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AP Government Chapter 6

AP Government Chapter 6. Public Opinion and Political Action. Definitions. Public Opinion : Aims to understand the distribution of the population’s belief about politics and policy issues Demography : Science of human populations Census : Enumeration of the population every 10 years

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AP Government Chapter 6

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  1. AP Government Chapter 6 Public Opinion and Political Action

  2. Definitions • Public Opinion: Aims to understand the distribution of the population’s belief about politics and policy issues • Demography: Science of human populations • Census: Enumeration of the population every 10 years • 295 million Americans (2000 census) • 311,110,140 million today (April 5, 2011)

  3. Three major waves of Immigration • 800,000 new immigrants legally admitted every year Melting Pot/Tossed Salad Minority-Majority • Prior to the late 19th century: Northwestern Europeans (English, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians) • Late 19th and early 20th century: Southern and Eastern Europeans (Italians, Jews, Poles, Russians, etc.) • Recent decades: Hispanics (Cuba, Central and South America) and Asians (Korean, Vietnam, Philippines, etc.)

  4. Minority Majority

  5. Definitions Continued • Political Culture: An overall set of values widely shared within a society • Reapportionment: States gain or lose congressional representation as their population changes and thus power shifts as well • Every decade (census) 435 seats in the House of Representatives is reallocated to the states on the basis of population changes • Politics is a lifelong activity

  6. Political Socialization 1. Family 2. Mass Media 3. School….what else?

  7. Measuring Public Opinion • Gallup Polling: Sample population of 1,000-1,500 people can accurately represent the “universe” of potential voters • Random Sampling: Everyone should have an equal probability of being selected as part of a sample • Sampling error +-3% • Random Digit dialing

  8. Decline in Trust in Government

  9. Political Ideologies

  10. Liberals V. Conservatives • Gender Gap: Regular pattern by which women are more likely to support democratic candidates • Religiosity: The degree to which religion is important in one’s life (most conservative demographic group) • Fundamentalists or “born again” are the new Christian Right of Catholics and Protestants

  11. Participation in Politics • Conventional: Voting, trying to persuade others, ringing doorbells for a petition, running for office • Unconventional: Protesting, civil disobedience, violence,

  12. Political Participation by Family Income

  13. Unconventional Participation • Protesting: Form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics • Civil Disobedience: Form of protest; Consciously break a law that is thought to be unjust

  14. Low Participating Groups • Many politicians don’t concern themselves with views of groups with low participation rates (young, low income) • So who gets what in politics, therefore, depends in part, who participates

  15. What are Americans?? • Political scientists say Americans are “ideological conservatives but operational liberals—meaning that they oppose the idea of big government in principle but favor it in practice”

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