor in the same way as economic ones. Thus, we have many well-off people who think of themselves as liberals because they take liberal positions on these noneconomic matters, and many not-so-well-off people who think of themselves as conservatives because that is the position they take on these issues.
How do the factors for political opinions differ in some democracies from in the U.S
In some other democracies, a single factor such as class may explain more of the differences in political attitudes than it does in the more socially heterogenous U.S. Most blue-collar workers in America think of themselves as "middle-class," whereas most such workers in Britain and France describe themselves as "working-class."
what are differences between Latinos and non-Hispanic whites
Latinos have less money and are younger than non-Hispanic white Americans. About 4/5 of all Latinos, but only half of all non-Hispanic whites, are younger than 45. It is possible that these differences affect their views.
What are now the largest minority group in America, numbering to over 50 million
Latinos. Unfortunately, studies of Latino public opinion have bee called "small, disproportionately oriented toward immigration, ad relatively silent on the influence of gender" and other possible intra-group opinion cleavages. Likewise, despite the country's growing Asian population, there is as yet virtually no literature on Asian public opinion.
how are polttical beliefs not necessarily the same as party afficialtion
One can be a liberal or a conservative Democrat, a liberal or a conservative republican. Studies that have shown that genes affect out political beliefs also suggest that they do not have much of an effect on our party affiliation. Whether we are zDemocrats, Republicans, or something else depends on what we learn from our parents.
With what inconsistencies is the view that political opinion is a reflection of social class beset
Poor black and poor whites disagree sharply on many issues involving race; well-t-do Jews and well-to-do Protestants often have opposing opinions on social welfare policy; and low-income elderly people are much more worried about crime than low-income graduate students. Plumbers and professors may have similar incomes, but they rarely have similar views, and business people in NYC often take a very different view of govt. than businesspeople in Houston or Birmingham.
What is the second of 3 reasons why these self- identification survey averaged not really tell us much at all about how or whether most people think about politics in an ideological manner
Second, over the last decade, survey research scholars have rediscovered old truths about the limitations of polling as a window into the "public mind." Public opinion polls must of necessity ask rather simple questions. The apparent "inconsistency" in the answers people give at different times may mean only that the natures of the problem and the working of the question have hanged.
Still on a large number of issues, how are the policy preferences of average Republican and Democratic voters differ significantly from one another
Some polititical scientists arguue that Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress are more poarized because voters anre more polarized. Other polititcal scientists, however, analyze the available polling and electiondata differently. They find that ideological changes among voters have been small while public opinion among Democrats voting in districts represented by Democrats and among republicans had been remarkably stable. Which side is right? We have no data that allows us to compare in each district wha voters think and how their representatives behave. To amass such data would require polls of perhaps 500 voters in each congressional district taken years apart. Nobody thinks it is worth spending millions of dollars to interview more than 10,000 voters at different times just to answer this one academic puzzle.
If properly conducted, how can a surgey of political opinion- popularly called a poll- capture the opinions of 300 million citizens by interviewing as few as 1.500 of them
There are many keys to good polling: possessing comprehensible questions (asking peole about things they have some basis for forming an opinion about), wording questions fairly (not using "loded" or "emotional" words or indicating what the "right" answer is), and others,
Why should the results that 1/3 of the differences among people about political beliefs comes from genetic makeup, but only 1/10 of these differences comes from family influences, not surprise us
We know that children in the same family have different personalities even thought they have the same parents. Genes play a big role in personality, as they also do in basic political beliefs. If you add together the big effect of genes and the smaller effect of parental influences, then half of our political views comes from our individual life experiences, such as the friends we acquire, the schools we attend, and what happens to us as adults.
First it bears that the Framers of the Constitution did not try to create what
a government that would do from day to day "what the epoe want." They created a government for the purpose of achieving certain substantive goals. The preamble to the Constitution lists 6 of these: "to form a more perfect Union, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty."
However, what can no poll, whatever it asks and however it is worded, provide us with
a reasonably accurate measure of how people think or feel unless the person polled is a random sample of the entire population, meaning that any given voter or adult has an equal chance of being interviewed. Though a process called stratified or multistage area sampling, the pollster makes a list of all the geographical units in the country- say all the countries- and groups (or "stratifies") them by the size of their population. The pollster then selects at random units from each group or stratum in proportion to its total population. Witin each selected coutnry, smalled and smaller goegaphical units (down to particular blocks or streets) are chosen, and then, wihin the smalles unit, individuals are selected at random (by, for example, choosing the occupant of every 5th house).
