Understanding Public Opinion and Political Participation
Public opinion and political participation are influenced by various factors such as financial interests, family, education, and party identification. Measuring public opinion accurately through scientific surveys is crucial in a democracy. Traditional participation methods like voting and civic voluntarism play a significant role in engaging with politics. Factors like income, education, and political mobilization influence people's involvement in political matters.
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Chapter 6 Public Opinion and Political Participation
Sources of Public Opinion Political socialization refers to the factors that shape our political opinions. These include financial interest, family, friends, education, gender, race, religion, and major life events. Party identification has become the most reliable predictor of public opinion in recent years. Self-interest and political elites also influence political attitudes. How issues are framed can shift individual and collective views. Dramatic events, especially wars, also have a powerful role in shaping our opinions.
Measuring Public Opinion Scientific surveys have come a long way since their origins in 1936. Professionals now design well-specified polls that capture popular views with a high degree of accuracy. Poll results can affect public opinion. Sampling errors, response bias, and other potential flaws inevitably confer a measure of uncertainty on any survey.
Public Opinion in a Democracy Some Americans have viewed public opinion as an unreliable, even dangerous, guide to government policy making, based in part on voter ignorance. Others argue that, in practice, a rational public is the best source of democratic decision making. One way to combine these clashing views is to focus not on what individuals know about politics but on how the many different popular views add up to a wisdom of crowds. If public opinion is to guide politics, three conditions must be met: The public must know what it wants; its views must be effectively communicated; and leaders must pay attention. Even strong public opinion may not be specific enough to offer policy guidance. United States government officials devote more resources to polling operations than top officials in other nations. All government officials constantly have to weigh doing what they think is best against doing what the public desires. Popular views can help set governing agendas.
Traditional Participation Traditional Participation involves engaging politics through formal government channels. Voting is the most familiar form of traditional political participation. Americans participate in politics year round. One in five contacts a public official in the course of a year. Civic voluntarism is a form of engagement with public life that operates outside of government but enhances democracy. Direct Action seeks change by going outside the formal channels of government. It has a long legacy in the United States that goes back to the nation s founding and includes some of the nation s great reform movements.
Why People Get Involved? Participating in politics and government is influenced both by personal factors: background characteristics such as income and education; family and friends; political mobilization; and receiving government benefits from programs that treat beneficiaries with respect (like Social Security). Americans participate in political life at very different rates. A few engage passionately, a larger number are moderately engaged, and the majority of us are only sporadically involved. This contributes to the appearance of high and low participation in the United States. Political mobilization is also influence by the larger social and historical context.
What Discourages Political Participation? Participation in civic life tends to vary by age, income level, and education. Several other factors have fueled a decline in Americans political participation in recent years. These include alienation, barriers to participation, complacency, and shifting mobilization patterns.
