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AP Government Chapter 6
Public Opinion and
Political Action
Definitions• 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 yearMelting Pot/Tossed SaladMinority-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 Socialization1. Family
2. Mass Media
3. School….what else?
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 Voters' Thought Processes
Group Benefits
42%
Nature of the Times
24%
No I ssue Content
22%
Ideologue12%
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”