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PO/IR > PO FINAL > Flashcards

PO FINAL Flashcards

1
Q

What is Public Opinion?

A
  • Attitudes about issues, leaders, institutions, and events
  • Exists on individual and aggregate levels
  • Preferences + Beliefs + Choices = Opinion
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2
Q

How P+B+C= Opinion

A

Consider: Presidential approval questions (do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?)
* Suppose an individual:
* Preference: Democrat politicians
* Belief: President Biden is doing a GOOD job
* Approve or Disapprove

→Alternate Case
* Consider: Presidential approval questions (do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?)
* Suppose an individual:
* Preference: Democrat politicians
* Belief: President Biden is doing a BAD job
* Approve or Disapprove

  • →Alternative Case - Choice Changed
  • Consider: Presidential approval questions (do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?)
  • Suppose an individual:
  • Preference: Democrat politicians
  • Belief: President Biden is doing a BAD job
  • Approve or Disapprove, or Neutral
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3
Q

Origin and Nature of Opinion

A
  • Individual opinions are products of personality, social characteristics, and interests
  • Further shaped by institutional, political, governmental forces
  • Self interest, values, social groups
  • Socialization
    -Take on or assimilate to a community’s social preference
    -Process of assimilation to community preference and norms through social interaction

Most Ameicans…
* Share common opinions on some issues, such as equality of opportunity
* Have unstable issue preferences
* Have low levels of political information
-Few devote time/attention/energy to understand issues
-Costs of gathering information can be high, benefits may be low
-Use of information shortcuts
–>Party identification: pre existing perceptual screens
–>Filter new information and form beliefs about the world
-Low levels of information lead to instability and incoherence in survey responses
–>Most americans express central issue preferences, even when they have polarizing political party affiliations
–>Elite Polarization vs. Mass polarization

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4
Q

Political Ideology (Mass political ideology)

A
  • Ideology is a comprehensive way of understanding political or cultural situation
  • A set of assumptions about the way the world and society work
  • Helps us organize our beliefs, information, and new situations
  • Liberal
    -Support political and social reform
    -Role of government includes economic intervention
    -More vigorous efforts on behalf of marginalized groups
  • Conservative
    -Support social and economic status quo
    -Suspicious of policies which introduce new political or economic arrangements
    -A large, powerful government poses a threat to citizens’ freedoms
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5
Q

What are identity politics?

A

Multiple Definitions:
* Politicization of groups based on their social identities, structuring their ability to make claims on resources or opportunities
* Contestation over the rules of membership, content, and valuation or treatment of social categories
* Belief in relevance of identity to politics

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6
Q

Identity Politics

How do identities matter? (Identities are absolute? Like Partisanship)

A
  • Politically
  • Epistemically (knowledge)
    -Allies who share your identity might care more for your needs than those who don’t share your identity.
  • Theoretically
    -Theories are stories that we tell bout the world and how it works
    -Identity shapes the stories we tell bout the world → about who is dominant, who has power
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7
Q

Identity Politics

Race identity Politics

A
  • America’s history of slavery and racial disscrimination has created a deep, persistent divide between “white” perople and Black and Latinx people on the other (History Policy Principle)
  • Yields stark differences in beliefs and preferences regarding the basic responsibilities of government
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8
Q

Identity Politics

Gender Identity Politics

A
  • Gender gap: a distinctive pattern of voting behavior reflecting the differences in views between men and women
  • Gender gap has been an enduring feature of American elections for some time. Women consistently vote more Democratic than men do.
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9
Q

Who/What attempts to shape Public Opinion?

A
  • Governmental Officials
    -Example: Presidents “Going Public”
    –>Used to increase the level of salience (importance) on an issue
  • Interest Groups
    -Example: Attack Advertisements
  • Media
    -How most Americans learn about politics
    -Active and Passive Learning
    –>Passive- (learning something about politics without actively seeking it out)
    Eg. Absorb news from either a political ad that randomly comes on
    -Agenda setting, priming, framing
    –>Agenda setting-Told to think about something
    –>Priming- Media prepares an audience to take a particular view of an event of particular actor
    —>Framing- Media encourages a particular interpretation of an event
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10
Q

How does Public opinion influence politics?

