AMERICAN

POLITICAL CULTURE,
PUBLIC OPINION
AND IDEOLOGY
PO200

UNIT 2

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS IN THE

INFORMATION AGE: CHAPTER 6-7
CROSS-NATIONAL DIFFERENCES

• In looking at political differences between nations, three areas stand out

• Constitutional
• Fairly obvious; US has a singular written constitution, UK does not
• US has 3 branches of gov’t, UK choose PM from within ranks of parliament
• Demographic
• Who lives where; i.e. millions of Spanish speakers in US
• US 80% Christian, but divided among numerous denominations
• Cultural
• The attitudes, values, and beliefs that people in a society have about the political system,
including standard assumptions about the way that government works
• Commonality: US, Britain, France all believe in democracy
• Differences: Americans believe more in political but less in economic equality; American
children become committed to idea of equality under the law at an early age
WHAT MAKES AMERICA
UNIQUE?
• America has enjoyed relatively stable democracy for
centuries, while other nations (i.e., Argentina, Brazil,
Mexico) have seen democracy at times but authoritarian
regimes at other points
• Some argue it is due to the abundance of land in America
• De Tocqueville – political culture
ELEMENTS OF AMERICAN VIEW

• Liberty
• Equality (egalitarianism)
• Democracy
• Civic Duty
• People should take community affairs seriously; help out where they can

• Individual Responsibility
• Individuals responsible for own actions and well-being

• “There is, in fact, no way to prove that values such as those listed
above are important to Americans.”
THREE QUESTIONS

• Do we really agree on these values?

• If these are such American values, why do we fall short of
them so often (i.e., slavery)?
• With so much in common, why so much conflict?
• Perhaps because we each have our own strong interpretation of how
best to operationalize these values
CONFLICT

• Sometimes, conflict results from the fact that American

values are opposed to one another
• For example, we value both freedom and equality, which
are sometimes in conflict
• Ex: taxation, hiring practices, healthcare, affirmative action

• While specific policy implementations change, the

underlying values are relatively stable
AMERICA VS. OTHER NATIONS

• American pride is more prevalent than pride in other

nations, 71% say proud to be an American vs. 21% proud to
be Germans
• Majority of French, Italian, and Germans think success in
life determined by outside forces
• Majority of Americans think belief in God necessary for
morality, most western European nations disagree
POLITICAL DIFFERENCES

• The American system is contentious; Sweden has a similar democratic system, but people,
though frequently voting, defer to experts
• America vs. Japan is an even greater disparity, in terms of individualism vs. harmony
• Fair and impersonal vs. personal and differentiated

• Civic duty – a belief that one has an obligation to participate in civic and political affairs
• Civic competence, a belief that one can affect government policies
• These senses of duty and competence higher among British and US citizens
• While America lags behind many nations in terms of voting (i.e. Netherlands, Austria,
Germany, UK), it is ahead in other civic activities, such as being active in community
organizations
• Americans express greater confidence in gov’t than all but four nations and higher confidence
in private institutions than any other nation (in a survey of America and 16 other democracies)
ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES

• Americans believe largely in equality of opportunity as

opposed to equality of results
• In a country like Sweden, citizens believe the opposite
• These beliefs are reflected in economic data; income
inequality is lesser in Sweden than in the US
ROLE OF RELIGION IN CIVIL LIFE

• Religious people donate more to charity and volunteer more

frequently than secular people
• This religious influence affects our politics; religious
leaders were at the center of battles over slavery and
temperance
• Candidates for office mention God frequently in America;
not the case in other nations
WHERE DOES POLITICAL
CULTURE COME FROM?
• American Revolution – fight for liberty
• Assertion and maintenance of rights
• Distrust of authority
• Stemming from British rule
• From religious principle

• While his contentiousness could have ruined a new nation, eventually the
election of Thomas Jefferson established a legitimate opposition party
• The lack of an official religion helped, as well
• Competition between Protestants and Catholics spilled over into the political
realm
• Protestant majority instilled work ethic and civic engagement
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

• The belief that you belong to an economic class whose

interests are opposed by those in other class groups
• Individualism, religious and ethnic diversity, fragmented
government and egalitarian family structure have produced
an American political culture decidedly absent of class
consciousness
• Only large industrial democracy without a significant
socialist party
CONFLICT

• If we share so much, why the conflict?

• James Davison Hunter – 2 classes in America
• Progressives vs. orthodoxy
• Progressives belief personal freedoms more important than moral
rules, traditional morals must be re-evaluated in modern light
• Orthodoxy believe in morality as being as or more important than
these individual freedoms
• Abortion, gay rights, the war on drugs, prayer in school, all
contentious areas between these two loosely defined groups
BUT DOES IT MATTER?