norm
a standard of right or proper conduct
For any population over 500,000, what do pollsters need to make
about 15,000 telephone calls to reach a number of respondents (technically, the number computes to 1,065) sufficient to ensure that the opinions of the sample differ only slightly (by a 3% plus or minus margin) from what the results would have been had they interviewed the entire population from which the sample was drawn. That can be very expensive to do. Polling forms can economize by using smaller-than-ideal samples or by under-sampling hard-to-contact people, but then, they risk getting things wrong. As summarized in the "research Frontiers" box, that is the story behind why so many 2008 presidential primary polls performed so poorly.
up to now, how has the words Liberal and conservative been used
as though everyone agrees on what they mean and as if they accurately describe general sets of political belief help by large segments of the population. Neither of these assumptions is correct. Like many useful words- love, justice, happiness- they are as vague as they are indispensable
Although early studies of American public opinion and voting found low information levels, they also found that Americans were pretty good at
employing cues to select policies, parties, and candidates that most clearly reflected their values and interests.
What might ideological liberals consistently covet
everything on that list except the bigger military, and be willing to pay higher taxes to get it. Ideological conservatives might want only the bigger military, but only if getting it requires no tax increases. But most citizens are more inclined to puck and choose their positions without regard to conventional liberal or conservative views, and without feeling any need to be "consistent."
A typical public opinion poll today features about __________ respondents.
fifteen hundred
Though the elites and the public see politics in very different ways, and though there often are intense antagonisms between the 2 groups, what is the first of 2 important ways that elites influence opinion
first, elites, especially those having access to the media, raise and frame political issues. At one time, environmentalism was not on the political agenda, but it also was near the top of governmental concerns. Al some times the government has has little interest in what it should to in South Africa or Central America at other times the government has been preoccupied with these matters. Just as world events help shape the political agenda, so also do political elites.
Defined simply, what does public opinion refer to
how people think or reel about particular things. In this chapter, we take a closer look at what "public opinion" is, how it is formed, and how opinions differ. In later chapters, we examine the working s of poltitical parties, interest groups, and govt. insitutiona and consider what mpacts tey have on whether public opinion affects govt. policy. Let's begin this journey by recognizing how perspectivs on the role of public opinion is supposed to play in the country's representative democracy hoave changed since the national was founded
What do these figures ( issues between Asians and Latinos), however, conceal
important differences within these ethnic groups. For example, Japanese Americans are among the more more conservative Asian Americans, whereas Korean Americans (perhaps because they are among the most recent immigrants) are more liberal. Similarity, Latinos, the fastest-growing ethnic group in the U.S, are a diverse mix og Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Central Americans, and Puetro Ricans, each with distinct political views. Most studies of Latino voting show that people from Mexico vote heavily Democratic, those from Cuba, mostly Republican, and those from Puerto Rico somewhere in between. Local conditions also affect these views. Hispanics in Texas often vote for more conservative candidates than do those in CA.
When did women obtain the right to vote
in 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the Const. was ratified. Until 1980, women voted at significantly lower rated than men. Since 1980, however, women have voted at somewhat higher rates than men, a difference amplified by the fact that women are also a larger proportion of the voting-age population. In every presidential election from 1980 through 2008, women were more likely than men to favor the Democratic candidate.
When did the oldest ideological typology survey of this sort (asking multiple questions about politics and govt. and using answers to sort into different groups) start
in 1987 and has been updated 3 times sine. Americans, it finds, are divided into 9 different groups, each defined by certain key presence among registered voters and in the general population, "liberals" are the largest single ideological bloc. Together with "disadvantaged Democrats," they number nearly one in 3 registered voters and over 1/4 of the general public
Since 1980, in what has southern states gained seats
in the House of Rep.s, with Florida and Texas alone each gaining a dozen. The opposite shift had occurred in much of the Northeast, with voters becoming somewhat more reliably democratic in states like N.Y, Ohio, and Penn. where the populations and hence congressional delegations have been shrinking.
What are the reasons for this greater consistency (on the conventional liberal-conservative spectrum among political activists)
information and peers. First, information: in general, the better informed people are about politics and the more they take in politics, the more likely they are to have consistently liberal or conservative views. This higher level of information among issues that other don't see ad to learn from the media and elsewhere what are the "right" things to believe. This does not mean there are no differences among liberal elites (or among conservative ones), only that the differences occur within a liberal (or conservative) consensus that is more well defined, more consistent, and more important to those who share it than would be the case among ordinary citizens.
What else could the apparent "inconsistency" in the answers people give at different times mean
it could simply mean hat many people consistently want from politics or govt. things that, as a practical matter, they cannot have, or at least cannot have all at once or at a price they are willing to pay- for instance, a bigger military, more expansive public health insurance coverage for all, and greater funding for public schools, but no military draft, no new or increased budget deficits.