A
  • Electoral accountability
  • Building coalitions
    -Policies are more likely to pass if they have support of public opinion
  • Input in rule making and court cases
    Rule making
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11
Q

Measuring Public Opinion

A
  • Early methods were imprecise and subjective
  • Polls
    -Scientific instrument for measuring attitudes
    -Scientific polling emerged in the 1930s
    -Political leaders use polls to determine whether and how to run for office, which policies to support, when to make appeals
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12
Q

FINAL EXAM BONUS QUESTION

A

Darrel Issa -Who hates recall election

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13
Q

What makes up Polling ?

A
  • Samples
    -A small group selected to represent the most important characteristics of the population
    -Samples should be selected randomly to prevent bias
    –>Repetitive random sampling will eventually reveal truth
  • Selection Bias (when the choice of sampling is flawed)
    -An error in which the sample is not representative of the population
  • Measurement Bias
  • Sample size
    -A poll’s reliability is partly a function of a sample size
    -The larger the sample size, the less likely any result is due to a sampling error
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14
Q

Polling

The Principal Agent Problem revisited

A
  • Voters (the principals) use election to select officials (the agents) to act on their behalf
  • Two problems:
    -Adverse Selection- how do we know we chose competent, good people? (hidden preference)
    -Moral Hazard- how do we know if agents are working in our interests? (hidden actions)
  • Voters (sometimes) use shortcuts to solve these problems
  • Electoral competition may increase information, potentially reducing these problems
    -Educate voters on policy positions
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15
Q

Institutions of Elections

A

-Who can vote
-How Americans vote
-Where we vote
-What it takes to win

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16
Q

Institutions of Elections

Who can Vote

A
  • Suffrage
    -Founding: White men, 20+ years; many states required property ownership
    -Now: universal suffrage, 18+
  • Voting is a right, not a requirement
    -Approximately 60% vote in presidential elections
    -Approximately 45% vote in midterm elections
  • Measuring turnout → ( # of voters) / eligible population
    -Who can’t vote: children, non-citizens, people in prison, ex-felons (in many states)
  • Citizens must register to vote. Registration laws vary by state
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17
Q

Institutions of Elections

How Americans Vote

A
  • The secret ballot
    -Voters’ choices are secret
    -Goal: prevent vote buying and intimidation
  • The Australian ballot
    -Lists the names for all candidates for all offices
    -Voters select a candidate from the list
    -Introduced in 1880
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18
Q

Institutions of Elections

Where we vote: Electoral Districts

A
  • Most legislative elections use single member districts
    -A geographic areas that elects a single representative
    -Overlapping Congressional, state house, and state senate districts
    -Districts within the state have approximately equal population
  • Some states use multi member districts
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19
Q

Electoral Districts

A
  • Most states use plurality rule, single member districts.
    -Highest vote getter wins
  • Single member districts magnify the power of the winning groups
    -2012: Republicans win 50% of house vote, 54% of House seats
  • Makes it difficult for small parties and minority groups to get legislative seats
  • Some states use majority rule or ranked-choice voting
    -Ends up helping 3rd party candidates
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20
Q

Voter Fraud and election manipulation

A
  • Every state administers its own elections
  • Voter fraud is extremely rare
    -Nationwide election fraud is not common’
    -Does Not change election outcomes
  • But election manipulation is prevalent, how?
    -By altering election institutions
    -Who can vote, and how
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21
Q

