Public Opinion, Participation, and Voting

Chapter 8

What is Public Opinion?

Public Opinion

The distribution of individual preferences, for or evaluations, of a given issue, candidate, or

institution within a specific population

What is Public Opinion?

Intensity – how strongly people feel about their opinions

Latency - political opinions that people may hold but have not fully

expressed

Salience – extent to which people feel issues are relevant to them

Measuring Public Opinion• Random sample – in this type of sample, every

individual has a known and random chance of being selected:– the questions must be asked in clear, unemotional

language– people must have some knowledge of the things they

are asked about– for any pop. over 500,000, at least 1,065 respondents

are necessary to provide a 95% confidence, +/- 3%– each person must have an equal chance of being

interviewed– even the most accurate polls have some sampling

error - the term for the measurement of relative accuracy of a public opinion poll

How do We Get Our Political Opinions and Values?

Political SocializationThe process most notably in families and schools by which we develop our political attitudes, values and

beliefs

Family Schools

(Most important agent)

Number of times a week American families say that

they eat together

Schools teach an idealized view of the nation’s slogans and

symbols

Agents of Socialization

Agents of Socialization

Religion

Those raised in religious households tend to be

socialized to contribute to society and to get involved in

their communities

Media

More than two-thirds of Americans report that they receive “all or most”

of their news from television

Public Opinion and Public Policy

“What I want is to get done what the people desire to be done, and the question for me is how to find

that out exactly.”

- Abraham Lincoln

Awareness and Interest

Knowledge Levels

Politics is not the major interest of most

Americans and as a result, knowledge about

the political system is limited

Participation: Translating Opinions into Action

How Citizens Participate

Electoral/Nonelectoral Political Participation Among Anglo Whites, African Americans, and

Latinos

Adapted from Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Scholzman, Henry Brady, and Norman H. Nie, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

1995).

Participation: Translating Opinions into Action

• There is about 25% of the public that is actually interested in politics most of the time– attentive public – those citizens who follow

public affairs carefully• vote in most elections, read a daily newspaper,

and talk politics w/ family and friends

Participation: Translating Opinions into Action

• at opposite end of spectrum are nonvoters– people who are rarely interested in politics or

public affairs and seldom vote

• 40% of Americans are part-time citizens – participate selectively in elections, voting in pres. elections but usually not in others

Voting: Registration

In an effort to make registration easier, states have made registration forms available at motor vehicle stations (part of applying for driver’s license), schools, and even highway tollbooths

Expanding the Franchise

• 15th Amendment (1870): African Americans given suffrage

• 19th Amendment (1920): Women given suffrage

• 26th Amendment (1971): 18-year-olds given suffrage

TurnoutVoter Turnout in Presidential and Congressional Elections

Voter Turnout in Western Democracies

Average Turnout 1991-2000

Registration and Voting in the World’s Parliamentary Elections

Why People Don’t Vote

The Politics of Voter Turnout

Predictors of Participation

• More schooling = Higher voting rate• Involvement in social organizations =

Higher voting rate– such involvement develops the skills

associated with political participation

• Higher SES = Higher voting rate• African American and Hispanic participation

is lower than that of whites overall• Men and women vote at about the same

rate

How Serious is Nonvoting?

“I’m not going to shed any crocodile tears if people don’t care enough to vote….I’d be extremely happy if nobody in the United States voted except for the people who thought about the issues and made up their own minds and wanted

to vote.”- the late Senator Sam Ervin

A huge army of nonvoters, “hangs over the democratic process like a bomb ready to explode and change the

course of history.”

-Arthur Hadley

Voting on the Basis of Party

• In the absence of reasons to vote otherwise, people depend on party identification to simplify their voting choices.

• split ticket – a vote for some of one party’s candidates and some of another party’s

• straight ticket – a vote for all of one party’s candidates

Party Identification

An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in

childhood

Voting on the Basis of Candidates

• 1980s mark a critical threshold in the emergence of a candidate-centered era

• Increasingly, campaigns focus on the negative elements of candidates’ history and personality

Candidate Appeal

How voters feel about a candidate’s background, personality, leadership ability, and

other personal qualities

Voting on the Basis of Issues

Prospective Issue Voting

Voting based on what a candidate pledges

to do in the future about an issue if

elected

Retrospective Issue Voting

Holding incumbents responsible for past

performance on issues