1. POLITICAL BELIEFS & BEHAVIORS

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

3. 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

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

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

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

7. Ideology cont.
Socialism
Libertarianism

8. 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

9. Political Socialization

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

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

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

13. 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?

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

15. 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

16. 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

19. Income
Higher: conservative, R
Lower: liberal, D

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

24. Cross Pressure
Conflicting elements of one’s own political socialization

25. Political Beliefs & Behaviors
Public Opinion
Political Beliefs & Behaviors

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

27. 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

28. 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%

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

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

31. 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

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

33. 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