Public Opinion
& Political Socialization
© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Objectives
• Define public opinion and explain its role in political
decision making.
• Describe American political culture and explain how it
is has evolved over time.
• Define American exceptionalism and consider the
factors that have contributed to this perspective.
• Understand political socialization and the sources
through which Americans learn their values.
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© 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Objectives
• Identify the ways in which different groups affect public
opinion and politics in general.
• Evaluate the factors that bring about changes in public
opinion.
• Explain how ideologies acquire their structure.
• Explore the different methods by which public opinion
can be measured.
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Why are we the way
we are?
Why does it matter
to you?
In particular,
how is public
opinion
formed and
how does it
affect policy?
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Core Questions:
Public Opinion
• Consists of the combined voices of all
the people in a society on political
issues.
• Until 1940, public opinion complex entity:
multiple public voices
• Polling and survey analysis emerge
• Measure of all the people’s views
• As technology and survey analysis
techniques advanced, public opinion became
understood to be the average of all individual
opinions.
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Political Culture
• Political culture
• Consists of the political
attitudes and beliefs held
broadly among its
citizens.
• Varies among countries
• Related to political
decision making
• Usually changes slowly
• American culture
cornerstones
• Fairness, individualism,
religion and rule of law
• Cornerstones of
democracy
•
•
•
•
Tolerance of ideas
Trust in government
Political efficacy
Political knowledge and
attention to policies
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American Exceptionalism
• The idea that the U.S. is different from the rest of the world and
therefore very special.
• Used in a number of ways:
• Unique American ideology: freedom, equality, and
individualism
• Immigrant history: melting pot
• Shining city on the hill with a special destiny to lead the world
to liberty and democracy
• Different and “better” than the rest of the world
• Implications for relations with other countries; conflict?
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Political Socialization
• Political Socialization: The learning of political values and
factual assumptions about politics
Occurs most readily in childhood and diminishes as people age.
Children learn basic social attitudes in their families.
Early political learning is very basic.
In adolescence and early adulthood, people form more concrete ideas
about politics.
• Continue to learn and develop; role of extraordinary events
•
•
•
•
• Political identities
• Images of who you are – political content: religion or political party
• Party identification
• A sense of belonging or attachment to one or another of the political
parties
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Political Socialization
Political
Events
(generational
effect)
Peer
groups
& Media
Families
School
and
College
Agents of Political Socialization
Must be seen as credible and relevant to politics
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Group Differences in the United States
• AGE: American population
growing older
• Differences between
younger and older
Americans:
• Older: hold on to status quo
view; younger: tend to
embrace newer view.
• Younger voters often willing to
support less typical
candidates.
• Race and ethnic groups:
• The U.S. comprises a diverse
population
• 2050: Only about half
population will consist of nonHispanic whites.
• Differences across
racial/ethnic groups – often
related to economic disparities
• Sometimes issue-specific:
• Role of life experiences among
groups: discrimination
• Hispanics: socially
conservative; economically
liberal
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Group Differences in the United States
• Religion: Americans are more
religious than citizens of other
economically well-off countries.
• Less developed countries very
religious: Saudi Arabia, India,
Nigeria…
• Important determinant of voting
behavior
• Catholics: evenly divided among
two parties
• Protestants: mainline and
evangelical
• Tilt toward Republican Party;
evangelicals very much so.
• Jews: more liberal on most issues
– 21% identify as Republicans.
• Muslims: identify with the
Democratic Party
• Strong emphasis on caring for the
poor
• Conservative on moral issues
• Islam plays a strong role
• Fear of extremism
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Social Class
• Income differences in the U.S. are greater than in most
of the world, and they are increasing.
• Social class as a political dividing line:
• FDR and the New Deal
• Today, low income voters are pulled two ways: social and religious issues
pull them toward Republicans; economic issues toward the Democrats.
Generally, more toward Democrats.
• High income voters associated with business interests tend to favor the
Republican Party; higher income professionals often side with liberals on
social issues.
• Difficult for Democratic candidates to please both segments of the voting
population.
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• Before 1980s men and women voted alike and held similar views on
political issues.
• Gender gap emerged in 1980s: Women usually vote in greater
numbers for Democratic candidates than men do.
• 2008: The gap was 5%.
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Gender
• Differences not found in feminist issues such as abortion and equal
rights, but rather in government intervention to help people and issues
involving war and foreign policy.
• Why? Women more nurturing? Women poorer?
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Regions of the Country
• States do not differ a much as “blue” state, “red” state
representations suggest.
• South more conservative on social issues than those
who live on the west coast.
• Regions do not vary much on their views on economic
issues or foreign policy.
• They do divide differently in terms of political party.
• Democrats: West Coast and Northeast
• Republicans: Southern and mountain states
• Split: Midwest
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How Public Opinion Changes
• Public opinion can
change.
• Events or leaders:
Clinton and health
insurance, Terrorist
attacks of 9-11
• Generational
replacement: Change
due to differences
between old and new
generation. When old die
out, overall opinion shifts.
• 30 to 50 years
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Changes in Party Identification
• Slow decline in party identification.
• Usually pretty stable; can shift in response to events or leaders.
• Long-term evolution of party identification does occur: recent history
– increase in number of independents
• Global phenomenon: What has caused this increase in industrialized
democracies?
• Not clear, generally supported explanation.
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How Ideologies Gain Their Structure
• Ideology has structuring principle – connects concepts so they
relate to one another
• Europe: socialism, Christian democracy
• United States: example found in limited government,
maximum freedom for libertarians
• Liberalism and conservatism: different structuring principles
– what are they?
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How Public Opinion Is Measured
• Poll – set of questions asked of a carefully
constructed sampling of a population.
• Random sample
• Margin of error
• Early Polls
• Literary Digest poll: did not conduct random
samples, only very large ones primarily with
middle class voters; did well for a while until 1936
election, when bias appeared in a sample. They
predicted Alf Landon the winner, but many of the
poor were voting for Roosevelt.
• Another famous goof: Truman and Dewey
• Polls stopped two weeks before and missed large
surge in Truman support.
• Today, polls much more accurate.
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Polls Today
• Types of Polls and Techniques
• Cluster sampling
• Approximates a true random sample
• Random digit dialing
• Internet polling
• How does it generate a truly random sample?
• Polls in campaigns
• Tracking polls
• Exit polls
• Push polls
• What are the limitations of polls?
• Margin of error
• Question effects; wording
• Artificial situations
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