1. Public Opinion and Political Action
                                                                                                              
AP Government Chapter 6
Public Opinion and
Political Action

2. Definitions 311,110,140 million today (April 5, 2011)
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)

3. Three major waves of Immigration
800,000 new immigrants legally admitted every year
Melting Pot/Tossed Salad
Minority-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.)

4. Minority Majority

5. 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

6. Political Socialization
1. Family
2. Mass Media
3. School….what else?
Political Socialization

7. 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

8. Decline in Trust in Government

9. Political Ideologies

10. 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

11. Participation in Politics
Conventional: Voting, trying to persuade others, ringing doorbells for a petition, running for office
Unconventional: Protesting, civil disobedience, violence,

12. Political Participation by Family Income

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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”