Direct Democracy

A
  • 24 states allow for ballot referendums
    -Vote for policy rather than people
    -Passed by state legislatures, people directly vote on legislation not electing people
  • 24 states allow for voter initiatives
    -Voters decided on policy outcome which comes from voters
    –>Needs to need some set of requirements set by state
  • 18 states allow for recall elections
    -Mechanism for voters to remove elected officials before their terms has expired
    -Not for executive office
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22
Q

The 2003 California Recall

A
  • Gray Davis (Dem)
  • 2002 California economy tanks
  • Issa things Gray should be removed from office
  • Issa collects enough signatures (12% of reg voters) to sign for a recall
  • To Davis’ dismay, Arnold schwarzenegger runs and wins (rep), becomes California Gov
23
Q

What is Voting Behavior?

A

Whether to vote and how to vote

24
Q

Voting Behavior

The Choice to Vote

A
  • Why vote?
  • Turnout ranges between 50% and 60% of the voting-age population
  • Why do so many people choose not to vote?
    -Voting requires time and effort
    -Top reasons:
    –>“Too busy”
    –>“Sick or disabled”
    –>“Not interested”
    –>“Didn’t like the choices”
25
Q

Voting Behavior

Who Votes?

A
  • Older, more educated, less residential mobility
  • Other factors: gender, income, race
  • Women are more likely to turn out to vote than men
    -Men are more likely to turn out to campaign rallies
26
Q

Party Identification

A
  • Strongest predictor of an individual’s vote
  • Party identification: individual attachment to a particular party
  • Voters are predisposed to their party’s candidate
    -Predispositions are sometimes based on current and historical policies
    -Gender gap: women identify with Democrats at higher rates than men
    -Racial gaps: racial minorities identify with Democrats at higher rates
27
Q

Partisan Loyalty

A
  • Sources of identification
    -Issues
    -Ideology
    -Past experiences
    -Upbringing
  • Over the past 30 years, party identification has been (roughly) evenly split between Republicans and Democrats
  • As of June 18, 2021, 24% of americans are republican or lean republican, 30% Democrats of lean Democrat, and 44% are independents
28
Q

How voters Decide: Issues

A
  • Some voters engage in issuing voting
  • Others pay more attention to past behavior (retrospective) or expectations about future behavior (prospective voting)
  • Issues may be considered on two dimensions:
    –>Spatial issues – a range of opinions can be held (liberal to conservative, most to least expensive)
    –>Valence issues – all voters prefer a higher value (integrity, honesty, less crime)
29
Q

How voters Decide: Economic Voting

A
  • Regarding the party in power for good economic conditions, publishing the party in power for bad economic conditions
  • A good predictor of voter choice
  • A (particle) solution to the moral hazard problem
  • Mechanism for government accountability
30
Q

How voters Decide: Candidate Characteristics

A
  • A candidate’s personal attributes (race, ethnicity, religion, geography, social background) influence voters’ decisions (positively or negatively)
  • Voters tend to prefer candidates like themselves
  • A valuable characteristic: incumbency
31
Q

Campaigns: What it takes to win

A
  • All campaigns have to address certain challenges:
    -Mobile volunteers
    -Raise money
    -Coordinate activities
    -Decide on messaging
    -Communicate with the public
  • Incumbency advantage is significant
32
Q

Campaign Finance

A
  • Campaign finance is regulated by Congress and the Federal Election Commission (FEC)
  • Candidates raise money from individuals and political action committees
  • Candidates spend money on staff, advertising, polling, etc.
  • Parties spend money on behalf of candidates
  • Third parties also participate:
    -PACS give money
    -Super PACs spend unlimited money on independent expenditures (don’t donate to candidates)
    -Super PACs cannot coordinate with candidates (but definition of “coordination” is not clear)
  • Major Supreme Court cases: Buckley v. Baleo (1976) and Citizens United v FEC (2010)
33
Q

Effectiveness of campaigns

A
  • Campaigns and parties disseminate information and are responsible for informing the electorate
  • Political scientists wonder how much campaigns actually influence participation and vote choice
  • Some studies show campaigns are effective – more so when there is meaningful competition
34
Q

Political Parties – Introduction

A
  • Political parties are organized groups that try to control government by electing their members to office
  • The Democratic and Republican parties have competed since the 1850s
  • Third parties are rarely successful over the long term
    -Bc of single member districts and plurality rule: (person who gets the most votes gets the entire district)
  • Why do we have only two parties, when other countries have many?
35
Q

Why do Parties form?

