Day 1 Public Opinion American Political Culture 1 Lots of differences but we do agree on lots of things a Democratic principles b Equality of opportunity 2 Difference between us and Europe makes us feel more united a We never went through feudalism 3 Louis Hartz i No landed aristocrats and no serfs ii We didn t need a violent revolution to over throw those landed aristocrats b We don t have a true history of socialism i The feudalism may cause the socialism ii It s only a blip on our political parties so we barely even know about it 1 We never needed to level out the classes a The Liberal Tradition in America book b Commonalities and differences between us and other countries that make us feel unique c Our political culture the language of John Locke is the liberal tradition i See this in opinion polls ii What we think about basic rights 1 Here people for the most part agree iii Differs when you ask what the most important thing you should do is d Elections as horse races History of public participation 1 Why is public opinion so important a We re a democracy and a republic so we can expect our representatives to want to know what we think It s not just they should care what we think b i People believe the representatives should just poll the people and do exactly what we want ii This is a more recent opinion a modern idea 2 Founding fathers a Had a secrecy rule to keep convention secret i They didn t care what the masses thought ii They didn t want the people to participate iii Thought we would become a political mob b All we could do was vote for House of Representatives c Madison created our framework to keep the government away from the people i Wanted to take everything out of the hands of the masses 3 Important to know where public opinion comes from a It matters now Origins of public opinion 1 Why do we have the preferences that we have 2 It arises form multiple things a Individual level i Family and friends b Community and larger contexts 3 Most theories start with self interest a Evidence of income affects it b You support people of your same social status 4 Your values and beliefs affect your opinion and what you think is important a Questions on how you think the world should be 5 Community socialization Informal a b You normally don t realize it s happening 6 Most socialization comes from your parents opinions a Parties b Other beliefs 7 Biology a You participation in politics may have a biological origin i Do your genes affect the party you support or is it more basic ii Are you more likely to be politically active because of your b There are some genes that indicate if you are going to be more active genes in groups i Not based on which party ii iii Between political scientists and biologists If you will join a party Polling 1 How do you figure out public opinion a Lincoln said public opinion is everything b If it is then it had better be right 2 Beginning of polling didn t go well a Early 20th century b Just getting into scientific polls i Local and presidential elections c 1936 election i FDR won it in a landslide ii Literary digest picked Alfred Landon iii Got lots of these wrong iv The science was wrong 3 Older ways to get public opinion other than polling a Just by voting i The problem is not everyone votes b Look at crowd response i Different points of the speech that they did or didn t want 1 Fine tuned their policy based on crowd response ii Not everyone went to these iii Now politicians give speeches to people that already like them c Protest and demonstrations i Tell you what at least one group of people think ii Some idea of public opinion that they thought protesting was worth their time 1 Not a representative sample d None of these are very scientific and they all have some kind of bias to them 4 Polling i None get a representative sample a We have a bias for polls and surveys because we trust them b How do you poll i You need a sample 1 Very few times you can interview everyone interested 2 This is not possible so you need to choose a group of the population 3 Your results should be as accurate as if you had talked to everyone in the population if you do the sampling correctly 4 Random sample a Every person in the population has the same chance of being chosen to be included in the sample b Probability of being chosen doesn t necessarily have to be good but the same of everybody c Could be biased by choosing everyone in the same situation i Has to be random ii Predicting opinion 1 Need to go one step farther on sample 2 Stratified sample a Then random within the groups b Lots of different populations in the US i Each group will think a certain way when it comes to politics c In our sample we want people from each group or region i Within that we would randomly pick them iii How did literary digest get the 1936 election wrong 1 Sampled only their subscribers a These people were better educated and had b They didn t want FDR because he was for the more money poorer people c Not all surveys are unbiased iv Have to figure out how much error is in your sample 1 There will always be a bit of an error but you want it to be as small as possible 2 More accurate is more expensive and takes longer a 3 4 is really good v Judge the reliability 1 Who sponsored it 2 Who did the polling 3 Who was interviewed and how many 4 What questions were asked 5 When were the interview conducted 6 What is the margin of error vi Look at the number 29 1 With an error of 4 2 Real number is somewhere between 25 and 33 3 If the margin of error overlaps there is no difference a To have a statistical difference there can be no vii Exit polls overlap 1 Asked voters coming out of voting a Who did you vote for 2 You are ONLY getting people who voted 3 4 Different than polling Issues if you re getting the representative sample a Maybe these people will vote 1 May be leading questions 2 May be short answer 3 May be just a statement asking if you agree 4 Most election based questions are pretty straight viii Types of questions c Concerns i May not be measuring public opinion but creating it 1 People may not have an opinion on what you re asking forward about a They have to come up with an answer 2 Questions may help you formulate an opinion 3 Bandwagon effect …
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