POLITICAL BELIEFS & BEHAVIORS

Warm Up What is American political culture? Are there universally shared values? If so, what are they?

Political Culture Definition: widely shared beliefs, values, and norms that citizens share about their gov’t Characteristics: Liberty Political efficacy Individualism Political tolerance Equality Pragmatism Democracy Justice Civic duty Distrust of gov’t

Background Ideology: integrated set of beliefs and values that shape a person’s views Smaller percentage of ideologues in a two party system

Ideology & public policy Liberalism Classical liberalism of the 18th century Modern liberalism of the 20th century (New Deal liberalism) Backlash against liberalism “Neoliberals”

Ideology cont. Conservatism Essentially classical liberalism Resurgence since late 1970s “Neoconservatives” and the New Right “Compassionate conservatism”

Ideology cont. Socialism Libertarianism

Ideological consistency? Not many people are purely ideological, and neither are candidates Very few see themselves as extremists National ideological map has been relatively consistent Ideology simplifies our choices of candidates

Political Socialization

Political socialization Definition: process in which people acquire their political beliefs Agents Family Schools Religion Race Income Opinion leaders Mass media Gender

Family Are you the same party affiliation of your parents? Has one parent had a stronger influence than the other?

Family STRONGEST Correlation between parents and child Fairly equal influence of mother and father

Schools/Education Impart basic values (civic duty, patriotism) High school gov’t classes? College graduates How much of a role should schools have in political socialization? What has been your experience?

Warm up What is political socialization? What has consistently been the strongest agent of socialization? Why?

Religion Protestant: Catholic: Jews: Muslims: Generally more conservative Importance of Evangelicals Catholic: Traditionally more liberal, but leaning more conservative Clinton/Bush/Obama/Clinton-Trump Jews: Liberal influence, strong support of Democratic Party Muslims: Generally more liberal

Race Whites: more conservative, greater support for R’s African-Americans: more liberal, strongest supporters of D’s 90% democratic in recent elections Latinos: Mexican-Americans & Puerto Ricans more liberal Cubans more conservative Asians: more liberal, voted with D’s in last 5 elections

Income Higher: conservative, R Lower: liberal, D

Gender “Year of the Women” Appeal to “soccer moms” Gender-sensitive issues Gender gap 2016 was the largest gender gap on record

Cross Pressure Conflicting elements of one’s own political socialization

Political Beliefs & Behaviors Public Opinion Political Beliefs & Behaviors

Background Founding Fathers believed average citizens lacked the time, information, energy or interest in public policy Direct public opinion was unnecessary

Types of publics Elites Attentive Mass Those with disproportionate amount of political resources Attentive Those with an active interest in gov’t Mass Those with little interest in gov’t

Types of opinions Stable: change very little Fluid: change frequently Latent: dormant, but may be aroused Intense Non-intense Salient: has some personal importance Consensus: shared by 75% or more Polarized: shared by less than 75%

Measurement of public opinion By elections—does not tell us WHY people voted as they did By straw polls By scientific polls

Public opinion polls Aim to understand the distribution of the population’s belief about politics and policy issues

Construction of polls Define the “universe” Selection of sampling population to be measured Selection of sampling Writing the questions—avoiding bias Select means of polling Analyze data

Uses of polls Inform the public Inform candidates Inform office holders Election night predictions via exit polls But, beware of exit polls!

Is polling useful? Contributes to the democratic process Supporters Critics Contributes to the democratic process Enables leaders to understand and implement public preferences on key issues Turns leaders into followers Polls can manipulate public opinion Horse race emphasized over issues