Forces in the Polis

1
Forces in the Polis

• Role of ideas
• Ideas are the very stuff of politics. People
  fight about ideas, fight for them, and fight
  against the Moreover, people fight with ideas as
  well as about them (Stone, pp. 32-34)

2
The Battle

• Self-interest vs. Public-Interest

3
Influence

• People are not freewheeling, free thinking atoms
  whose desires arise from spontaneous generation.
  Our ideas about what we want and the choices we
  make are shaped by education, persuasion and the
  general process of socialization (Stone, p. 23)
• One of the essential elements in politics
• This week we examine influences over public
  opinions
• Later influence over public decisions
• Over the actions of politicians and bureaucrats

4
Collective Behavior

• Bandwagon effects
• Panics
• Mobs
• Fads
• These are fine to study, but need to be treated
  as this to be explained rather than things that
  explain outcomes.
• Example Three Strikes Legislation

5
Cooperation and Loyalty

• In the polis, cooperation is the norm. It is
  the inseparable other side of competition and a
  necessary ingredient of power. (Stone, pp. 25-6)
• Politics is more like choosing a spouse than
  shopping in a five-and-ten-cent store. (E.E.
  Schattshneider in Stone, p. 26)
• Again, we must stop and ask what motivates
  people to cooperate and form loyal bonds?

6
Group Actions

• Groups are the building blocks of the polis.
• Organizations shape opinions and interests.
• Policy making is about groups of people, not
  individuals
• Policy making is essentially collective in nature
• In week 9 we will focus on decisions to join a
  collective, and the role of interest groups
• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
  (Stone, p. 31)

7
Information

• Interpretations and reactions matter
• Presentations and framing matters
• Political candidates and their campaign advisors
  are notorious for their creative presentation of
  information, or spin control. (Stone, p. 28)
• Information may be asymmetrically available.

8
Is the role of information significant in the
formation of public opinions?

• It appears that the public is ill-informed.
• Less than half know who their member of Congress
  is.
• People pay only casual attention to the news.
• Yet, Iyengar and Kinder make a persuasive case
• How did they conduct their study and what did
  they find?

9
Agenda Setting

• Television news shapes the relative importance
  Americans attach to various national problems.
  (IK, p. 296)
• Some items displayed more frequently or more
  prominently
• These were then thought of as the most important
• Especially true of the lead story
• The effects are immediate and seem to hold
  somewhat over time

10
Agenda Setting (cont)

• In applying this finding to public policy, we ask
  questions
• Does public opinion follow or lead press
  coverage? (Causality question)
• Is there evidence of press bias? Actual cases of
  influence over opinions?
• How would we expect these findings to be used by
  politicians?
• How would this help structure campaigns and
  initiatives?

11
What other concerns do you have?

• Greater influence over the poorly educated
• Greater influence over those with no pre-set
  partisan paradigm
• Greater influence over those who typically are
  ill-informed or inactive

12
Priming

• Drawing attention to certain aspects of political
  life at the expense of others
• Through priming television news might help to
  set the terms by which political judgments are
  reached and political choices made. (IK, p.
  298)
• This may influence what is viewed as important
• It may also influence public perception and
  election outcomes

13
Priming (cont)

• We evaluate politicians and initiatives by those
  aspects we consider most salient or most
  important
• This may explain why parties emphasize their
  winning issues
• Republicans on crime, taxes, and defense
• Democrats on social issues
• Also why parties may try to co-opt issues of the
  other party
• Do you believe this result?Is this a viable
  long-term way to conduct public policy?

14
Priming (cont)

• Yet in the long run, majority purpose and public
  action tend to be brought into harmony (V.O. Key)

15
Why are these strategies likely to be successful?

• People are rationally ignorant
• What does this mean?
• Is this a bad thing?
• People skim and ignore much of what they hear and
  see (Graber, pp. 305-311)
• They dont process much information
• They focus only on important stories
• They process things that fit their overall
  paradigm (Schematic thinking)
• Example memorize a chess board

16
Graber (cont)

• As such, the initial formation of these paradigms
  matters
• Family role, early education Values
• This all leads to a status quo bias in public
  opinion
• Is this limited knowledge bad, or just rational
  ignorance?
• They also learn enough about major political
  candidates to cast a moderately thoughtful vote
  and make some judgments about post-election
  performance. (Graber, p. 308)

17
Given this state of affairs, how do we infuse our
goals into public policy?

• Equity, Efficiency, Security and Liberty
• Since there are competing conceptions of these
  abstract goals, people fight about which
  conception should govern policy. (Stone, p. 133)
• The goals of policy are thus vague,
  contradictory, and protean and the status quo
  is equally unstable.

18
Policy Paradox

• Problem definition then is a matter of
  strategic representation of situations. (p. 133)