Unit 3 Test Flashcards
What do people think about the death penalty?
it DOES keep people from killing
What are the characteristics of public opinion
- People’s attitudes toward a government policy can vary dramatically
- Public opinion places boundaries on allowable types of public policy
- Citizens are willing to register opinions on matters outside their expertise
- Governments tend to respond to public opinion
- The government sometimes does not do what the people want
What causes opinions about capital punishment to fluctuate?
Threats to social order, such as a war
What events in American history made us support capital punishment?
WWI and II, fear of radicals and terrorists and postwar fears of sovietism. Later, the increase in homicides after the supreme court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional caused people to support it once again
What caused opposition to capital punishment?
The subsiding of anticommunist hysteria in the 1950s
Which groups do and dont support the death penalty?
Republicans are more likely to support it than democrats. White people tend to and African Americans tend not to
How did the Founding Fathers build opinion into our government structure?
By allowing direct election of representatives to the House apportioned to representation by population
How has polling changed the majoritarian vs pluralist debate?
Surveys produce equal representation of all citizens and they reveal when government policy clashes with majority opinion, weakening the majoritarian model argument
What 3 factors determine polling accuracy?
- Randomness
- Sample size
- Amount of variation in a population
What is a skewed distribution?
An asymmetrical but generally bell shaped distribution of public opinions. Its mode or most frequent response lies to one side
What is a bimodal distribution?
A distribution of opinions that shows 2 responses being chosen about as frequently as each other
What is normal distribution?
A symmetrical bell-shaped distribution of opinions centered on a single mode or most frequent response
What is a stable distribution?
A distribution of opinions that shows little change over time
what is the tail of a distribution plot?
The one side of the mode with fewer respondents that extend it outwards
What does each type of opinion distribution indicate?
Normal: Public tends to support a moderate or slightly left/right government policy
Bimodal: potential for conflict
Skewed: many people share the same opinion
What indicates that a shift in public opinion has probably occurred?
The same question worded differently produces significantly different responses over time
What are 2 big issues America has remained stable on?
- Describing themselves on the political spectrum
2. Death Penalty
What is an example of a change within a subgroup that is not reflected in overall public opinion?
political party change within college students
What is the relationship with using ideological terms when describing politics?
The use of ideological terms when discussing politics increases as education increases
How has the meaning of democrat and republican changed over time?
These term used to describe only the belief in level of government activity, but now they encompass that and values along with other beliefs
What 2 themes run through people’s minds when they are asked to describe liberals and conservatives?
- Liberals are associated with change and republicans with condition
- Liberals support more government intervention to promote economic equality and republicans support less
How are liberals, communitarians, conservatives and liberals dispersed through the country?
Libertarians: dispersed but tend to be located in western states and a handful of northeastern states
Communitarians: South
Conservatives: Midwest
Liberals: Northeast
How are men and women distributed among liberal, conservative, libertarian and communitarian parties?
Men are more likely to be conservative or libertarian and women tend to be liberal or communitarian
How did people’s political attitudes change over time in many western countries?
They shift slight to the left(less conservative)
What is the limitation in placing people strictly on the liberal-conservative scale?
It is a one dimensional analysis on a multidimensional problem
At what time are people most knowledgable about politics?
Politics from the era they grew up in, as opposed to other eras
What is the self-interest principle?
The implication that people choose what benefits them personally