CHAPTER 6: PUBLIC OPINION AND POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION

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CHAPTER 6PUBLIC OPINION AND POLITICAL
SOCIALIZATION
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Introduction

• In the United States and other democracies,
  people possess a variety of ways by which they
  can communicate their opinions to government
  officials and others.
• In turn, officials recognize the importance of
  public opinion, and often change policy (or have
  their positions bolstered) based on public
  opinion.
• While in some cases public opinion is clear and
  decisive, oftentimes it is murkier. In addition,
  public opinion can be shaped by policymakers who
  must respond to public opinion. That is,
  government officials do play a role in political
  socialization, and often shape public opinion on
  a variety of issues.

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Defining Public Opinion

• Public opinion is the aggregate of individual
  attitudes or beliefs shared by some portion of
  adults. The difference between private opinion
  and public opinion occurs when an individual
  takes some type of action to express an opinion
  to others publicly. Public opinion becomes
  known in a democracy through
• Elections
• selection of candidates (primary elections)
• election of officials
• in some states, initiatives and/or referenda
• Lobbying of governmental officials
• Interest group activities

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Defining Public Opinion

• One looks to the distribution of public opinion
  to determine how divided the public is on any
  given issue. When there is general agreement on
  an issue, there is said to be consensus. When
  opinions are sharply divided, it is a divisive
  opinion. When not enough people have formed
  opinions on an issue, there is said to be
  non-opinion.
• Public opinion is different from private opinion.
  Private opinion becomes public opinion when the
  opinion of an individual is expressed. The
  accurate way to monitor public opinion is through
  public opinion polls that are based on scientific
  methodology. Politicians spend vast amounts of
  money on polling during an election. Therefore,
  it is obvious that at least during elections
  politicians are willing to invest money to
  ascertain the views of the public that is likely
  to vote.

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How Public Opinion is Formed Political
Socialization

• Political socialization is the process by which
  individuals acquire beliefs and attitudes.
• Public opinion is the summation of all individual
  opinions. In order to understand how public
  opinion is formed, it is important to understand
  how individuals form their opinions. Political
  socialization is the process by which individuals
  acquire political beliefs and attitudes. The
  interactions an individual has with others have a
  major impact on the formation of individual
  opinion.
• The importance of the family is paramount in the
  development of individual opinion. Political
  attitudes begin to develop in children and the
  major influence on these early values is the
  family.

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How Public Opinion is Formed Political
Socialization

• Educational influence on political opinions is
  also important. Education introduces individuals
  to ideas outside of the home and outside of the
  local community. These new ideas may influence
  the individual to accept opinions that are
  somewhat different from those of the parents.
• Peers and peer group influence also has an impact
  on opinion formation. As people interact with
  people in school, or at work, or in social
  activities various values come into play. These
  values can influence how opinions are formed.
• Religious influence appears to have a significant
  impact on the development of political opinions.
  For example, the Jewish community is highly
  likely to vote for Democratic candidates.
  Protestants are more likely to vote for
  Republican candidates.

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How Public Opinion is Formed Political
Socialization

• Economic status and occupation appear to
  influence political views. On issues of economic
  policy, individuals who have less income tend to
  favor liberal policies, while individuals of the
  upper middle class favor conservative policies.
  On civil liberty issues the reverse tends to be
  true, those with less income are more
  conservative and those with higher incomes are
  more liberal.
• Political events can produce a long-lasting
  impact on opinion formation. While it is likely
  that the events of September 11, 2001 will play
  an important role in the political socialization
  of young Americans, it is still unclear what this
  impact will be.

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How Public Opinion is Formed Political
Socialization

• Leaders, both formal and informal also tend to
  shape the opinions of the public. Formal leaders
  would include political leaders like the
  president, the governor and members of Congress.
  Formal leaders make a conscious effort to shape
  the opinions of the public. Informal leaders do
  not usually attempt to shape the political
  opinions of the public, however they still exert
  an influence during opinion formation. Examples
  of informal leaders would be teachers, religious
  leaders, civic leaders.
• Media also plays a significant role in the
  development of public opinion. The media
  presents information on important political
  topics. How topics are presented and which
  topics are presented clearly have a major impact
  in opinion formation. It is important to
  remember that media is plural, not singular.
  There are numerous sources of media and each
  source has some type of bias. The more sources
  an individual relies on in gathering information
  there is less influence of bias.

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Political Preferences and Voting Behavior

• Demographic traits are those traits an individual
  has little or no control over, yet these traits
  exert a major influence over the development of
  one's opinion. Important demographic traits
  include
• Geographical location
• Race
• Gender
• Age
• Marital status

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Political Preferences and Voting Behavior

• Currently there is a gender gap in the United
  States in regard to opinion formation. There are
  significant differences between males and females
  on which issues are considered to be important
  and differences on what action should be taken on
  specific issues. Since 1980 females have tended
  to support Democratic candidates for president
  more than males have supported Democratic
  candidates. The support of females for Vice
  President Al Gore was significantly more than the
  support of females for George W. Bush in the 2000
  presidential election. In the 2004 elections,
  this gender gap was narrowed somewhat 51 percent
  of women voted for Democratic candidate Senator
  John Kerry, compared with 44 percent of men.

