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Ginsberg1978 Elections
Ginsberg1978 Elections
Ginsberg1978 Elections
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Elections and the Mobilization
of Popular Support*
While elections are normally seen as means by which citizens influence leaders,
elections can also be viewed as mechanisms which serve to increase elite con-
trol over citizens. The opportunity for citizens to participate in leadership selec-
tion may also be an opportunity for leaders to coopt citizens by implicating
them in the government's creation. This possibility is tested with data from the
1968 and 1972 American presidential elections by comparing citizens' pre- and
post-election attitudes toward the regime, leaders, and policy. The elections'
largest impact appeared to occur in attitudes toward the regime. Changes in
citizen response are discussed in terms of three mechanisms of attitude change,
each of which has different implications for leaders and the regime.
The idea that elections are intended to facilitate citizen control over
leaders and public policy is among the most deeply entrenched Amer-
ican political beliefs. From childhood, Americans appear to develop
a commitment to the electoral process and come to view voting as
the principal vehicle for popular influence in government (Hess and
Torney, 1962). The image of citizen control via the ballot box is
shared by virtually all strata of American society. Even scholars aware
of the actual weakness of the links between voting and policy im-
plicitly assume that a relationship ought to exist (Berelson, Lazars-
feld, and McPhee, 1954).
Despite its pervasiveness, the democratic ideal of elections as
instruments of popular control is not the only way in which elections
may be viewed. There exists an alternative perspective which places
greater emphasis on the role of elections as mechanisms for the gen-
eration of popular support for the government and its policies. In
this view the opportunity for citizens to actively participate in the
* This paper was jointly authored; the names of the authors appear in
alphabetical order. The authors wish to thank Charles M. Honart for his re-
search assistance, and the Jonathan R. Meigs Fund, Cornell University for
funding. Data were made available through the Inter-University Consortium for
Political and Social Research.
American Journal of Political Science, VoL 22, No. 1, February 1978 / ?) 1978 by the University
of Texas Press.
0026-3397/78/2201-0031 $02.00
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32 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 33
The Data
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34 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
candidates, that could very well affect the results of our analyses.
Eventually, perhaps, we shall possess a sufficient number of election
surveys to control for such factors, but for the present we can only
acknowledge the fact that our conclusions may be influenced by the
peculiar nature of the elections under investigation.
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 35
emnment does, before and after the 1968 presidential election.4 The
amount of positive postelection change in response to this question
is quite striking. Among those respondents who indicated prior to the
election that people like themselves had no influence on the govern-
ment, almost half (49.4 percent) had come to believe that they did
have quite a lot of "say" following the election. A much smaller pro-
portion of those who thought initially that they did have considerable
influence on the government, shifted in a negative direction after the
election. It is quite apparent that positive changes are concentrated
primarily among those who actually voted in the election. Among
nonvoters by contrast, positive changes barely outstrip negative shifts.
A similar pattern of postelection changes occurs in response
to the question of whether or not public officials care what people like
the respondent think. Here the difference between voters and non-
voters is even more marked. Among voters, a sizable proportion of
those who thought prior to the election that officials did not care,
offered a more positive appraisal after the election. Among those
who did not vote, however, the proportion shifting in a negative di-
rection greatly surpasses the percentage of respondents who came to
believe after the election that public officials did care.
Electoral participation seems to be strongly associated with
4 In 1968 the pre- and post-election forms of this question differed. Prior
to the election respondents were asked, "Would you say that people like you
have quite a lot of say about what the government does, or that you don't have
much say at all?" After the election respondents were asked whether they agreed
or disagreed with the statement, "People like me don't have any say about what
the government does." Similar pre- and post-differences in wording affect the
"do public officials care?" item. Prior to the election respondents were asked,
"Would you say that most public officials care quite a lot what people like you
think or that they don't care much at all?" After the election respondents were
asked to agree or disagree with the statement, "I don't think public officials
care much what people like me think." Because of these changes in wording, it
is possible that pre- and post-election differences in responses to the questions are
merely artifacts of changes in the questions themselves rather than actual
changes in respondents' attitudes. This possibility, however, seems somewhat
remote. First, the 1968 results are quite similar to the results obtained in 1972
when the wording of the questions was not altered between waves of the survey.
Second, the very striking differences between the patterns of postelection
change exhibited by voters and nonvoters, both responding to the same ques-
tions, cannot be explained in terms of changes in wording. It should also be
mentioned that too few respondents answered "no opinion" or "don't know" to
these questions to be taken into account in our analysis.
