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Public Opinion and Political Socialization

Public Opinion and Political Socialization. The Definition. Bentham Utilitarianism Public opinion should lead to a government that rules in a way that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number Difficulty in defining public opinion Does “public” really have an opinion?

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Public Opinion and Political Socialization

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  1. Public Opinion and Political Socialization

  2. The Definition • Bentham • Utilitarianism • Public opinion should lead to a government that rules in a way that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number • Difficulty in defining public opinion • Does “public” really have an opinion? • Are we actively interested? • Politically relevant opinions held by ordinary citizens that they express openly

  3. Struggles with Public Opinion • People have conflicting opinions • Sometimes our opinions conflict with reality • So do we have to be informed to have a reasonable opinion?

  4. How Do We Measure It? • Polls are the most basic • Use a sample to measure attitudes of a population • Laws of probability • Marbles • Must have random selection based on probability samples • Size of sample matters…not size of population • Sampling error • 1,000 individuals in sample has sampling error of +/- 3 percent • Problems with polls • Hard to have a population • We don’t all have phones, for example • Nonopinions • Social desirability bias • Interviewer effects

  5. Political Socialization • Process by which we acquire political opinions, beliefs, and values • Occurs throughout life but most impacted by childhood learning • Effect is cumulative • Agents: • Family • Schools • Media • Peers • Leaders and Institutions • Churches

  6. How We Think Politically • Cultural • Ideological • Conservative, liberal, libertarian, populist • Divided between economic and social policies • Group • Religion, class, region, race/ethnicity, gender, age • But there are crosscutting cleavages at times • Party identification

  7. But Does it Influence Policy? • Some say that politicians are insensitive...others find the opposite effect • Certain issues have their own effects • i.e. Social Security • Some issues are too divisive to be satisfied • The question of whether government cares enough about public opinion is normative

  8. For Tuesday • Patterson Chapter 7 • Connell: What are the basics Connell says a website needs? His article was from 1998…what is he missing that we know about in 2010? • Maor: What does the Maor article teach us about handling campaign speeches? What do you find interesting? Surprising?

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