Mr. Tuccillo
Chapter 6
AP Government
Public Opinion and Political Action
Objectives:
1. Students will be able to understand the implications for political change of the
movement toward a new minority majority.
2. Students will be able to contrast the relative positions of African Americans, Hispanic
Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans in the American political and
economic spheres.
3. Students will be able to identify the political implications of an increasingly elderly
population.
4. Students will be able to describe the process of political socialization and identify the
primary agents of socialization.
5. Students will be able to explain why an understanding of the content and dynamics of
public opinion is important in evaluating the extent to which the people rule in a
democracy.
6. Students will be able to outline the components that are essential if one wants to
obtain accuracy in public opinion polling.
7. Students will be able to evaluate the role of polls in American democracy.
8. Students will be able ascertain how the American political system works as well as it
does given the lack of public knowledge about politics.
9. Students will be able to identify the political beliefs that are likely to be preferred by
liberals and conservatives.
10. Students will be able to identify the activities that encompass political participation
in the United States.
11. Students will be able to distinguish between conventional and unconventional types
of political participation.
12. Students will be able to show how nonviolent civil disobedience was one of the most
effective techniques of the civil rights movement in the American South.
13. Students will be able to explain what public scientists mean when they conclude that
Americans are ideological conservatives but operational liberals.
Outline:
I. The American People
A. American Diversity
1. the United States remains one of the most diverse countries in the
world today
2. such diversity makes the study of American public opinion especially
complex, for there are many groups with a great variety of opinions
a. Public Opinion: the distribution of the population’s beliefs
about politics and policy issues
3. the task is further complicated by the fact that people are often not well
informed about the issues, and they may have contradictory attitudes
4. there are also consequences for democracy: the least informed are also
the least likely to participate in the political process, thereby leading to
inequalities in who takes part in political action
B. one way of looking at the American public is through demography
1. Demography: the science of population changes
2. Census: a valuable tool for understanding demographic changes
a. the Constitution requires that the government conduct an
“actual enumeration” of the population every ten years
b. the 1st census was done in 1790
3. because of the constant problem of people not being counted, President
Clinton wanted to do estimated and sampling to try in figure in this missed
people
a. Department of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives,
1999: Court ruled that sampling could not be used to determine
the number of congressional districts each state is entitled to
1. the Court did not ban using sampling for other
information
4. it is important to try and get accurate results in the census
a. once a group can establish its numbers, it can then ask for
federal aid in proportion to its size
C. The Immigrant Society
1. the United States has always been a nation of immigrants
2. Americans live in a multicultural and multilingual society that is
becoming more diverse all the time
a. federal law allows 800,000 new immigrants to be legally
admitted to the country every year
b. in recent years, illegal immigrants have outnumbered legal
immigrants
3. despite the diversity, minority groups have assimilated many basic
American values, such as the principle of equality
there have been three great waves of immigration to the U.S.
a. before the Civil War – northwestern Europeans (English, Irish,
Germans, and Scandinavians)
b. after the Civil War – southern and eastern Europeans (Italians,
Jews, Poles, Russians, and others)
1. reached its high point in the 1st decade of the 20th
century
c. after World War II – Hispanics (Cuba, Central America, and
Mexico) and Asians (Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines, and
elsewhere)
1. the 1980s saw the second largest number of immigrants
of any decade in American history
D. The American Melting Pot
1. Melting Pot: the mixing of cultures, ideas, and peoples that has
changed the American nation
2. today policy makers talk of a minority majority
a. Minority Majority: the emergence of a non-Caucasian
majority, as compared with a white generally Anglo-Saxon
majority
1. it is predicted that by 2060, Hispanics, African, and
Asian Americans will outnumber white Americans
3. the largest component of the minority majority currently is the African
American population at 12% of the population
a. Hispanics (9%); Asians (3%), Native Americans (<1%)
4. African Americans: a legacy of racism and discrimination has left a
higher proportion of the African-American population economically and
politically disadvantaged than the white population
a. ~27% of African Americans live below the poverty line,
compared to about 11% of whites
b. African Americans have recently been exercising a good deal of
political power
5. Hispanic Americans: if the current immigration and birth rates
continue, the Hispanic population will outnumber the black population
early in the 21st century
a. Hispanics are rapidly gaining power in the Southwest
1. cities like San Antonio and Denver have elected
Hispanic mayors
b. the big problem of particular concern to the Hispanic
community is what to do about illegal immigrants
c. Simpson-Mazzoli Act: requires that employers document the
citizenship of their employees (as of June 1987)
6. Asian Americans: the recent flux of Asians has been driven by a new
class of professional workers looking for greater opportunity
a. Asians have been called the superachievers of the minority
majority
b. 37% of Asian Americans over the age of twenty-five hold a
college degree (almost twice the national average)
c. Asians are the best off of America’s minority groups
7. Native Americans: this is the worst off of the minority groups
a. statistics show that this group is the least healthy, the poorest,
and the least educated group in the American melting pot
b. most remain economically and politically disadvantaged
1. the 1990 census showed that over half of the Indians in
the Dakotas (site of the largest Sioux reservations) lived