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36 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
TABLE 1
% of respondents with
negative preelection
perceptions who became
positive following the 55% 34.6% 49.4%
election (N =700)** (N =263) (N =963)
% of respondents with
positive preelection
perceptions who became
negative following the 15.5% 21.2% 16.6%
election (N =278) (N =52) (N =330)
* The question asked prior to the election: "Would you say that people
like you have quite a lot of say about what the government does, or that you
don't have much say at all?" The postelection form of the question asks re-
spondents to agree or disagree with the assertion that, "People like me don't
have any say about what the government does." -
** The number in parentheses is the base on which the proportion of
changes is calculated. For example, 700 voters had negative perceptions prior
to the election. Fifty-five percent of them became positive after the election;
the other 45 percent remained negative.
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TABLE 2
Nonvoters
Voters Preferred Prefer
Humphrey Nixon Humphrey Nixon All Vo
% of respondents with
negative preelection
perceptions who became 45.4% 45.5% 24.6% 22.4% 41
positive following the (N = 130) (N = 132) (N = 57) (N = 49) (N = 3
election
% of respondents with
positive preelection
perceptions who became 24.5% 21.8% 62.3% 45.6% 25
negative following the (N = 261) (N = 316) (N = 53) (N = 57) (N =
election
* The question asked prior to the election: "Would you say that most public officials ca
like you think, or that they don't care at all?" The postelection form of the question asks r
with the assertion that, "I don't think public officials care much what people like me think.
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38 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
TABLE 3
% of respondents with
negative preelection
perceptions who became
positive following the 27.1 % 25%
election (N = 59) (N 20)
% of respondents with
positive preelection
perceptions who became
negative following the 50.0% 42.9%
election (N =38) (Nz 14)
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 39
TABLE 4
% of respondents with
negative preelection
perceptions who became
positive following the 48.3% 26.5% 39.6% 27.4%
election (N = 145) (N = 98) (N = 255) (N = 175)
% of respondents with
positive preelection
perceptions who became
negative following the 10.9% 17.1% 13.1% 28.7%
election (N = 329) (N = 152) (N = 504) (N = 129)
* Both pre- and post-election respondents were asked to agree or disagree with
the statement, "People like me don't have any say about what the government does."
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40 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
TABLE 5
% of respondents with
negative preelection
perceptions who became
positive following the 28.7% 23.6% 26.2% 16.8%
election (N = 171) (N = 123) (N = 309) (N = 190)
% of respondents with
positive preelection
perceptions who became
negative following the 21.7% 24% 22.2% 39.4%
election (N = 290) (N = 121) (N = 427) (N = 109)
* Both pre- and post-election respondents were asked to agree or disagree with
the statement, "I don't think public officials care much about what people like me
think."
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 4I
TABLE 6
NIXON VOTERS
% of respondents with
negative preelection
perceptions who became
positive following the 49% 27% 41% 41.1%
election (N = 159) (N = 193) (N = 179) (N = 136)
% of respondents with
positive preelection
perceptions who became
negative following the 20.6% 20.9% 19.1% 16.6%
election (N = 320) (N = 225) (N = 274) (N = 332)
McGOVERN VOTERS
% of negative respondents
who became positive after 21.3% 14.8% 32.1% 30.3%
the election (N = 145) (N = 156) (N= 112) (N = 102)
% of positive respondents
who became negative after 34.4% 42.7% 29.6% 26.8%
the election (N = 116) (N = 81) (N = 141) (N = 153)
* How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washing-
ton to do what is right-just about always, most of the time, or only some of the
time?
** Would you say the government is pretty much run by a few big interests
looking out for themselves or that it is run for the benefit of all the people?
*** Do you feel that almost all of the people running the government are smart
people who usually know what they are doing, or do you think that quite a few of
them don't seem to know what they are doing?
**** Do you think that quite a few of the people running the government are a
little crooked, not very many are, or do you think hardly any of them are crooked
at all?
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TABLE 7
Became more
positive 27.2 30.3 27.0 28.0 28.8 28
No change 32.3 31.0 27.3 30.9 45.1 26
Became more
negative 40.5 38.7 45.8 41.0 26.1 44
Net change-%
of respondents -13.3 - 8.4 -18.8 -12.9 2.7 -1
- 11.6 -3.7
Net change-
x shift in
ratings - 3.7** - 0.7 - 4-4** - 3.0** 0.8 -
- 2.5 -0.7
N = 951 513 531 971 518 5
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 43
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TABLE 8
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 45
tive images of Nixon, on the whole became less positive though still
not negative toward him.
