Download Instructor`s Manual, Chapter 6

Instructor’s Manual, Chapter 6
I.
Learning Objectives:
1) Public opinion—the aggregate of citizen attitudes—is essential to the workings of a
democracy.
2) Scientific polling enables public officials to gauge public opinion with some degree of
confidence, though polls can be in error.
3) Citizens’ opinions and attitudes are shaped by environment, political socialization,
generational effects, and self-interest.
4) Elites do drive public opinion, but only to the extent that citizens are exposed and open
to their message.
5) Party identification can help predict individual attitudes, and liberal or conservative
leanings shape views on political and social issues.
6) Generally, the public has been becoming less liberal, although there is a recent uptick.
7) Although parties have grown more polarized in recent years, the electorate is more
moderate than party choices allow.
8) Political opinion is also divided by demographic groups.
9) In recent years, efficacy and public trust in government have fallen.
10) In national security issues, the public is often deliberately not informed, and public
officials have to work hard to maintain public trust, especially as the American public
has a strong preference for peace.
II. Overview:
For a country to be considered democratic, the views of the public must affect the course of
government. To do so, the public must be sufficiently well informed to be able to make good decisions
and to ensure that politicians act in a way consistent with public preferences. Average Americans do not
know a lot of details about politics, but the nation’s many successes indicate that the public is equal to
the task of self-government. The people are not fools. In 2008, when most people thought the country
was on the wrong track, they voted for change and put Barack Obama in office. By supporting Obama,
the public signaled a clear break from the policies of the Bush administration. Elections are one means
by which the public expresses its will, but on a year-to-year, even day-to-day basis, public officials can
stay in touch with what the public thinks through polls. Scientific polling permits researchers to measure
people’s thinking with considerable accuracy and gives average Americans a chance to speak out on
policy and contribute to policy making. Scientific polling, introduced in the 1930s, not only created
greater equality but also provided the gateways through which the public could affect the course of
government. Polls are not perfect, but they do open up the democratic process.
Although it is critical that public officials are generally responsive to public opinion,1 there are
legitimate questions about how responsive American government actually is. Some suggest that the
connection between opinion and policy is weak. Others point out that the public has mixed feelings on
many issues and does not have concrete opinions about some of the toughest questions, so can offer
little guidance. Still others argue that politicians use policy to manipulate public opinion. That
interaction is troubling and not the way a democratic system in which the government is accountable to
the people should work. These concerns are why it is so instructive to look at the general patterns and
the nation’s general successes.
It is also important to recognize that, in a democracy, politicians know the kinds of issues the
public will respond to and turn against, and so they adopt views that will not arouse the electorate’s
anger. They are aware, in other words, of what political scientists call latent public opinion,2 meaning
the underlying opinions and attitudes of the public that are not always captured in public opinion data
but are recognized by public officials and influential in policy making, and this awareness makes them
responsive and accountable. The ability to anticipate public opinion is an invaluable skill, helping officials
avoid quagmires and stress issues that hit a responsive chord with the public. Thus the power of public
opinion in a democracy is both direct and indirect, and its effects are revealed in many ways.
III. Chapter Outline:
The Power of Public Opinion
In a democratic government, representatives must be responsive to the will of the people.
Polling is a method that helps to determine 1) what the public is thinking and 2) whether the
public approves of current government actions. It is one of the mechanisms that keeps the US
government accountable to its citizens.
The Power of Presidential Approval
After the attacks of 9/11, George Bush had the highest approval rating (90%) of any president in
US history. This tremendous level of public support enabled him to work with Congress to pass
ground-breaking legislation such as the Patriot Act and launch the Iraq War in 2003. However, in
2004 he narrowly won reelection as public opinion had turned, and began to further sour upon
the perceived inadequate handling of Hurricane Katrina and failed attempts at immigration
reform in 2006 and 2007. The presidency of George W. Bush provides yet another example of a
president who began his tenure with high approval ratings, and ended with very low approval
ratings.
What is Public Opinion?
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs about certain issues or
officials, and it is the foundation of democracy. The electorate expresses their opinion through
elections primarily, but public opinion polls give a reliable account of what the public is thinking
at any given time. The Supreme Court also gauges public opinion when looking at decisions
made by state legislatures.