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Measuring Public Opinion

• As long as there has been representative
  government, there have been politicians who have
  been interested in knowing what the public
  opinion is on each issue. The problem has always
  been how to accurately measure what the public
  thinks. As early as 1824 polls were being
  conducted. These polls were straw polls, polls
  that were not intended to be representative of
  the population. Such polls are not an accurate
  reflection of public opinion. The most infamous
  of these was conducted by the Literary Digest in
  1936. When Franklin Roosevelt was elected in a
  landslide, after the poll conducted by the
  Literary Digest had projected his defeat, the
  public trust in all polls was very low.

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Measuring Public Opinion

• Still today a large number of Americans do not
  believe that polls are an accurate reflection of
  public opinion. However, if a poll is based on a
  random sample of a properly defined population
  the information is accurate within the stated
  margin of error. In order for a poll to be
  random every person in the defined population has
  to have an equal chance of being selected.
  Although any one person has little chance of
  being selected, that chance is equal to any other
  person being selected. The larger the sample of
  the population, the smaller the margin of error.
  If a random sample, with a margin of error of
  or - 3, reveals that 63 of the population
  favors a reduction in spending for space
  exploration the actual number of people favoring
  such a reduction is some where between 60 to
  66.

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Measuring Public Opinion

• While random samples are usually accurate, there
  can still be problems. If the margin of error is
  greater than the difference between two
  candidates, the poll cannot indicate who is
  leading at that time. Polls are only accurate
  for the time frame when they were conducted. On
  an issue in which public opinion changes quickly,
  the length of time the poll will be accurate will
  be very short.

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Technology and Opinion Polls

• The Internet has become an increasingly popular
  tool for public opinion researchers to conduct
  polls. However, there are concerns that the
  Internet does not allow researchers to obtain
  truly random samples, as poll respondents
  self-select to participate in the poll.
• Such problems are quite similar to those that
  occurred when telephone polling started. But the
  advantages of telephone polling, and the
  increasing proliferation of telephones in
  households eventually meant that telephone
  polling was the best way to conduct polls.

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Technology and Opinion Polls

• In part because of its success, telephone polling
  has now become problematic because so many
  entities conduct polls and market research.
  The pervasiveness of polling has meant that fewer
  people are willing to respond to telephone polls.
• As the Internet becomes more pervasiveness and
  users become more representative of the
  population, the use of the Internet as a
  legitimate polling tool will increase, as will
  the accuracy of polls conducted on it.

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Public Opinion and the Political Process

• Political culture can be described as a set of
  attitudes and ideas about the nation and
  government. Certain shared beliefs about
  important values are considered the core of
  American political culture. These values
  include
• Liberty
• Equality
• Property
• Justice
• Support for religious freedom
• Community service and personal achievement

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Public Opinion and the Political Process

• A major concern for many Americans appears to be
  a lack of confidence in political leaders and a
  decline in political trust of government. An
  example of how big this problem has become is the
  lack of participation in the 2000 presidential
  election. Barely half of the adult population
  participated. If public confidence in the
  political system continues to decline, turnout
  rates could fall to an all time low. If the
  public has minimal involvement in the political
  process will democracy continue to function?

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Public Opinion and the Political Process

• It is clear that there is considerable
  ambivalence on the part of the public regarding
  government and other national institutions. The
  most recent data suggests that trust in the
  government in Washington increased from 1996 to
  1998, but dropped in 1999. After September 11,
  2001 political trust increased significantly,
  perhaps demonstrating Americans showing that they
  remained confident in the government in spite of
  the attack, but trust decreased again in 2002.
  Table 6-4 shows the confidence in institutions
  trends, and again demonstrates the impact of
  September 11, 2001 with churches and the military
  enjoying increased confidence. The Most Important
  Problem Trend (Table 6-5) indicates that
  Americans are concerned about the war with Iraq
  and the economy in 2003, as compared with the
  terrorism and the economy in 2002, the economy
  and education in 2001 and morals and family
  decline in 2000.

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Public Opinion and the Political Process

• What role should public opinion play in the
  political process? Should political leaders rely
  on public opinion polls to make public policy?
  There are differences of opinion between the
  public and policymakers on this issue. Part of
  the difference belies one of the flaws of
  polling that largely public opinion ignores the
  context within which most policy decisions take
  place. That is, people are likely to express
  opinions for many kinds of policies when their
  costs are not part of the calculation, but
  those costs are part of the larger context within
  which policies are made.

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Public Opinion Why Is It Important Today?

• Public opinion is important today because it is
  useful in identifying which issues are important
  to the public. Also, public opinion can lead to
  changes in policy, and it can give politicians
  more power when public opinion supports an
  initiative. One of the most important components
  of public opinion however, is the virtual veto
  it has over highly objectionable policies.