Exam 3 Notes Fulton POLS 206 LECTURE 16 In the News o Debate last Weds Winners Carson Rubio Cruz Trump Losers Bush Cruz others have criticized the debate Was it biased o Boehner leaves office with no regrets Cast his last vote on 2 year budget debt ceiling agreement Passed House and Senate with near unanimous Dem support and a minority of Reps Ryan voted in favor Paul Cruz and Rubio opposed o Ryan elected speaker 9 conservatives voted to elect Webster HFC cand Acceptance speech House is broken wiping the slate clean Why is Public opinion important o Cornerstone of Democratic theory Leaders are supposed to hear the voice of the people Delegate model Democracy fails if o Masses are ignorant or inactive o Leaders ignore public opinion Inconsistent with founding fathers vision o Questions Should public opinion drive policies Where does Public opinion come from Where do political beliefs come from o Political Socialization Knowledge of formal institutions and processes of gov t Develop political attitudes towards actors parties and issues Agents of Socialization o Family o Education o Peer groups o Media o Socio economic Status o Race o Gender What do americans think o At the basic level relatively homogeneous o Broad support for core values Individual freedoms Bill of rights Capitalism Political Equality Equality of access Less supportive of substantive equality equality of outcomes Rule of law Constitution and democratic institutions are legitimate o But differ on how these values should be balanced How do measure public opinion o Public opinion polling Variety of issues o Mostly conducted over phone Introduces sampling bias o Pull random sample of the target population Every person in the target population has an equal chance of being selected Sampling Bias Fundamental requirement for representativeness o Some households don t have phones o Procedures to generate random phone numbers are limited to mobile phones o Polling organizations differ in the number of contacts they make Margin of Error o Expresses upper and lower bounds of the results Example Obamas approval rating 48 w MOE of 3 o MOE inversely related to sample size with diminishing marginal returns o Only need sample 1000 to make inferences about 200 million o 95 confidence level o 95 of the time the sample will reflect the population w in MOE Potential threats to surveys Validity Biased samples o Straw polls man on the street polls Radio internet or tv surveys Listeners asked to call text email or vote online in resonse to question Viewers voice Polls o Unrepresentative of the general population o Literary Digest poll conducted in 1936 FDR or Landon Massive sample 10 million ballots 2 million responded Whats wrong with this Sample compiled through white pages of the phone book and car registration Only richest had phones and cars Great Depression Rich most likely Republican Results Landon wins landslide Potential threat Question wording Framing o Respondents can be led to express opinions based on the wording of a question o Frames the issue loaded question but may not reflect the publics genuine sentiment b c sentiment depends on framing o Questions can be framed in a way to make this response easy to manipulate Threats Non attitudes o Polls are susceptible to framing effects when respondents have non attitudes o People state that they have an opinion when they don t have any preferences o May not reflect pre existing true attitudes o Taking cues from the question wording or context and give the appropriate response o Response instability Ask the same person the same question twice and youll get different answers Do polls reflect what the public thinks o Should politicians base decisions on polls o Beyond questions regarding the reliability and validity of polls theres the question of political knowledge Citizens should have responsibility to know political facts Americans and political knowledge o Should politicians listen to the people even if the people are uninformed about basic o If Americans don t know the basics how can they arrive at a reasoned decions in Can electorate be trusted to make good judgment 2 contradictory interpretations o Voters lack knowledge which allows incumbents to manipulate the system and insulate o Voters may lack knowledge but electoral accountability can still obtain due to strategic themselves from electoral accountability decision making Potential challengers Strategic donors Strategic incumbents Interpretation 1 Incumbents manipulate o Incumbents create institutions to solidify their advantage o Norm of universalism facts elections Pork Perquisites Committees o Concern is that incumbents that have manipulated the system and insulated themselves from electoral retribution o Evidenced by high incumbent reelection rate 95 House 65 Senate Interpretation 2 Strategic decision making of who the winner is going to be 11 5 15 LECTURE 17 o Political elites incumbents challengers donors act strategically based on expectations o By acting on their expectations they produce outcomes that are self fulfilling Latest on Nomination Contest Nomination process GE Reps and democrats hold conventions in July to officially nominate their party s candidate for the o Delegates selected in each state s primary or caucus attend the convention to elect the But the nominee is generally known well before the conventions actually begin Why o BC we know how many delegates each candidate has won from the states primaries or nominee caucuses o Need a majority of the delegates to win the nomination o State by state process What happens in one state influence next state Because of bandwagon or death spiral effect Candidates who fail to win a substantial amount of delegates in the early states will drop out states hold primaries as opposed to caucuses similar to primaries but allocate delegates through nomination process in consultation with one another Early contests o IA NH NV SC all in Feb o Super tues 11 states hold their contests March Probably when the nominee will be decided Every state wants to hold their primary earlier to have more influence in selecting the nominee o Violates national party rules o Parties impose a penalty on the number of delegates the state can send to the national convention Interpretation 2 Accountability Occurs through Strategic Decision Making Just because Americans lack basic knowledge doesn t mean that electoral accountability doesn t occur Political elites incumbents challengers and
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