The Public’s Support of Government
Efficacy is the extent to which people believe that their actions affect government. Political trust
is the idea that people believe that government acts in their best interest. In modern times,
both political efficacy and political trust has declined in the US.
Public Opinion Polls
Polls are important tools for gauging public opinion, but if not conducted properly, polls can lead
to misinformation.
Gauging Public Opinion in the Past
In the early days of our nation’s history, public opinion was measured by attendance at rallies
and signatures on petitions. Presidents have also relied on newspapers and constituent letters.
Newspapers, in particular, reflect the views of only a small portion of the electorate, and those
who could not write were excluded from this process almost entirely.
Scientific Polling and the Growth of Survey Research
Random sampling gives each person an equal chance of being selected to participate in a poll,
and yields results that can be generalized back to the entire population, not just a small portion
or group of the population. Introduced by George Gallup (the father of modern polling), this has
allowed modern day presidents to closely monitor public opinion, and thereby arguably
enhanced the democratic character of American government.
Types of Polls
In the modern era, several types of polls are used, but the most accurate and preferred polls use
representative samples, which has been defined as a sample where each person has an equal
chance of being asked to participate, which thereby reduces bias in the results. Information is
collected from the individuals in the sample through many means including phone, paper, and
in-person interviews. Tracking polls are nightly polls that track voters’ opinions (and thus, short
term changes in these opinions) on candidates and issues. Another type of poll, exit polls are
conducted as voters leave the voting booth, and are used to predict the outcome of an election
before all of the final votes are tallied. In 2000, early exit polls from Florida indicated that Al
Gore had won the election, when in reality, George W. Bush was declared the winner several
hours later. This highlights that while useful, exit polls may be misleading at times. A final type
of poll, a push poll, is not an accurate or scientific poll. They are conducted by interest groups or
candidates with a specific agenda, and give respondents biased information about the issue at
hand.
Error in Polls
Even scientific polls have sampling error, and must be accompanied by a confidence interval,
which is a statistical range, given a probability, that takes random error into account. Knowing
the sampling error helps determine the accuracy of a poll. Nonattitudes may also introduce bias
into polls.
The Future of Polls
Despite some avoidable error and some mishaps, scientific opinion polls remain quite accurate.
For example, a collection of polls from major polling organizations predicted Obama would win
the 2008 election by 52%, and he won with 52.9%. Pollsters tend to learn from their mistakes,
but they have several contemporary issues to grapple with. As more people switch from
landlines to cell phones, non-random bias may be introduced into the polls. Also, the response
rate (proportion of people who respond to pollsters) has been declining over time.
What Drives Public Opinion
Public opinion comes from forces that shape political thinking on a personal level , including social,
political, and generational factors as well as self-interest.
Social and Political Environment
The process by which our individual political attitudes are shaped is called socialization; this is
the impact of one’s social environment and world views on the attitudes one carries in life, a primary
source of political attitudes. Parental partisan identification is a very strong determinant of individual
partisan identification. Parents pass political attitudes onto their children, and there is evidence that
genetics may also play a role in partisan identification. Education and region are also factors that help to
determine political attitudes.
Generational Effects
Major events also shape thinking about politics. Examples of these events are the Great Depression and
9/11. For example, after 9/11 more Americans were willing to give up some of their personal freedoms
to combat terrorism.
Self-Interest and Rationality
Self-interest means having concern for one’s own advantage and well-being. People often act in what is
their perceived best interest, and this is called rationality. Thus, people will try to protect their own
interests when thinking about political preferences. Elites, or leaders of opinion such as politicians and
journalists, also influence public attitudes and opinions. While there is some evidence for this top-tobottom process of elites funneling information and opinions down to the average citizen, people often
will only respond to ideas that they find fit with their own existing values and opinions.
The Shape of Public Opinion
Partisanship is a useful framework to examine public opinion, and to examine whether or not there is
political polarization among the people.
Partisanship
Party identification is an attachment or allegiance to a particular political party or idea. An ideological
framework, called a perceptual lens, shapes the way that partisans view the world and process
information. Party identification allows us to predict attitudes on a wide range of issues. For example,
Republicans are less likely to favor government spending programs.
