Unit 2 Political Beliefs and Behaviors

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Unit 2


Beliefs that citizens hold about their government and its leaders.

  • Young people have been shown to be more apathetic towards the government.
  • Unfortunately, young people are often less educated about politics than the elderly.
    • This is due to a lack of interest in foreign affairs and political issues.
    • It is also caused by the decline of political media since 1970.
  • In 1964 after the Vietnam war and Watergate, a general decline in the trust of the government had started.
  • Political Ideology- A coherent set of values and beliefs about public policy
  • Liberal ideologies often promote a strong central government and a wide scope for the central government
  • Conservative ideologies will promote a limited central government
  • Younger people tend to identify themselves as liberals over conservatives.
  • Women are more likely to [[#|support]] spending on social services and oppose higher levels of military spending.
  • Women are significantly less conservative in voting trends then men, leading to a gender gap.
  • The republican party believes the scope of American Government has become too wide ranging.
  • Public concern for political issues is not at the level needed for an ideal democratic society.

Processes by Which Citizens Learn about Politics

  • Political Socialization- process most notably in families and schools by which we develop our political attitudes, values, and beliefs.
  • The most experienced segment of the population, the elderly have undergone the most political socialization.
  • The first small part of political socialization is done formally, or in a classroom setting.
  • Most informal socialization is accidental.
    • Children will pick up or absorb what they hear or see from their parents or adult figures and side with those views
    • Children will then usually identify with their parents party.
  • The final factor is Media, or "the [[#|new parent]]."
    • as children increase the amount of time they spend [[#|watching tv]], their primary source of information becomes replaced by television.
    • Unfortunately, as television watching increases, attention to news broadcasts and newspapers have decreased.

The Nature, Sources, and consequences of Public Opinion

  • Polls- the way information is gathered in order to measure public opinion.
    • Polls only rely on a sample of the population to represent the whole
    • in order to keep the polls unbiased they use a system of random sampling which selects participants at random for the poll
    • all polls come with a sampling error which is the percentage which can be swayed back and forth due to some inherit factor.
  • Polls best help political candidates detect public preferences for a local [[#|business]]
  • If polls make a sudden change a candidate may choose to alter their policy making decisions in order to please the public.
  • This is one of the many ways the people directly affect policy making.
  • Public opinion is also used to the advantage of interest groups in order to rally those behind their cause and then take their case to congress where they can affect policy making.

The ways in which Citizens Vote and Participate in Public Life

  • Political Participation- the activities in which citizens participate in the government.
    • Including: attending local political meetings
    • protesting
    • filing lawsuits
    • writing letters to government officials
    • voting
  • Generally there are two types of Political participation
    • Conventional Participation- widely accepted models of participating in government. i.e. Writing letters etc.
    • Unconventional Participation- dramatic forms of participation. i.e. Protesting
  • [[#|The general]] trend is that those with higher incomes usually participate more in politics than those with lower incomes.
  • After registering to vote, citizens first vote in a primary to choose the candidate s) who will run for election, usually the candidate for their own registered party. After the candidates are chosen, the winner of the election is determined by a winner take all system.

Explaining how Citizens Decide

  • The most common explanation as to why a voter votes a certain way is that the voter agrees with most of the candidates views.
  • Voters may also just vote based on their party identification.
  • Voters may vote based on the candidates policies. Although, true policy voting rarely happens because the voter needs to be clear on the candidates and their own political beliefs, and know the differences of policies between candidates.
  • Respective Voting- the prospect of voting based on past actions. Basically the voter asks himself which candidate has done the most for them lately and which ever one has done the most will receive their vote.