• Mo Fiorina asserts that public are closely, not deeply, divided,

and that the majority of citizens still fall in the moderate
middle
• Alan Abramowitz and others assert that the general public is
polarizing, as well, choosing to participate more frequently and
sorting based on the parties’ positions on these cultural issues
• What do you think? Are we becoming more polarized as a
political culture?
MISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT
MISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT

• Regardless of culture war, citizens as a whole becoming

more distrusting of gov’t
• Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, Clinton, War in Iraq

• Americans still trust the institutions, just not the people in

office
• 12% of Americans have a lot of confidence in Congress
• Confidence in other institutions (newspapers, churches,
business, unions) has declined since the 1970s as well
CIVIL SOCIETY

• Americans’ distrust of government and institutions makes civil

society, that is, voluntary organizations, important
• While Putnam says we’re now “bowling alone,” keep in mind:
• Americans still join more voluntary groups than citizens in most other
democracies
• Measures of Civic Health show high levels of engagement by group
leaders
• Interestingly, in ethnically and racially diverse communities, we see a
lower level of this group involvement
POLITICAL TOLERANCE

• A functioning democracy must allow for the discussion of ideas and

some level of tolerance
• Americans support freedom of speech, majority rule, and right to
circulate petitions – in the abstract
• Most citizens, however, believe our society is becoming too tolerant of behaviors
which damage our society

• We as a society cannot agree on whose rights to abridge, and the courts

are insulated enough to protect constitutional rights
• In sum, American politics, with its focus on rights, takes on an
adversarial style
PUBLIC OPINION

• How people think or feel about particular things

• On a sheet of paper, attempt to answer the following
questions:
• How many members of the US House of Representatives are there?
• How many years does a senator serve?
• Who is the sitting VP?
• Name an author of the federalist papers.
ANSWERS

• 435
• Six
• Mike Pence
• Madison, Hamilton, Jay
APRIL 2011, NEWSWEEK US
CITIZENSHIP TEST
• 14% knew House had 435 voting members
• 39% knew Senators serve 6 year terms
• ¼ didn’t know Joe Biden was sitting VP
• 12% could identify one writer of Federalist Papers
(Madison, Hamilton, Jay)
NOW AND THEN

• Founding Fathers believed average citizen lacked time,

energy, information, and interest to decide on public policy
• Madison – “the representatives of the people”
• Senators – were not popularly elected until 17 th amendment in 1913
• “as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and
delusions”
• Would any elected official say this today?
OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE,
FOR THE PEOPLE?
• Most people want a balanced budget
• Most people supported Equal Rights Amendment (was not ratified,1970s)
• Term limits have public support
• Reasons against direct democracy
• Goal of Framers was not to give people what they wanted on a day to day basis, but to achieve certain
substantive goals
• “To form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty”
• Popular election to the House of Representatives was just one way to advance these goals
• Representative government, separation of powers, Bill of Rights, and an independent judiciary
• Many publics would keep any one faction from dominating

• Sometimes, hard to tell exactly what public wants

WHAT IS PUBLIC OPINION?

• First major study – 1940s

• Bleak picture, majority knew next to nothing and had only a fleeting
grasp of even major public policy issues
• However, later studies have demonstrated that heuristics can be
important substitute
• Skip Lupia – California Ballot study
• Citizens respond fairly thoughtfully when given basic information
TERMS

• Poll – a survey of public opinion

• Random sample – method of sampling from a population in
which each person has an equal probability of being
selected
• Sampling error – error in a statistical sample arising from
the unrepresentativeness of the sample taken
• Exit polls – polls based on interviews conducted on election
day with randomly selected voters
POLLS ARE
SNAPSHOTS,
BUT THEY’RE
NOT
PERFECT…
HOW OPINIONS DIFFER

• Some issues matter more to some than others (issue

salience), some opinions on issues change frequently while
others stay relatively stable (opinion stability), some
popular opinions are consistent with government views,
others are not (opinion-policy congruence)
POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION

• The process by which personal and other background traits

influences one’s views about politics and government
• Children tend to share parents’ party affiliations
• We see interesting political cleavages along lines of class,
race, religion, and gender
SOCIALIZATION VS. GENETICS

• Identical twins more likely to have similar political views than fraternal
twins
• Some studies suggest 1/3 genetic, 1/10 familial
• Rest comes from individual life experiences

• Party ID largely comes from parents, unaffected by genetics

• Recently, rise in independents has weakened this parental link
• Yet, over time, policy matters more and parents matter less in party ID

• Political socialization from one generation to the next reflects some mix of
heredity and family teaching
• Who are some other agents of political socialization?
AGE AND PUBLIC OPINION

• In 2010, those 30 and under supported gay marriage at a

24% higher rate than those 65 and older
• Younger people support different issue positions on both
sides of the spectrum
• Gay marriage and women’s rights, but also school vouchers and
optional privatization of Social Security
• Majority of 18-to-24 year olds believe politicians have different
priorities to their own, but only 1 in 5 believe politics not relevant to
their lives
RELIGION AND PUBLIC OPINION

• Matters on issues such as gay marriage and abortion, less on

non-social issues
• When war is going badly or economy falters, Americans of all stripes
push these issues to forefront
• Public opinion varies both across and within religious traditions
GENDER AND PUBLIC OPINION