The Independents in the Electorate
Independents are individuals that do not affiliate with either major political party in the US. However,
most Independents lean towards one party or the other.
Political Ideology
A political ideology is a set of consistent political beliefs. Liberals have faith in the government to
improve people’s lives while conservatives generally tend to distrust government. Liberals are more
tolerant of diverse life styles while conservatives support traditional life styles and see a role for the
government to play in shaping personal choices.
Liberal Self-Identification
Liberal self-identification has declined since the 1930’s, but conservativism grew rapidly during the
1960’s. Since the 1960’s the pattern has trended back and forth.
Is the Public Informed?
One of the central tenets of democracy is having a well-informed public. While Americans today are
much more literate than in the time of the Framers (99% v. 10%), not many Americans are informed.
Most cannot name a Supreme Court justice or which party controls Congress, the main policy making
vehicle under our Constitution. The public is more apt to pay attention to issues that are salient (or
important) to them. An example of this is that avid hunters tend to know the stance of a candidate on
gun control. One reason for optimism about the public’s knowledge is that the public learns very quickly,
and according to low information rationality, the public does not need to have large sums of information
to make good decisions.
Is the Public Polarized? Political Polarization in the United States
Depolarized parties adopt positions that are more similar to each other. While there is some evidence
that the public is more polarized today than in the past, Pew Research shows that the difference over
time is quite small from the late 1980’s until the present. Responsible parties take responsibility for
offering the public a clear choice on a range of policies and program. Thus, while polarization is
sometimes cast in a negative light, having a healthy degree of polarization among parties is good for
democracy.
Group Differences
Certain groups tend to hold similar political views, and group membership can be an important predictor
of individual attitudes. Socioeconomic status (the combined measure of occupation, education, income,
wealth, social standing and lifestyle), for example, conditions attitudes towards government spending
on social services, with those with the lowest socioeconomic status supporting more spending. Age also
influences attitudes, such as spending on student loans, which is more salient to college students than
the elderly. Religion is yet another indicator of opinion. Muslims may favor a more activist government
than Protestants, but are less supportive of some social issues, such as homosexual marriage. The
gender gap refers to the phenomenon that since the 1970’s, women have voted differently in
presidential elections than men. There are also divisions based on race and ethnicity, particularly on
issues such as affirmative action and immigration.
Military Action and Anti-Terrorism
Public opinion has influences on foreign policy.
Anti-terrorism Measures and Support for Harsh Interrogation Techniques
When the US is attacked on its soil, the rally-around-the-flag effect usually occurs. This coming together
of citizens generally translates into huge support of the President, such as the high approval ratings that
George W. Bush experienced after 9/11. Thus, the president enjoys tremendous support in the
aftermath of the crisis. However, once this effect begins to wear off, the president enjoys less support
for protracted military involvement. This phenomenon has been seen with initial high levels of support
for both the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, and then the support waned. 9/11 has made Americans more
supportive of anti-terrorism measures, even controversial measures taken by the Bush administration
such as waterboarding, wiretapping, and detainment without charges. However, Americans want
investigations and oversight of these policies and techniques, suggesting that they wish to use them
cautiously and judiciously.
Public Opinion and Democracy
Public opinion is critical to democracy because the public must be able to influence government action
in a democracy, and be able to hold the actions of government officials accountable. Public opinion can
be used to indicate that the people want to see a change in policy or direction, such as electing Barack
Obama president in 2008. While public opinion can be confusing and unstable, latent public opinion
keeps politicians in overall alignment with public thought.
Supreme Court Case: Roper v. Simmons
Roper v. Simmons is a federal court case where the US Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional
to apply the death penalty to anyone under 18 years old. This is an example of how public opinion
shapes the actions of government. Though the justices did not rely on a poll, they did look at state
legislatures to glean “evolving standards of decency” which were used to make the final decision. The
content of state statutes in this area was taken to be a reflection of the will of the people.
IV. Critical Thinking Questions for Class Discussion:
1) How does public opinion influence public policy?