However, wa=hat does an early survey of ethnic groups in CA, a state where fully 1.3 of all recent immigrants to this country live, tell us
it gives us some hint of how Latinos and Asian Americans feel about political parties and issues. Latinos identify themselves as Democrats, but much less so than blacks and sian Americans are even more identified with the Republican party than Anglo whites. On issues such as spending on military and welfare programs, prayer in public schools, and the imposition of the death penalty for murder, Asian American views are much more like those of Anglo whites than those of either blacks or Hispanics. Latinos are somewhat more liberal than Anglos or Asian Americans, but much less liberal than blacks, except with respect to bilingual education programs.
What has been happenig to the ability of the family to inlcude a stong sense of party identification
it has declined in recent years. The proportion of citizens who say they consider themselves Democrats or Republicans has become steadily smaller since the early 1950s. Accompanying this decline in partisanship has been a sharp rise in the proportion of citizens describing themselves as independents.
How does the second method of measuring the extent to which people have a political ideology involve a simple mathematical procedure
measuring how accurately one can predict a person's view on a subject at one time based on his or her view on that subject at an earlier time, or measuring how accurately one van predict a person's view on one issue based on his or her view on a different issue. The higher the accuracy of such predictions (or correlations, the more we say a person's political opinions display "constraint" or ideology.
random sample
method of selecting from a population in which each person has an equal probability of being selected
In America, what do we often refer to political elites
more casually as "activists"- people who hold office, run for office, work in campaigns or on newspapers, lead interest groups and social movements, and speak out on public issues. Being an activist is not an all-or-nothing proposition: people display differing degrees of activism, from full-time politicians to persons who occasionally get involved in a campaign. But the more a person is an activist, the more likely it is that he or she will display ideological consistency on the conventional liberal-conservative spectrum.
What do various types of conservatives ("social", "pro-govt.", and conservative dems), together with heavily Republican "enterprisers," comprise
nearly 1/2 of registered voters and over 40% of the general population. And nearly 1.5 of the general population ("disaffected" plus "bystanders") hold views that lead the to be cynical about politics or pay it no mind. Dig deeper into the data on these 9 groups, such as the related survey findings regarding each group's socioeconomic status and views on religion and other matters that affect politics, and you will see that the old three-way (liberal-conservative-moderate) self-identification surveys probably obscured more than they revealed about what most average Americans think about politics.
Exit polls are conducted
on election day at polling places.
Today, however, on what are crosscutting cleavages based
on race, ethnicity, religion, and education, in addition to those created by income and occupation. To the extent that politics is sensitive to public opinion, it is sensitive to a variety of different and even competing publics, Not all these publics have influence proportionate to their numbers or even to their numbers adjusted for the intensity of their feelings. A filtering process occurs that makes the opinions of some publics more influential than those of others.
How is peers reason for this greater consistency (on the conventional liberal-conservative spectrum among political activists)
politics does not make strange bedfellows. On the contrary, politics is a process of likes attracting liked. The more active you are in politics, the more you will associate with people who agree with you on some issues; and the more time you will spend with those people, the more your other vies will shift to match theirs.
What was one means of achieving these goals of forming a more perfect Union, providing for the common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty
popular rune, as provided for by the right of the people to vote for members of the House of Reps. (and later for senators and presidential electors). But other means were provided as well: representative government, federalism, the separation of powers, a Bill of Rights, and an independent Judiciary. These were all intended to be checks on public opinion. In addition, the Framers know that in a nation as large and diverse as the U.S there would rarely be any such thingd as "public opunion"; rather there would be many "publics" (that is, factions) holsind many opinions. The Framers hoped the struggle among these many publics would protect liberty (no one "public" would dominate) while at the same time permitting the adoption of reasonable policies that commanded the support of many factions.
political socialization
process by which background traits influence one's political views
If any given voter has a chance of being in a survey, the sample is best described as a __________ sample.
random
Although most Americans remain somewhat or deeply religious, what do most seriously question
religion's role in politics and government. Religious influences on public opinion are pronounced with respect to social ssues like abortion or gay marriage, but they matter less on most other isuues; and when a war is percieved to be going badly or the economy is in trouble, most Americans of all faiths or of no faith agree that these are the issues that matter most.
what is the second important ways that elites influence opinion
second, elites state the norms by which issues should be settles. ( A norm is a standard of rights or proper conduct.) By doing this, they help determine the range of acceptable and unacceptable policy options. For example, elites have for a long time emphasized that racism is wrong. Of late they have emphasized that sexism is wrong. Over a long period, the steady repetition of views and condemning racism and sexism will at least intimidate, and perhaps convince, those who are racist and sexist.