• Women tilt Democratic, Men tilt Republican

• Men gradually deserted Democratic Party
• Differences on key issues:
• Women more approving of universal health care and same sex
marriage, believe abortion is a more important issue, somewhat
less likely to approve of recent military interventions
EXIT POLL, 2016
CROSS-CUTTING CLEAVAGES

• Religion, gender, age, and more…so many cleavages

intersect one another
• American public opinion is less determined by class than
some other nations
• 1950s – V.O. Key – views closely associated with
occupation
• This had changed by the 1960s, business people and manual labor had
similar views on poverty, health insurance, Vietnam, government jobs
programs
CLASS

• Across US, France, Great Britain, and Germany, differences

in voting rates based on class have declined since the 1940s
• Class still matters – unskilled workers more likely to be
Democrats than affluent white-collar workers, and these
cleavages show more in times of economic crisis
• Still, social issues often lead to party support, as do foreign policy
issues
RACE AND ETHNICITY

• African-Americans are largely Democratic

• Blacks more likely than whites to support affirmative action,
believe courts are biased, oppose military force, doubt we
should all be willing to fight for our country, and believe God is
necessary for morality
• Yet blacks and whites are unified on tougher stances on crime,
opposition to making abortion legal in all cases, believe people
too dependent on gov’t aid, and that everyone can succeed in
America
RACE AND ETHNICITY
CONTINUED
• Latino citizens and Asian-Americans tend to support the Democratic
Party (less so than blacks)
• By a small margin, white voters tend to support the Republican Party
• But these are just overarching trends!
• Japanese-Americans more conservative, Korean-Americans more liberal
• Mexican-Americans Democratic, Cuban-Americans Republican, Puerto
Ricans in Between
• Localities – Texans more conservative than Californians

• Latinos and non-Latino whites find almost identical common ground

on some issues, such as partial privatization of Social Security
REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

• South vastly different from other regions

• More friendly to business and hostile to unions
• Gave support to Wallace in 1968 (opposing big government)
• Opposing income redistribution (Family Assistance Plan of 1969)
• South is solidly Republican (last Democrat to win majority of white
Southern vote – LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) in 1964)
• Obama – half the white vote nationally but 30% in South

• Northern states have become somewhat more Democratic,

but these states declining in population
LIBERAL

• What comes to mind?

CONSERVATIVE

• What comes to mind?

LIBERAL VS. CONSERVATIVE

• As we have just seen, these words have different meanings to

different people, yet are indispensable in political discussions
• Political ideology – a more or less consistent set of beliefs about
what policies government ought to pursue
• Political Scientists – two definitions
• How often people use words like “liberal” and “conservative” to describe or
justify their policy positions
• How consistent are these views?
• Over time; predicting one issue from another issue
• When this consistency is high, we call it “constraint”
IDEOLOGICAL SELF-
IDENTIFICATION
• Liberal - ~20-25%
• Conservative - ~35-40%
• Moderate - ~35-40%
• Do we trust these self-IDs?
• Americans don’t generally use these terms
• Most citizens, on issue positions, do not display consistency
• Social pressure on survey responses
• Particularly on controversial issues
• Race, immigration, shared American values
• Hard to tell sometimes where the boundary between political culture and ideology lies
A NEW APPROACH

• Instead of asking people to self-identify, ask them a bunch of

survey questions, then sort them into groups
• Pew creates one such survey: http://www.people-
press.org/typology/quiz/
• When we look at it this way, liberals are actually the largest
individual bloc, making up nearly 1 in 3 registered voters and
over 25% of the public
• However, a coalition of conservatives still outweighs liberals in the
electorate
POLITICAL ELITES

• While the strict “liberal” and “conservative” labels do not generally apply to
the way most citizens think about politics, they are applicable to the political
elite
• Political elite – persons with a disproportionate share of political power
(elites also generally possess greater knowledge in a field, in this case,
politics)
• Elites are the people who hold office, run for office, work for campaigns, lead
interest groups or movements, work for newspapers, or speak out on issues
• Politicians, pollsters, policy specialists, activists, and journalists

• The more a person participates in these “activist” activities, the more likely
they are to demonstrate an ideological consistency that falls on the “liberal-
conservative” spectrum
REASONS FOR ELITE
CONSISTENCY
• Information and Media
• They see links on the liberal-conservative spectrum where others may not,
they take cues from media sources as to where interests align
• There are, of course, still differences, within a general consensus

• Peers
• The more active you are in politics, the more you associate with and are
influenced by like-minded individuals

• This consistency is particularly extreme within the halls of

Congress, and we see it as well for delegates at presidential
nominating conventions
ELITES AND PUBLIC OPINION

• Elites raise and frame political issues, particularly through

access to the media
• Limits to elite influence
• Cannot define external shocks, such as economic problems
• Elites have little control over problems the public can subjectively
experience

• Variety of elite opinions, just as variety of public opinions

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Select graphics copyright American Government:

Institutions and Policies by Wilson, DiIulio, and Bose