Public Opinion and Political Action                                                                                                                AP Government Chapter 6 Public Opinion and Political Action

Definitions 311,110,140 million today (April 5, 2011) Public Opinion: Aims to understand the distribution of the population’s belief about politics and policy issues Demography: Science of human populations Census: Enumeration of the population every 10 years 295 million Americans (2000 census) 311,110,140 million today (April 5, 2011)

Three major waves of Immigration 800,000 new immigrants legally admitted every year Melting Pot/Tossed Salad Minority-Majority Prior to the late 19th century: Northwestern Europeans (English, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians) Late 19th and early 20th century: Southern and Eastern Europeans (Italians, Jews, Poles, Russians, etc.) Recent decades: Hispanics (Cuba, Central and South America) and Asians (Korean, Vietnam, Philippines, etc.)

Minority Majority

Definitions Continued Political Culture: An overall set of values widely shared within a society Reapportionment: States gain or lose congressional representation as their population changes and thus power shifts as well Every decade (census) 435 seats in the House of Representatives is reallocated to the states on the basis of population changes Politics is a lifelong activity

Political Socialization 1. Family 2. Mass Media 3. School….what else? Political Socialization

Measuring Public Opinion Gallup Polling: Sample population of 1,000-1,500 people can accurately represent the “universe” of potential voters Random Sampling: Everyone should have an equal probability of being selected as part of a sample Sampling error +-3% Random Digit dialing

Decline in Trust in Government

Political Ideologies

Liberals V. Conservatives Gender Gap: Regular pattern by which women are more likely to support democratic candidates Religiosity: The degree to which religion is important in one’s life (most conservative demographic group) Fundamentalists or “born again” are the new Christian Right of Catholics and Protestants

Participation in Politics Conventional: Voting, trying to persuade others, ringing doorbells for a petition, running for office Unconventional: Protesting, civil disobedience, violence,

Political Participation by Family Income

Unconventional Participation Protesting: Form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics Civil Disobedience: Form of protest; Consciously break a law that is thought to be unjust

Low Participating Groups Many politicians don’t concern themselves with views of groups with low participation rates (young, low income) So who gets what in politics, therefore, depends in part, who participates

What are Americans?? Political scientists say Americans are “ideological conservatives but operational liberals—meaning that they oppose the idea of big government in principle but favor it in practice”