A
  • Parties solve three problems
    -Facilitating collective action in the electoral process
    -Collective choice in policy making
    —>Parties create a basis for coalition and therefore decrease the time needed for legislation
    -Problems arising from political ambition and competition
    –>Unchecked ambition is a problem as it undermines the basis for cooperation
    –>Any individual, if left unchecked want to be the main character; Ex: committee chairs, anyone trying to move up in their career
  • Parties are formed by politicians to serve their own goals (ALdrich, Why Parties)
36
Q

What do Parties do?

A
  • Recruit candidates
    -Identify and convince people who can run to office to do so
    -Usually people who show interest in civic action who hold high positions
    -Ex: attornies, business leaders
  • Nominate candidates (MOST IMPORTANT THING PARTIES DO)
    -Parties organize the nomination process
  • Get out the vote (GOTV)
    -Parties organize these, and help people get to the polls
    -Media is sponsored by parties
    -Voter registration drives
  • Facilitate electoral choice
  • Influence national government
    -Create a big tent for coalitions
37
Q

Primaries and Caucuses

A
  • Types of primaries
    -Closed Primary – a primary election in which only those voters who have registered their affiliation with their party by a specified time before the election can participate
    -    Open Primary     – a primary election in which voters can choose on the day of the primary which party’s primary to vote in
  • Nomination by Caucus
    -Several states, including Iowa and Nevada, begin the presidential nominating process with meetings called caucuses
    –>Time consuming
    –>People who show up are not very representative (very committed partisans with lots of leisure time)
    -Because the caucus nomination process consists of extensive discussions and can last for several hours, only the most motivated voters attend
    -Nominations are an example of how institutions matter – different rules encourage or discourage different behavior and engagement on the part of candidates and voters
38
Q

Parties in Government

A
  • Influence the organization and day-to-day operations of Congress
    -Majority party holds a majority of legislative seats, and select leaders
    -Parties also organize the committee system in Congress
  • The president is the leader of his party in government and works with congressional party leaders
    -President relies on co[artisan legislators to pass legislation
39
Q

Parties in the Electorate

A
  • Parties are made up of millions of people who identify with the label
    -Attachment tends to be persistent
    -Activists are those who contribute time and energy beyond voting to support a party and its candidates
40
Q

Parties as Institutions

A
  • Parties exist at all levels of U.S. government- national, state, local
  • These organizations consist of networks of politicians, interest groups activists, donors, consultants, and voters
  • Between conventions, national parties raise money, manage the coalition, and try to enhance the party’s media image
    -Congressional campaign committees recruit candidates, raise money, conduct campaigns
    -State and local party organizations register voters, recruit candidates, raise money
41
Q

Parties as Institutions – Conventions

A
  • Attended by de;egates from each state, selected at local meetings
  • Nominate presidential ticket
  • Establish party rules
  • Write party’s platform
  • After the convention: “Candidate service providers”
    -Start doing everything they can to get their nominee to win the election
42
Q

Party Systems

A
  • Parties that are important at a given time – the current balance of power between parties
  • Six party system throughout American history
  • Why two parties?
    -Third parties emerge and disappear quickly
43
Q

Parties in a Democracy

A
  • Parties help make democracy work
    -Popular participation
    -Collective action
  • They provide:
    -Voting cues
    -Organization in government
    -Logistical support for campaigns
44
Q

what are Interest Groups?