2) In what ways are elected officials responsive to public opinion? How responsive should
they be?
3) Is every citizen’s voice equal, or are some people more influential? Why?
4) How well does polling capture public opinion? Should polls direct public policy?
5) Does public opinion provide a gateway or a gate to democracy?
V. Lecture Launchers:
1) If you were going to conduct a poll among students at your school about the price of
textbooks or the tuition and fees you have to pay, how would you word the question?
Would it make a difference? You bet! The wording of a question, whether intentional or
not, can bias or skew the results of a survey and lead to an incorrect prediction about
the choices voters might make. Let’s take a simple subject like a presidential election.
Let’s imagine that you have to ask a simple question about voter preference for the
upcoming 2000 presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore. Let us assume
that we are conducting a survey on October 1, 2000, with a nationwide sample of 1000
voters. What questions would you ask in order to avoid any bias?
2) If you were going to try and poll the voters in America to see for whom they would vote
in the next Presidential election, how many voters do you think it would take to make
the kinds of predictions usually associated with the Gallup Poll, Roper Associates or any
reputable polling firm? Remember that this poll will predict, accurately we hope, the
needs, views and wishes of over 70 million potential voters. Should you interview 10%
of the voters? 5%? The answer might shock you. In order to accurately reflect the
public’s opinion, a sample (that is the number of voters you would interview) need only
be about 1000 individuals! That is about one voter out of every 70,000! With that size
sample, pollsters can predict outcomes with a tolerated error, or confidence interval, of
only plus-or-minus 3%. In the mid-1930’s a well-known magazine called the Literary
Digest polled almost 2 million Americans before incorrectly predicting who would win
the 1936 Presidential election. The key was not the number of voters interviewed but
the scientific methods used to select the sample of respondents. Sample size and
sample selection are two key ingredients to keeping survey research the scientific
phenomenon that continues to wow the voters and political pundits of the world.
3) In the last presidential election, Barack Obama represented the Democratic ticket. He
had close competition for the nomination from Hillary Clinton. This could be used as a
launching pad for a discussion about the adequacy of polls. What kinds of difficulties
does this introduce when polling the public about these candidates? Is there more room
for dishonesty? If this is the case, are the polls, in fact, accurate? This can then lead to a
short discussion of social desirability bias and the Bradley effect.
VI. In-Class Activities:
1) Present students with the following survey question:
Some people say that minority groups should blend in to American culture. Others say
that minority groups should be allowed to maintain distinct cultures. What do you say?
A. Blend In
B. Maintain Distinct Cultures
C. I Don’t Know
The first step will be to hold a class discussion about the merits of this question, and its
response choices. Does this question truly tap an individual's views about
multiculturalism? Why or why not? To this end, how could the wording of this question
and the set of response choices be improved? The next step would be to break the class
up into “x” number of groups, and have students select a contemporary topic (views on
the death penalty, for example). Each group should discuss and come up with one or
two examples of a “good” question and a “bad” question. Then, lead the class in a
discussion about the questions that students have come up with.
(2) To illustrate to students the baises that may be present in polls with non-random, convenience
sampling methods, select a question of contemporary significance from PollingReport.com (such as
whether marijuana should be legalized or whether more troops should be sent to Afghanistan).
Then, have each student poll ten of their friends, and tally up their responses to the question. In
class, compare the students’ poll results to the national poll results, and then lead the class in a
discussion of 1) what differences there are between the two groups, 2) why there are differences
and 3) the merits of using random sampling (and emphasizing the ability to generalize back to the
population of interest much more accurately). This could also be used as a segue to discuss the fact
that all polls contain errors, even those that use scientific sampling methods.
VII. Web Links:
American Association for Public Opinion Research (www.aapor.org): Leading website of public
opinion and survey research professionals, with information about public opinion research and
biographical data on its researches, but access to specific data is restricted to members. The
organization also publishes the journal Public Opinion Quarterly.
European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (http://www.esomar.org/): (ESOMAR) is the
world organization for enabling better research into markets, consumers and societies. ESOMAR
promotes the value of market and opinion research in illuminating real issues and bringing
about effective decision-making on a global level.
