Ideology and Public Opinion

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Ideology and Public Opinion
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• 10 October, 2011

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ReviewThe American Political System

• Designed to protect against majority rule and
  protect minority rights
• Examples
• Viewed in comparative perspective
• Link to SNL skit on Obamas Accomplishments

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Today Ideology and Public Opinion

• Objectives
• Meaning, is the US unique?
• Theories
• Examples

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Ideology

• A package of ideas, a way of organizing ones
  thinking about political issues and leaders.
  Anchored by core values that serve to structure
  other ideas
• Public Opinion
• An expression of underlying attitudes and beliefs
  and potentially influenced by political ideology

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Liberal vs. conservative

• A core value that distinguishes them and
  influences their positions on a variety of issues
  is whether government should actively promote
  individual equality.
• Liberals in the United States favor active
  government intervention to promote equality of
  outcomes/results
• flat rate vs. regressive rate
• income tax vs. sales tax
• Conservatives believe that government should be
  limited to ensuring equality of opportunities in
  economic matter. In social matters, however,
  conservatives favor a more expansive role for
  government

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Nature and Acquisition of Opinions and Values

• Rational choice
• Socialization or DNA?

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Nature and Acquisition of Opinions and Values

• Process by which one acquires values and develops
  opinions is called socialization.
• Agents of socialization
• Family and Friends
• School
• Media (news, relatively new media, soft news,
  entertainment)
• Lifetime Learning new jobs, new friends, new
  neighborhoods

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Nature and Acquisition of Opinions and Values (II)

• Are we wired to be a liberal or conservative?
• Twin Studies
• identical twins were more likely to agree on
  political issues than were fraternal twins.
• Taxes - (four-fifths of identical twins shared
  the same opinion, while only two-thirds of
  fraternal twins agreed).

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Is the US Unique? American Individualism
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Distribution of ideology over time
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Opinions about Federal Spending
Source American National Election Study (NES)
2002
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Opinions about Federal Spending
Source American National Election Study (NES)
2002
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Opinions about Federal Spending
Source American National Election Study (NES)
2002
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Social Group Basis of Ideology
Source Center for American Progress
http//www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/pdf
/political_ideology.pdf
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The 2008 Election
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Another Way of Looking at the Distribution of
Votes
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Consequences - Culture War?

• Fiorina argues that the ideological disputes that
  engage political elites and activists have little
  resonance among the American mass public
• Ordinary 21st century Americans are not very
  well-informed about politics, do not hold many of
  their views very strongly, and are not
  ideological (p. 19).

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Culture War?

• Fiorinas characterization of Americans as
  uninterested and non-ideological may apply very
  well to the large number of Americans who rarely
  or never vote.
• However, it may not apply as well to regular
  voters, and it is voters whose opinions are of
  greatest concern to candidates and elected
  officials.

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Distribution of Voters on Liberal-Conservative
Issues Scale
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Distribution of Non Voters on Liberal-Conservative
Issues Scale
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Implications - Polarization

• Electoral competition in the United States now
  appears to be structured by ideology
• The American public appears to be increasingly
  divided into two groups the politically engaged,
  who view politics in ideological terms, and the
  politically disengaged, who do not.
• Implications for ability to govern