Electoral Politics What is public opinion and how is it measured? Trends in public opinion. Rally effects and stability.

Definitions First used in its obvious, literal sense in eighteenth- century political thought. Began to acquire a more precise meaning (without losing its general one) with the advent of scientific opinion polling in the 1930’s. Public opinion identifies the public’s preferences for governmental action and their expectations for the political process. In the past it has been less important, people often voted in accordance to certain social cleavages.

Spending and taxation Not everyone wants money spent on the same thing. “Spend more, tax less.” Public opinion does effect taxation policy –Bush tax cuts –Reagan increased spending (data from pages )

Morality 1960’s to 1970’s social changes. Very different to economy Attitudes can change rapidly Europe more liberal than US Increase in fundamentalist Christians in US (data from page 115)

Gender Attitudes have changed substantially over the last 70 years Attitudes still changing substantially now A large proportion of men still feel that it is a women’s job to do housework and that they have more right to a job Under representation in governments (data from page 111)

Environment Fairly new problem Creation of green parties People want government to stop pollution …but don’t want to pay more taxes (data from page 113)

Race Public opinion played a big part during the civil rights movements Countries getting more and more racially and ethnically diverse New racism against Muslims Disagreements over immigration

Changing times Political spectrum - 60’s-70’s – liberal - 80’s – conservative - 90’s – liberal - 00’s – conservative Citizens have greater political knowledge Disintegration of traditional social cleavages

Final Points New Eastern democracies show similar patterns of public opinion as old Western democracies Public opinion greatly effects policy and has helped create great changes in the last 100 years Informed decisions cause greater democracy

Questions Is the candidate/issue/performance based voting a good thing for democracy? Are we in a period of more right wing leaning and will this have a negative effect on social progress? Are we likely to go back to a left wing leaning after the next general election in the US