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• 295 million Americans (2000 census)

• 311,110,140 million today (April 5, 2011)

Three major waves of Immigration• 800,000 new immigrants legally admitted every yearMelting Pot/Tossed SaladMinority-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.)

Minority Majority

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

Political Socialization1. Family

2. Mass Media

3. School….what else?

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

Decline in Trust in Government

Political Ideologies Voters' Thought Processes

Group Benefits

42%

Nature of the Times

24%

No I ssue Content

22%

Ideologue12%

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

Participation in Politics

• Conventional: Voting, trying to persuade others, ringing doorbells for a petition, running for office

• Unconventional: Protesting, civil disobedience, violence,

Political Participation by Family Income

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

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

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”