If this process of random sampling is repeated using equally randomized methods, what might the pollster get
slightly different results. The difference between the result of 2 surveys or sample is called sampling error. For example, if one random sample shows that 70% of all Americans approve of the way the president is handling the job, and other random sample taken at the same time shows that 65% do, the sampling error is 5%.
What few things are clear about public opinion
some people care more about certain issues than other people do (opinion saliency); on some issues or choices, opinions are pretty steady (opinion stability); and on some issues government seemed to be largely in sync with popular views or majority sentiments, while on other issues it seems to be significantly out of sync (opinion-policy congruence). For ex: most Americans had an opinion on U.S involvement in Iraq, but some felt more strongly about it than others did, and opinions changed in response to news of positive or negative developments. In the mid-2000s, for ex., many news reports on the situation in Iraq were negative and mass public support for U.S involvement fell.
2 decades ago, what did a path-breaking study by political scientist John Zaller suggest
that elite views shape mass views by influencing both what issues capture the public's attention and how those issues are debated and decided. Subsequent stidies i the 1990s hinted that, contrar to the myh of the pandering pilitician, what scholars of the subject call opinion-policy conggruence (essentially the rate st which governments adopt crime, health, trade, and other policies supported by majorities in polls) had been declining not rising, since 1980, a trend that could e interpreted to reflect greater elite influene over how policy options are presented to the public. By the late 2000s, however, the rise of Internet Campaigning and the political blogosphere, among other developments, had scholars debating anew the extent and mans of elite influence over mass views and policy agendas.
But of late, what have we learned about genetic background and politics
that genetic background also explains some of our political ideology, though rather little of our party affiliation. When we compare how identical twins (who are genetically the same) think about politics with how fraternal twins (who share only half of their genes) think about politics, we discover that identical twins are much more likely to have similar political views than fraternal twins. Some research had found that about 1/3 of the differences among people about political beliefs comes from genetic makeup, but only 1/10 of these differences comes from family influences.
Although Truck drivers and investment bankers look different, talk differently, and vote differently, there is nothing wrong with saying what
that he first group consists of "working class" (or "blue-collar") people ad the latter of "upper-class" (or "management) people. Moreover, though different definitions of class produce slightly different grouping of people, most definitions overlap to such an extend that is does not matter too much which we use.
Then, what did the Founding fathers believe
that most average citizens lacked the time, information, energy, interest, and experience to decide on public policy. The Constitution's chief architect, James Madison, argues that direct popular participation in the decisions of govt. was a recipe for disaster, and that "it is the reason, alone, of the public that ought to control and regulate the government." Madison and the other Framers looked to "the representatives of the people," most particularly the U.S senators, who, in their original plan and until the 17th amendment was ratified in 1913, were not popularly elected, "as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions."
Despite annual fluctuations, what do ideological self-identification surveys show
that over the last 2 decades, "conservative' and "moderate" have each been chosen by about 37 to 40 percent, while "liberal" had been chosen by about 20%.
What do studies tell us about people with certain common characteristics
that people with certain characteristics in common sometimes hold certain political beliefs in common. By no means do people with similar or even virtually identical family histories, religious affiliations, formal educations, or job experiences think of vote exactly the same way on all or most issues. But political socialization- the process by which personal and other background traits influence one's views about politics and government- matters. It is behind the fact that children tend to share their parents' party affiliations; and it helps to explain why opinions seem to vary in interesting wats association with class, race, religion, gender, and other characteristics.
When we refer to people as liberals, conservatives, socialists, or radicals, what are we implying
that they have a patterned set of beliefs about how government and other important institutions in fact operate and how they ought to operate, and in particular about that kinds of policies government ought to pursue. These groups are said to display to some degree a political ideology- that is, a more or less consistent set of beliefs about what policies government ought to pursue.
What do journalists often point out about women and politic
that women have "deserted" Republican candidates to favor Democratic ones. In some cases, this is true. But it would have been more correct to say that men have "deserted" Democratic candidates for Republican ones. The gender hap is the difference in political views between men and women. That gap has existed for a long time, and it is a problem for both political parties.
