Lecture 14 Public Opinion Tuesday November 05 2013 1 Why is Public Opinion Important a Cornerstone of democratic theory i Leaders are supposed to hear the voice of the people ii Delegate Model 1 Democracy fails if a Masses are ignorant or inactive b Leaders ignore public opinion 2 Inconsistent with founding fathers vision trustee model b Questions i Should public opinion drive policies ii Where does public opinion come from 2 Where do political beliefs come from a Political socialization i Knowledge of formal institutions and processes of government ii Develop political attitudes towards actors parties and issues 3 Agents of socialization a Family most important i Most powerful agent of socialization i Reduces cost of participation b Education c Peer groups i Reflect preexisting community ties d Media i Reflect preexisting political attitudes e Socio economic status i Favors economic self interest f Race g Gender i Become more conservative as rise in socio economic status i Gender gap on partisanship and issues 4 What do Americans think a At the basic level relatively homogeneous b Broad support for core values i Individual liberty freedom 1 Bill of rights 2 Capitalism freedom of speech assembly religion free enterprise without obstruction from government ii Political equality 1 Equal access to the political system universal voting rights equality under the law equality of access Less supportive of substantive equality equality of outcomes 2 iii Rule of law 1 Constitution and democratic institutions are legitimate c But differ on how these values should be balanced 5 How do we measure public opinion a Public opinion polling i Covers a variety of issues b Mostly conducted over the phone i May introduce some sampling bias c Pull a random sample of the target population i Randomization is key every person in the target population has an equal ii Fundamental requirement for representativeness iii You can draw inferences about a population of interest by examining a chance of being selected randomly drawn subset 6 Sampling Bias a Some households don t have phones i May under represent poor people minorities less educated b Procedures to generate random phone numbers are limited for mobile phones i May under represent young people c Polling organizations differ in the number of contacts they make 7 Margin of Error a Expresses the upper and lower bounds of the results i Example Obama s approval rating 48 with Margin of Error of 3 1 Means actual approval is between 51 and 45 b Margin of Error is inversely related to the sample size with diminishing marginal returns c Only need sample of about 1000 people to make inferences of 200 million people d 95 confidence level i 95 of the time the sample will reflect the population within the margin of error 8 Potential threats to a survey s validity Biased Samples a Straw polls man on the street polls i Radio internet or television surveys ii Listeners are asked to call text email or vote online in response to a question iii Viewer s Voice polls iv Why biased 1 Only reflects those who were tuned in 2 Only reflects those who feel the most interested and intense about the issue b Unrepresentative of the general population c Literary Digest poll conducted in 1936 i Asked who respondents would vote for FDR or Alf Landon ii Massive sample 1 10 million ballots 2 2 million responded iii Sample compiled through white pages of the phone book and car registrations iv What s wrong with this procedure 1 Only the richest had phones and cars Great Depression 2 Rich are more likely to be republican v Results suggested that Landon would win in a landslide 9 Potential threats to a surveys validity Question wording Framing a Respondents can be led to express opinions based on the wording of a question i From Lou Dobbs Tonight 1 Are you outraged that you are expected to tighten your belt and make tough choices while Washington goes on a spending binge of historic Proportions b Frames the issue loaded question but may not reflect the public s genuine sentiment because sentiment depends on framing c Question could be framed to emphasize other considerations i Deepest economic crisis since Great Depression 10 unemployment millions of foreclosures confronting wars on 2 fronts etc d Questions can be framed in a way to make the response manipulable 10 Potential threats to a surveys validity Non attitudes a Polls are susceptible to framing effects when respondents have non attitudes b People state that they have an opinion when they don t have any preferences i Some questions frame the issue to make value implications clear ii Other questions are more obscure iii Respondents take cues from the context of the discussion then express a preference c Many respondents make up their mind during the interview based on the issues made salient to them by the question or context d May not reflect pre existing true attitudes e Take cues from the question wording or context and give the appropriate response i Cable news networks will discuss an issue then ask viewers to text a reply ii Responses often mimic the earlier discussion f Response instability ask the same person the same question twice and you will get two different answers 11 Illustration of Non Attitudes a Jimmy Kimmel Live Experiments i People express attitudes on topics that they know nothing about 12 Do polls reflect what the public thinks 1 And that don t even exist a Should politicians base their decisions on polling results b Beyond questions regarding the reliability and validity of polls there s the question of political knowledge i As a democracy shouldn t citizens have a responsibility to know and learn about political facts ii What do Americans know 13 Americans and political knowledge a Should politicians listen to the people even if the people are uninformed about basic facts If Americans don t know the basics how can they arrive at a reasoned decision in elections b i Can the electorate be trusted to make good judgments 14 2 contradictory interpretations a Voters lack knowledge which allows incumbents manipulate the system to insulate b Voters may lack knowledge but electoral accountability can still obtain due to strategic themselves from electoral accountability decision making i Potential challengers ii Strategic donors iii Strategic incumbents 15 Interpretation 1 incumbents manipulate a b Norm of universalism Incumbents create institutions to solidify their advantage i Pork ii Perquisites iii Committees
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