Voter behavior - part I

[petardier]

Hidden away in The Critics section of the August 30 New Yorker is an article on how people make decisions about voting. With my software engineering background, I'm wired to think that important decisions should be made in a logical, deliberate way, so this article was a shock to my system. Before I get deep into the substance of the article, here's something to think about:

In 2000, eighteen percent said they decided which Presidential candidate to vote for only in the last two weeks of the campaign; five percent, enough to swing most elections, decided the day they voted.

That would seem to suggest that polls don't begin to mean much until just before the election. So obsessing about the polls is a waste of worry that could be better invested elsewhere.

Now for the meat of the article. After mentioning some basic factors that influence votes, the article references political scientist Phillip Converse's 1964 article "On the Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics".

Converse claimed that only ten percent of the public has what can be called, 
even generously, a political belief system.  He named these people "ideologues", by 
which he meant not that they are fanatics, but that they have a reasonable grasp 
of "what goes with what" - of how a set of opinions adds up to a coherent political 
philosophy.  Non-ideologues may use terms like "liberal" and "conservative", but 
Converse thought they basically don't know what they're talking about, ...  they 
can't see how one opinion (that taxes should be lower, for example) logically ought 
to rule out others (such as the belief that there should be more government 
programs).  About 42 percent of voters, according to Converse's interpretation of 
the 1956 electorate, vote on the basis not of ideology but of perceived self-
interest.  The rest form political preferences from their sense of whether times 
are good or bad (about 25 percent) or from factors that have no discernible "issue 
content" whatever.  Converse places 22 percent of the electorate in the last 
category.  In other words, about twice as many people have no political views 
as have a coherent political belief system.

Any political scientists out this have comments on this? I'd be especially interested to know if these numbers have been re-checked recently.

Unfortunately, this article isn't to be found on the New Yorker's web site. If you'd like a copy of it, get in touch. I'll send you a copy (assuming the number of requests doesn't get out of hand, that this).

This post has become quite large; I'll save the rest for later.

Comments

I took a class on Political Socialization during senior year of college

[(Anonymous)]

I don't recall this material in much detail, but (as you well know) that was a long time ago and memory fades. And if the studies occurred in the 50s and 60s and were still considered to be reputable, I'm sure this must have been covered. I recall reading that the majority of people have adopted whatever political orientation they're going to have for the rest of their lives by the age of 12 or 13, mostly on the basis of whatever their parents tell them. (Kind of scary, isn't it?) Ergo, it's not surprising that only a small percentage of them would have what we could call a coherent belief system. Independent critical thinking and understanding of complex issues comes to most people only well after that age.

There is, of course, a significant minority who rebel against their parents beliefs, usually in their teens, though this is often not a permanent rebellion. Nor is it necessarily a sign that this minority has engaged in the critical thinking necessary to form and understand a coherent set of political beliefs. A few in this minority do, but the rest are trend-followers.

I recall reading that major economic events, wars, social changes etc., can cause many people to change their positions on a range of issues, leading to an apparent realignment of the electorate, but far fewer will actually change (or belatedly adopt) a radically different political philosophy.

Politics is hard to follow and can be frustrating. Few of us may even want to really understand it well enough to follow a coherent philosophy, because unless you're a powerful player, or a power-hungry player, understanding politics is largely an exercise in knowning how powerless you are in the grand scheme of things. And now, with fully modernized political PR machines, massive campaign war chests, and a ratings-hungry sound-bite 24 hour media, we can know a lot more about what's going on in politics, but at the same time a lot less.

-rich

As the dude in Dr. Zhivago says...

[(Anonymous)]

"everything is politics" (even love). Now I don't know that I agree completely with that, but I do think that if you have been alive 30+ years you ought to have a coherent political philosophy. I mean, how complicated is it to think, "Government should be small, therefore I don't want a handout program, even if it is for me (unless it is really, really juicy)," or "Government is how we collectively spend our money to achieve our goals. Some programs that individuals cannot accomplish are better done by governments that are properly regulated." Those would be pretty bare bones, and maybe the researcher would not think of those as fleshed-out philosophies, but were those that complicated?
Mike-n-Mallie

Re: As the dude in Dr. Zhivago says...

[petardier.livejournal.com]

It's surprising to those of us who do have coherent political philosophies that there are lots of people out there who don't. That's one reason I wanted to highlight ideas from that article. It's got details like this:

According to polls conducted between 1987 and 1989, 20-25 percent of the public thinks too 
little is being spent on welfare, and between 60-65 percent feels that too little is being 
spent on assistance to the poor.

People seem very vulnerable to how questions (and issues) are presented. The Republicans have been consistently effective at framing the issues in such a way that their outcome is favored by the public. The Democrats need to get better at this.

Stay tuned for Voter Behavior, part 2.