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Public Opinion: The People's Influence on Policy
What is public opinion?
- The aggregate beliefs and attitudes of some portion of adults (ex.
all voters, white voters, swing voters, suburban voters)
- Pretty much a political science metric
- Expressed opinion differs from "real opinion"
- People lie about their preferenc
- Sometimes people don't even know until the day of!
- The first poll was 1824
- "Straw polls" - unscientific and unrepresentative
- Pretty private, but only tells you the average belief of
whomever took the poll; ex. twitter polls
- Literary Digest 1916-1916
- 100% accurate up until 1936, when predicted Alf Landon
- Big selection bias: the only people who could buy the
mag were rich and Republican.
- Each election, pollsters modify polls on possible selection bias.
- We are measuring "Political Socialization"
- Socialization: the process by which individuals acquire beliefs
and attitudes
Sources of Socialization
1) Family
- Most significant influence because you're "trapped" here as a kid
- By five years old, kids have political leanings
- People share opinions
- Children imitate their parents
- Personality
- Not necessarily specific policy, but values and norms
- You inherit social and economic networks from your parents
- Positive perception -> more imitation. Worse home environment ->
less inheritance of ideas
- Your ideas are not immutable of your parents
2) Education
- Your first influence outside the home
- Promote patriotic rituals
- Pledge of allegiance
- School clubs and democracy (ex Illinois had students choose
state bird)
- Textbooks promote the status quo ("neutral")
- Academia's Liberal (anti-status quo) Influence
- This is only higher education, after you have been exposed to
the status quo, and it's largely overblown
- Students reflect popular opinion
- Still some parental control, like private school
3) Peers and peer groups
- Who is "like you"
- Dr Rich, ex, has his local peer group, his work peer group, which
doesn't care much about student debt because that doesn't affect
his peers.
- Reinforces existing beliefs, making it harder to leave
4) Religious influences
- Less influential at large, but those with these beliefs are super
impacted by this
- Political scientists measure religiosity in terms of church
attendance frequency
5) Economic status/occupation
- Political analysis, national security, ex. have a right-center
bias
- Taxes are supported by government employees, disliked by other ppl
- More money typically -> more conservative
6) Political Events
- Sep 11 and the War on Terror
- Maybe support for popular vote
7) Leaders
- Formal leaders have a (small) impact, like press releases or news
- Rich's college roommate had a poster of Reagan.
- Trump's got a big positive/negative impact
- Informal (mostly community) leaders have a bigger impact: trust,
commitment, proximity
8) Media
- The more sources, the less bias
- We stick with the stuff we like
- Low on this list because it is very low impact.
9) Demographic traits
- Minor impact
- However, it is a pretty good metric for communities that have
similar beliefs and bigger analysis
10) Gender gap
- Women are more left-leaning
- Possibly a bit biological
- But there's a lot of socialized ideological differences that are
largely captured by other social variables
- George Gallop, early scientific political pollster
- 4 or 5 percentage points off an election prediction
- Believed polling enhances the democratic process
- Brings people back into the process
1 Year-round, even outside of election years (for politicians)
2 Polling weakens the power of interest groups
3 Indicates broad preferences, which initiate policies
- Like George W Bush proposing to privatize Social Security
4 Feedback on policy choices
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