below the poverty line
8. regardless of ethnic background, most Americans share a common
political culture
a. Political Culture: an overall set of values widely shared within
a society
E. The Regional Shift
1. for most of America’s history, the most populous states have been
those north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River
2. over the last 50 years, much of America’s population growth has been
centered in the West and South
a. particularly the movement to the “sunbelt” states of Florida,
California, and Texas from “rust belt” states like Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Michigan
3. demographic changes are associated with political changes – states gain
or lose congressional representation as their population changes, and thus
power shifts as well
4. Reapportionment: the process of reallocating seats in the House of
Representatives every 10 years on the basis of the results of the census
F. The Graying of America
1. nationwide, the fastest growing age group in America is composed of
citizens over 65
a. people are living longer and the birth rates have dropped
2. by the year 2020, there will be only two working Americans for every
person over the age of 65
a. there are political and economic consequences of the aging
population
1. Social Security system (2nd only to defense as America’s
most costly public policy) will need to be watched carefully
2. new political interests have been mobilized under the
umbrella of “gray power”
a. in Florida, the state’s senior citizens have voted
down things they are against like increased school
taxes and voted in favor of things such as tax breaks
and service benefits for the elderly
II. How Americans Learn About Politics: Political Socialization
A. Political Socialization: according to Richard Dawson, “the process through
which an individual acquires his (or her) particular political orientations – his (or
her) knowledge, feelings, and evaluations regarding his (or her) political world”
1. governments tend to aim their socialization efforts largely at the young,
not the elderly, because people become more socialized with age and the
older you are, the firmer your political orientations will be
B. The Process of Socialization
1. only a small portion of Americans’ political learning is formal (ex.
gov’t classes); informal learning is much more important
2. most informal learning is almost accidental
3. agents of socialization
a. The Family: the family’s role is central because of its
monopoly on two crucial resources in the early years
1. time and emotional commitment
2. even though most students like to think of themselves as
free thinkers, most share the views of their parents (family)
3. when children move out on their own they sometimes
begin to develop their own political beliefs
b. The Mass Media: this has been referred to as “the new parent”
1. average grade-school youngsters spend more time each
week watching television than they spend at school
2. television now displaces parents as the chief source of
information as children get older
3. today’s generation however, is less likely to be watching
the news or reading newspaper than their elders
c. Schools: governments often use schools to promote loyalty to
the country and support for its basic values
1. students in America are taught about the virtues of
capitalism and democracy
2. in other countries schools have been used to teach and
justify hatred and murder (Nazi Germany)
3. schooling is probably the most obvious intrusion of the
government into Americans’ socialization
4. better-educated citizens are more likely to vote in
elections, they exhibit more knowledge about politics and
public policy and they are more tolerant of opposing (even
radical) opinions
C. Political Learning Over a Lifetime
1. aging increases one’s political participation and the strength of one’s
party attachment
2. political behavior is to some degree a learned behavior, which may
explain why younger people tend not to be as involved
III. Measuring Public Opinion and Political Information
A. How Polls Are Conducted
1. public opinion polling is a relatively new science
2. it was first developed by a young man named George Gallup in 1932
3. polls rely on a sample: a relatively small proportion of people who are
chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole
a. a sampling of about 1500 to 2000 people can be representative
of the “universe” (the larger group whose opinion is being
measured) of potential voters
4. Random Sampling: the key technique employed by sophisticated
survey researchers, which operates on the principle that everyone should
have an equal probability of being selected for the sample
a. a true random would be close to the real breakdown of our
population (52% women, 12% African American, etc)
5. Sampling Error: the level of confidence in the findings of a public
opinion poll
a. the more people interviewed, the more confident one can be of
the results
b. a typical poll of about 1500 to 2000 respondents has a sampling
error of plus or minus 3%
1. this means that 95% of the time the poll results are
within 3% of what the entire public thinks
c. in order to get accurate results, researches must follow proper
sampling techniques – this is more important than the number of
people polled
1. ex. 1936 poll done by Literary Digest concerning FDR
6. Sophisticated technology is now available for measuring public opinion
a. computer and telephone technology has made surveying less
expensive and more commonplace
b. Random Digit Dialing: a technique used by pollsters to place
telephone calls randomly to both listed and unlisted numbers when
conducting a survey
1. problems: 7% of the population does not have a phone
and some people do not like participating in surveys over
the phone
B. The Role of Polls in American Democracy
1. supporters of polling insist that it is a tool for democracy by which
policymakers can keep in touch with changing opinions on issues
a. it makes it so politicians do not have to wait until the next
election to see if the public is satisfied with how things are going
b. polls allow the public’s desires to be heard at times other than
elections
2. critics think that polls make politicians more concerned with following
than leading and may thus discourage bold leadership
a. for example polls may have told Thomas Jefferson that the
people really did not want the Louisiana Purchase
3. political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg has argued that polls actually
weaken democracy because polls permit the government to think that it
has taken public opinion into account when only passive (often illinformed) opinions have been counted