A
  • Organized groups of individuals or organizations
  • Make policy related appeals to government
  • Solve a collective action problem
    -Individuals and organizations want policy benefits, but organization and lobbying is expensive
    -Successful groups organize to share the costs of lobbying
45
Q

Interest groups in a Democracy

A

Interest groups enhance democracy by:
* Educate their members about important policy issues
* Representing their members’ interests thorough lobbying
* Mobilizing people for elections and grassroots lobbying
-Getting people to engage in political behavior (eg. registering to vote)
-Most important: Engaging Labor Unions
* Encouraging members to engage in the political process
-Not just for election, ex: putting pressure on members of congress.
* Monitoring government programs and activities
-Remember First alarm vs Police
-Relying on outside members to control bureaucracies
-Interest groups monitor organizations and pull fire alarms

46
Q

Madison argues danger of allowing Interest groups to form

A
  • Essence of freedom
  • He thinks limiting that freedom is tyrannical
  • But he thinks that interest groups can organize
  • Madison’s Solution: to have a ton of factions/groups
    -Allows interest groups to proved the benefit without doing harm to democracy
    -The interest will regulate each other
    -Result is moderation: no group is more powerful (pluralism)
47
Q

Pluralism

A
  • The idea that all interest groups are an should be free to compete for influence in the government
  • Groups compete to influence policy, resulting in moderation and compromise
  • Issues with this idea?
    -Pluralism assumes that all sides of an issue are represented in proportion to its supporters
    -Not all interest are represented equally
48
Q

Upper Class Bias

A
  • “The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with an upper class accent” – EE Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People
  • Interest groups require resources and are generally composed of members with resources
  • IGs represent the interest of their remembers: people with the money and time to join interest groups
    -Groups aren’t perfectly represented because of this
  • There are many potential groups of people with shared interests that could from, but lack the money and/or resources to do so (latent interests)
    -E.g. People with student debt
  • Number of IGs has grown exponentially in last 50 years
    -New constituents are created with new gov policies and new social movements (many in 1960-70s) so more IGs are created
49
Q

IGs

Types of Groups

A
  • Business/Trade associations (41% business, 22% Trade)
  • Labor associations
  • Professional associations (9%)
  • Public Interest
50
Q

IGs

Influence Policy

(2 stratagies)

A
  • Insider strategies
    -Directly lobbying policymakers
    -Advocacy through the courts
  • Outsider strategies
    -Educating the public
    -Campaigning for and contributing to candidates (that you believe will be sympathetic to your cause)
    -Ex: seeking out a pro union candidate if that your goal

**Many groups employ a mix **

51
Q

IGs

Direct/Insider Strategy

A
  • An attempt to influence the policy process through persuasion – all branches of government
  • Billions of dollars are spent each year
  • Generally through negativity. However:
    -Lobbyists educate
    -Make sure groups are heard
  • Some regulations
    -Must report spending (can’t just spend whatever)
    -Strict limits on gifts
    -Lobbyists must register with the Secretary of State and House of Representatives
  • Issues with regulations
    -Shadow Lobbying: People who were in office, once their done, they can access house and senate and don’t have to register as a lobbyist
52
Q

IGs

Indirect/Outsider Strategy

A
  • “Outside Lobbying”
    -Groups try to pressure politicians by mobilizing public opinion
    -Includes media strategy, advertising campaigns, protests, etc.
    –>Trying to galvanize/persuade public so political behavior is changed
    –>Ex. Interest groups going public (like what the president does–just with IGs)
  • Electoral Politics
    -Establishing and using PACs (Political Action Committees)
    -Give to candidates and parties
    -Engage GOTV efforts
    -Direct democracy – ballot initiatives
  • Independent Expenditures
    -Voter education
    -Unlimited spending
53
Q

Are Interest Groups Effective?

A
  • Mixed evidence – some says returns on spending are rare, other studies say small amounts are gained
  • Identification is difficult problem

PO/IR (6 decks)

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