What does the way in which political opinions are formed help explain
the cleavages that exist among these opinions and why these cleavaged do not follow any single political principle but instead overlap and crosscut in bewildering complexity. If, for example, the U.S lacked regional differences and was composed almost entirely of white Protestants who had never attended college, there would still be plenty of political conflicts- the rich would have different vies from the poor; workers would have different views from farmers- but that conflict would be much simpler to describe and explain. It might even lead to political parties that were more clearly aligned with competing for political philosophies than those we now have. In fact, some democratic nations in the world today have a population very much like the ones described,and the U.S itself, during the first days of the 19th century, was overwhelmingly what Protestant, and without much formal schooling.
sampling error
the difference between the results of random samples taken at the same time
How have voting patterns of different social classes also become more similar
the differences in whether or not people vote, depending on their social class, have declined sharply since the late 1940s in the U.S, France, Great Britain, and Germany and have declined moderately in Sweden
From what has part of this change if an increase of citizens describing themselves as independent been the result of
the fact that young voters have always had a weaker sense of partisanship than older ones. But the youthfulness of the population cannot explain all the changes, for the decline in partisanship has occurred at all age levels. Those who eached voting age in the 1960s were less at than those who matures in the 1950s to keep the party identification of their parents. Moreover, as personal polict preferences deelop into adulthood, the effects of parental socializations on the artisanship of children has decreased gradually over time.
In what 2 ways do political scientist measures the extent to which people have a political ideology
the first is by seeing how frequently people use broad political categories (such as "Liberal," "conservative", "radical") to describe their own views or to justify their preferences for various candidates and policies, and second by seeing to twhat extend the policy preferences of a citizen are consistent over time or are based at any one time on constistent principles.
In the Gettysburg Addrowss, Abraham Lincoln said the U.S has a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." What does this suggest
the government should do what the people want. If that is the case, it is puzzling that: Today, the fed. govt. is running budget deficits of over a trillion dollars a year, but most people want a balanced budget; In the 1970s, the Equal Rights Amendment to the Const. was not ratifies, but polls shows that most people supported it. Over the last several decades, most people have agreed that there should be a limit on the number of terms to which U.S senators and members of the U.S House of Rep.s can be elected, but Congress has not approved term limits.
What is a recent example of this process of elites repeting their views to the public to change their views
the public discussion of AIDS and its relationship to homosexuality. The initial public reaction to AIDS was one of fear and loathing. But efforts to quarantine people infected with AIDS were met with firm resistance from the medical community and from other policy elites. The elites even managed to persuade legislatures to bar insurance companies from testing insurance applicants for the disease.
Although the terms "liberal" and "conservative" do not describe the political views held by most average Americans, wha do they capture
the views help by many, perhaps most, people who are in the country's political elite. Every society had an elite, because in every society government officials have more power than ordinary folk, some persons make more money than others, and some people are more popular than others. The former Soviet Union even had an official name of the political elite- the "nomenklatura."
For a long time, what did scholars believe people acquired their political views from
their families. There is a lot of truth in that argument. The great majority of high school students know the party affiliation of their parents, and only a tiny minority of children supports a party opposite that of their parents.
Partly in recognitions of these (people hiding what they think are socially or morally unacceptable positions) and related limitations, what have pollsters done
they have increasingly taken a fresh approach to documenting and analyzing average Americans' ideological cast and characterizing themselves as "liberal," or "conservative," or "moderate," they ask people multiple questions about politics and government, and then use the answers to sort them into a half-dozen or more different groups.
What are the political views of most latinos
they seem to favor bigger government, oppose making abortions generally available, and think that the Democratic party cares more and more about them and it better able to handle economic and other issues. But these views are complicated not only because Latinos come from many nations but also because some were born here and some abroad. For example, following the U.S invasion of Iraq, most Latinos believed U.S troops should be withdrawn, but there were important differences between the views of native-born and foreign-born Latinos.
what id the final reason why these self- identification survey averaged not really tell us much at all about how or whether most people think about politics in an ideological manner
third, when surveyed in person (including bu telephone), some people will hide what they think are socially or morally unacceptable self-identifications or positions behind a "don't know" or "middle-ground" response. This can happen not only when the questions concern specific labels like "liberal" or "conservative," or particular issues like racial integration or immigration restrictions, but also when the questions seem to ask about fundamental values, patriotism, or "Americanism." Most Americans share a distinctive political culture- a belief in freedom, in equality of political condition and economic opportunity, and in civic duty. Trying to determine precisely whether political culture ends and ideology begins often is difficult or impossible.
Because elites affect how we see some issues and determine hoe other issues get resolves, what is it important to do
to study the differences between elite and public opinion. But it is wrong to suppose that there is just one elite group, unified in interests and opinions. Just as there there are many publics, and hence many public opinions, there are many elites, and hence many different elite opinions. Whether there is enough variety of opinion and influence among elites to justify calling our politics "pluralist" is one of the central issues confronting any student of government.