A similar set of findings emerges from changes in McGovern
ratings. Among respondents who were initially highly positive toward
McGovern, there is a pronounced decline in support after the election.
This decline occurs even among those who voted for McGovern.
Among respondents with initially very negative opinions of McGov-
em, however, postelection ratings are an average of 13 points higher
than before the election. Even Nixon voters who were initially very
negative toward McGovern became more positive after the election.
In short, it is clear that the 1972 election did help to mobilize
popular support for leaders.7 This mobilization of support, however,
did not take the simple form of increases in positive attitudes among
most citizens. Overall, negative shifts outnumbered positive post-
election changes. What is significant, however, both in terms of the
newly elected president's capacity to govern and the continuing via-
bility of legitimate opposition, is that the segments of the electorate
initially most opposed to both candidates became markedly more
positive after the election. The bulk of negative change amounted to
positive evaluations becoming slightly less positive. In a sense, these
patterns of change result in an electorate which gives moderate sup-
port to both the newly elected president and his defeated opponent.
7 Some partial and limited data on the 1976 election show a similar pat-
tern. A Gallup poll done for Newsweek after the election, reports that 49 per-
cent of those voting for Ford have become more favorable towards Carter (19
percent became less favorable). "Great Expectations," Newsweek, January 24,
1977, p. 20. Similarly, a preelection/postelection telephone poll in the Cham-
paign-Urbana area with approximately 90 respondents found that 51.9 percent
of the Ford voters became more positive towards Carter while 20.9 percent
became more negative (this change was somewhat less noticeable among non-
voters). This study was supervised by Professor Susan Hansen of the University
of Illinois and is contained in Miller et al. (1977).
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46 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 47
TABLE 9
Policy Area
Vietnam Inflation
Net shift .14 -.23 .02 .18 .11 .08 .02 .09 .21 .18
towards
Nixon
Net shift .16 .57** .28** .38 .31** -.05 .32*** .11 .24 .22***
towards
Nixon
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48 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 49
mise then that at least in 1972 the election did not significantly and
systematically contribute to greater leader-citizen policy agreement.
Discussion
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50 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
(Obviously, elections per se are not responsible here, since the cueing
agent could just as well be a religious ceremony, trial by combat, or an
act of God.) So long as some acceptable portion of the population
participates in the selection process, support might increase among all
those who had been properly socialized regardless of individual polit-
ical activity. Elections would merely trigger previously acquired posi-
tive evaluations.
A third possible mechanism emphasizes the psychological con-
sequences of choosing among alternatives. Several studies by psychol-
ogists have shown that acts of choice like voting can lead to strong
psychological pressures for cognitive balance which result in atti-
tudinal changes consistent with the decision made (Cohen, 1964,
Ch. 5-6). Hence, the winning candidate might marshall increased
citizen support simply because those who voted for him would feel
compelled to rationalize their action. This might take the form of
exaggeration of the candidate's virtues, minimization of policy dif-
ferences between themselves and the candidate, and the like. On the
other hand, those endorsing defeated candidates would be free to con-
tinue their opposition. In contrast to the other two mechanisms, let us
refer to this third mechanism as the winning effect.
These three effects may not, of course, be mutually exclusive or
readily distinguishable empirically. It would not be surprising to find
the three effects occuring simultaneously during any given election.
At the operational level it is evident that distinguishing between the
winning effect and the participation effect may be difficult in one-
sided elections where most participants are also supporters of the
winner. Nevertheless, from the perspective of political stability and
the management of divisive conflict, the differences between these
modes of generating support are clear aiad important. For example, it
is evident that the participation and democratic coronation effects are
to be preferred by leaders since the winning effect can extend only to
those citizens who voted for the winner, rather than all citizens. More-
over, where extensive citizen mobilization may endanger regime sta-
bility the democratic coronation effect is more efficient than forced
activism (though creating the proper socialization for this effect also
has its costs). It is not implied that leaders necessarily have a choice
in this matter, but clearly the existence of one particular effect as op-
posed to another has major implications for leadership strategies,
levels of opposition, and political stability more generally.
Our data on attitude change in 1968 and 1972 suggest that the
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 5 I
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52 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
Conclusion
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 53
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54 Benjamin Ginsberg and Robert Weissberg
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ELECTIONS AND MOBILIZATION OF SUPPORT 55
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