4. polls can weaken democracy by distorting the election process; polls
are often accused of creating a “bandwagon effect,” in which voters may
support a candidate only because they see that others are doing so
5. emphasis on poll results sometimes has drowned out the issues of
recent presidential campaigns
6. Exit Polls: public opinion surveys used by major media pollsters to
predict electoral winners with speed and precision
a. probably the most widely criticized type of poll
b. usually the people conducting these polls ask every tenth person
leaving a voting area how they voted
c. the results enable the television networks to project all but very
close races before the polls even close
7. perhaps the most pervasive criticism of polling is that pollsters can get
pretty much the results they want by altering the wording of questions
a. although the bias in such questions may be easy to detect, the
ethical problem is that an organization may not report how the
survey questions were worded
C. What Polls Reveal about Americans’ Political Information
1. polls have revealed again and again that the average American has a
low level of political knowledge
a. polls have regularly found that less than half of the public can
name their representative in the House, much less say how he or
she generally votes
2. surveys also show that citizens around the globe lack a basic awareness
of the world around them
3. some people blame schools for the lack of knowledge people have
4. some people also the blame the fact that the public has become
increasingly dissatisfied with government over the last three decades
5. people do know the basic values that they want upheld, however, and
when people feel that the government is not working according to the
values that they subscribe to, they are usually stirred into action
IV. What Americans Value: Political Ideologies
A. Political Ideology: a coherent set of values and beliefs about politics, public
policy, and public purpose
B. Who are the Liberals and Conservatives?
1. overall more Americans consistently choose the ideological label
conservative over liberal
a. 1996 polls showed: 44% conservative; 33% moderate; 24%
liberal
2. some groups are more liberal than others, and want to see government
do more; this includes people under the age of 30, minorities and women
a. younger people tend to be more liberal, however they tend to
vote less
3. Gender Gap: a term which refers to the regular pattern by which
women are more likely to support Democratic candidates
a. women are more likely to support spending on social services
and to oppose the higher levels of military spending
C. Do People Think in Ideological Terms?
1. ideological thinking is not widespread in the American public, nor are
people necessarily consistent in their attitudes
2. authors of the classic study The American Voter (Angus Campbell,
et al.), divided the public into four groups in the 1950s
a. Ideologues (12%): they could connect their opinions and beliefs
with broad policy positions taken by parties or candidates
b. Group Benefits Voters (42%): Americans that thought of
politics mainly by the groups they liked or disliked
c. Nature of the Times Voters (24%): people that voted depending
on whether the current times seemed good or bad to them
d. No Issue Content Voters (22%): these people were devoid of
any ideological or issue content in their political evaluations; most
simply voted routinely for a party or judged the candidate by their
personalities
3. if the same methods are used to update the analysis of The American
Voter through the 1980s, one finds some increases in proportion of
ideologues, but overall the picture looks much the same
4. for most people the terms liberal and conservative are just not as
important as they are for the political elite such as politicians,
activists, journalists, etc
D. Has There Been a Turn Toward Conservatism?
1. Regan was a very popular president, but despite his victories in the
1980s, some scholars think that people like Regan, but not his policies
2. Clinton’s centrist policies remain popular, again counter to claims that
public opinion has shifted to conservatism
3. Why no shift to conservatism?
