public opinion, participation, and voting chapter 8
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What is Public Opinion?
Public Opinion
The distribution of individual preferences, for or evaluations, of a given issue, candidate, or
institution within a specific population
What is Public Opinion?
Intensity – how strongly people feel about their opinions
Latency - political opinions that people may hold but have not fully
expressed
Salience – extent to which people feel issues are relevant to them
Measuring Public Opinion• Random sample – in this type of sample, every
individual has a known and random chance of being selected:– the questions must be asked in clear, unemotional
language– people must have some knowledge of the things they
are asked about– for any pop. over 500,000, at least 1,065 respondents
are necessary to provide a 95% confidence, +/- 3%– each person must have an equal chance of being
interviewed– even the most accurate polls have some sampling
error - the term for the measurement of relative accuracy of a public opinion poll
How do We Get Our Political Opinions and Values?
Political SocializationThe process most notably in families and schools by which we develop our political attitudes, values and
beliefs
Family Schools
(Most important agent)
Number of times a week American families say that
they eat together
Schools teach an idealized view of the nation’s slogans and
symbols
Agents of Socialization
Agents of Socialization
Religion
Those raised in religious households tend to be
socialized to contribute to society and to get involved in
their communities
Media
More than two-thirds of Americans report that they receive “all or most”
of their news from television
Public Opinion and Public Policy
“What I want is to get done what the people desire to be done, and the question for me is how to find
that out exactly.”
- Abraham Lincoln
Awareness and Interest
Knowledge Levels
Politics is not the major interest of most
Americans and as a result, knowledge about
the political system is limited
Electoral/Nonelectoral Political Participation Among Anglo Whites, African Americans, and
Latinos
Adapted from Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Scholzman, Henry Brady, and Norman H. Nie, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1995).
Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
• There is about 25% of the public that is actually interested in politics most of the time– attentive public – those citizens who follow
public affairs carefully• vote in most elections, read a daily newspaper,
and talk politics w/ family and friends
Participation: Translating Opinions into Action
• at opposite end of spectrum are nonvoters– people who are rarely interested in politics or
public affairs and seldom vote
• 40% of Americans are part-time citizens – participate selectively in elections, voting in pres. elections but usually not in others
Voting: Registration
In an effort to make registration easier, states have made registration forms available at motor vehicle stations (part of applying for driver’s license), schools, and even highway tollbooths
Expanding the Franchise
• 15th Amendment (1870): African Americans given suffrage
• 19th Amendment (1920): Women given suffrage
• 26th Amendment (1971): 18-year-olds given suffrage
Predictors of Participation
• More schooling = Higher voting rate• Involvement in social organizations =
Higher voting rate– such involvement develops the skills
associated with political participation
• Higher SES = Higher voting rate• African American and Hispanic participation
is lower than that of whites overall• Men and women vote at about the same
rate
How Serious is Nonvoting?
“I’m not going to shed any crocodile tears if people don’t care enough to vote….I’d be extremely happy if nobody in the United States voted except for the people who thought about the issues and made up their own minds and wanted
to vote.”- the late Senator Sam Ervin
A huge army of nonvoters, “hangs over the democratic process like a bomb ready to explode and change the
course of history.”
-Arthur Hadley
Voting on the Basis of Party
• In the absence of reasons to vote otherwise, people depend on party identification to simplify their voting choices.
• split ticket – a vote for some of one party’s candidates and some of another party’s
• straight ticket – a vote for all of one party’s candidates
Party Identification
An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in
childhood
Voting on the Basis of Candidates
• 1980s mark a critical threshold in the emergence of a candidate-centered era
• Increasingly, campaigns focus on the negative elements of candidates’ history and personality
Candidate Appeal
How voters feel about a candidate’s background, personality, leadership ability, and
other personal qualities
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