Peffley, Political Science 473, Public Opinion
Lecture Outline: THE SOURCES AND CONTENT OF PUBLIC OPINION
I.
Introduction
A. Public opinion matters for public policy, though it
matters more for some policies than others
B.
What are the
sources of public opinion—e.g., public support for policies?
1.
Internal sources
of opinion: political predispositions
2.
External sources
of opinion: socialization, media, politicians, events
II.
Internal Sources of
Public Opinion
A. Ideologies and ideological identification, that tie
together opinions in different policy domains, do not have wide currency for
average citizens in
B.
Partisanship is
more important, but this begs the question: What are the internal sources of policy
attitudes?
C.
Domain-specific (internal)
sources of public opinion:
1.
Self-interest
2.
Group attitudes
and beliefs: attitudes toward the social groups perceived as the beneficiaries (or
victims) of the policy
3.
Values and core
beliefs (e.g., the American Dream)
a)
At the individual
level: emotional, "easy"
heuristics, value priorities predict issue positions.
b)
At the societal
level: consensus identifies political
culture
c)
Value structures
or hierarchies, value conflict or ambivalence
4.
Other heuristics
III. Racial Policy Attitudes (e.g., attitudes toward
affirmative action, busing, as well as race-neutral policies such as crime and
welfare)
A. Characteristics
1.
For
individuals: emotional, crystallized,
powerful
2.
For American
society: polarizing, conflictual
B.
Trends in whites’
attitudes: (Schuman,
Bobo and Steeh, Racial Attitudes in America, 1988, 1998)
1.
Increase in
support for integration and racial inequality at the abstract level vs. smaller
or declining support for racial equality at the specific level in questions of
implementation: jobs, public
accommodations, jobs, housing, busing, inter-racial marriage, etc.
2. Explanations of whites’ opposition to racial policies
a)
Prejudice (e.g., symbolic
racism, group stereotypes or affect)
b)
Conservative
values: limited government, individualism
c)
Self or Group
interests: Group conflict over scarce resources and perceptions of threat
C.
Racial attitudes,
like prejudice, present a special difficulty of measurement
1.
Kuklinski, et al’s “List Experiment” as an unobtrusive measure of
prejudice to evaluate whether racial attitudes have converged in the North and
the “New South”
IV. Racial Attitudes and Race-Neutral Policies. Martin
Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare
A. Easy to establish that Americans hate welfare. WHY?
Several possible explanations.
1. Self-interest and demographic characteristics (e.g.,
income).
2. Individualistic values
3. Racial stereotypes
4. Stereotypes about poor people
B.
Multivariate
analysis: to what extent is opposition to welfare driven independently by each
the above?
C.
Survey
experiment: Welfare Mother Survey Experiment:
D. Implications for race-neutral programs as a way of
insulating programs from racial attitudes, for racial coding, and for support
for other poverty programs.
E.
How do media
portrayals of poverty tend to “racialize” poverty and welfare? Why does this happen? And
what are the likely impacts of such coverage?