a. many swing voters care more about results than ideology
b. the 1980 election was more about voting Carter out of office
than voting Reagan into it
c. with the economic downturn in 1992, these same swing voters
propelled Clinton into the White House, who had pursued centrist
policies and enjoyed a good economy
V. How Americans Participate in Politics
A. Political Participation: all the activities used by citizens to influence the
selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue
1. the most common form in a democracy is voting
a. other forms are writing letters, protesting, civil disobedience
2. Americans have many avenues of political participation open to them
3. paradox is that 87% say t hey are proud to be an American, yet in the
2000 election only 51% of adult Americans voted
B. Conventional Participation
1. conventional participation includes many widely accepted modes of
influencing government – voting, trying to persuade others, ringing
doorbells for a petition, running for office, etc
2. unconventional participation includes activities that are often dramatic,
such as protesting, civil disobedience, and even violence
3. the number of Americans for whom political activity is an important
part of their everyday life is minuscule
4. voting was the only aspect of political participation that a majority of
the population reported engaging in, however the number of people doing
that is declining
a. other methods of participating are increasing
C. Protest as Participation
1. Protest: a form of political participation designed to achieve policy
change through dramatic and unconventional tactics
a. the media’s willingness to cover the unusual can make protest
worthwhile, drawing attention to a group’s cause the others may
not otherwise have encountered
b. protests today are often orchestrated to provide television
cameras with vivid images
2. Civil Disobedience: a form of political participation that reflects a
conscious decision to break a law believed to be immoral and to suffer the
consequences
a. Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr.
c. nonviolent civil disobedience was one of the most effective
techniques of the civil rights movement in the American South
d. King’s Letter From A Birmingham Jail is a classic defense to
civil disobedience
3. political participation can also be violent (as in some of the Vietnam
War protests of the 1960s)
D. Class, Inequality, and Participation
1. political participation rates are unequal among Americans
a. citizens of higher socioeconomic status participate more
2. minority groups like Hispanics and African Americans are below
average in terms of political participation
a. the participation differences between these groups and the
national average has been declining
b. when blacks, Hispanics, and whites of equal incomes and
educations are compared, it is the minorities who participate more
in politics
3. those who participate are easy to listen to and those who do not are
easy to ignore
VI. Understanding Public Opinion and Political Action
A. Public Attitudes Toward the Scope of Government
1. the question of government power is a complex one, but it is one of the
key controversies in American politics today
a. public opinions on different aspects of the same issue do not
always hold together well: while more people today think the
government is too big rather than too small, a plurality has
consistently called for spending on programs like education, health
care, aid to big cities, protecting the environment, and fighting
crime
b. many political scientists have looked at these contradictory
findings and concluded that Americans are ideological
conservatives but operational liberals
B. Democracy, Public Opinion, and Political Action
1. Americans often take for granted the opportunity to replace our leaders
at the next election
2. perhaps the best indicator of how well socialized Americans are to
democracy is that protest typically is aimed at getting the attention of
government, not overthrowing it
3. even if people are only voting according to the nature of the times,
voters are clearly being heard, which holds elected officials accountable
for their actions