Gallup Poll (www.gallup.com): One of the leading polling agencies in the United States,
with up-to-date polling on an array of national and international topics. Accessing the
results of polls is free of charge, but a fee is charged to access the actual data.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (www.ropercenter.uconn.edu): Serves primarily
as a databank for academic research, for which a subscription fee is required, but access
to polls on numerous political topics is available free of charge.
PollingReport.com (www.pollingreport.com): Good source for up-to-date information on
types of polls from numerous polling agencies—campaign and election polls, media
polls, or general political topics, at both the state and national level. Most data are
available free of charge.
Pollster.com (www.pollster.com): Website developed by pollster Mark Blumenthal and
Professor Charles Franklin (University of Wisconsin, Madison) dedicated to tracking the
latest trends in political campaigns at the state and national level. It also serves as a blog
for commentators on specific public opinion trends.
Pew Research Center (pewreasearch.org): Nonpartisan “fact tank” that provides hard data,
surveys, and reports on the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the United States and the
world.
Political Arithmetik (http://politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com/): Blog of Professor Charles
Franklin that provides analysis and commentary on public opinion data for topical issues
in society (such as the presidential campaign, the Iraq war, gay marriage). The website is
useful for in-depth analysis on certain topics, but there are a limited number of topics.
World Association for Public Opinion Research (http://www.unl.edu/wapor/): (WAPOR) is
an international association of researchers in the fields of communication and survey
research.
World Public Opinion (www.worldpublicopinion.org): Website run by the Program on
International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland that provides data on global
public opinion and also on many topics and analysis pertaining specifically to the opinion
of Americans regarding global issues.
American National Election Studies (ANES) (www.electionstudies.org): Provides voting and
public opinion data, primarily on elections, for research, as well as data on numerous
public opinion topics relating to electoral politics.
Real Clear Politics (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls): Popular political blog that posts
up-to-date polling numbers from a host of polling agencies. The polls are limited to
political campaigns, particularly presidential elections, but the site also provides polls on
presidential and congressional approval, and the public’s views on government in
general.
VIII. Instructor Resources:
Gilens, Martin. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Addresses common misconceptions about welfare
policy in America, finding that the public supports the “deserving” poor, but that welfare is a
racially charged issue driven by sensationalism in media and misinformation from political elites.
Hetherington, Marc J. Why Trust Matters: The Declining Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005. Examines the recent trend towards
conservatism in American politics, arguing that declining trust in government, rather than an
increase in conservative values among the electorate, has made citizens less willing to support
progressive policies.
Hutchings, Vincent. Public Opinion and Democratic Accountability. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2003. Contrary to the common wisdom that American voters are mostly uninformed
about politics, demonstrates that voters can be knowledgeable and attentive when it comes to
the issues they find most important.
Key, V. O. Public Opinion and American Democracy. New York: Knopf, 1961. Focuses on the system-level
determinants of mass ideology and values, attempting to illuminate the relationship among
public opinion and political leaders and processes.
Stimson, James. Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004. Argues that the public only rarely pays enough attention to politics to act
on their preferences, but that those incidents in which the citizenry is attentive can have hugely
consequential implications for American government.
Zaller, John. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Develops an elite-driven model of public opinion, where citizens’ views are shaped in large part
by messages from political elites and the media, which are then moderated through voters’
political awareness and prior attitudes. A seminal book in this field.
IX. Important Terms:
1) affirmative action
2) approval rating
3) census
4) confidence interval
5) conservatives
6) depolarized
7) elite opinion
8) elite theory
9) elites
10) exit polls
11) Gallup Poll
12) gender gap
13) generational effects
14) latent public opinion
15) levels of conceptualization
16) liberals
17) low information rationality
18) nonattitudes
19) party identification
20) perceptual lens
21) polarization
22) political ideology
23) political trust
24) polls
25) population
26) public opinion
27) push polls
28) random sample
29) rationality
30) Reagan Democrats
31) rally-around-the-flag effect
32) representative sample
33) response rate
34) responsible parties
35) salient
36) sample
37) sampling error
38) scientific polling
39) socialization
40) socioeconomic status
41) straw polls
42) tracking polls