POLS370/570
Spring 08
Exam 1 Review
Last updated: February 4, 2008
Ch1 Public Opinion in
Democratic Societies
Public opinion and government
How much should the government respond to the public?
Definition of public opinion
The evolution of the public opinion poll
Straw polls, Literary Digest, Gallup
The modern opinion poll and its consequences
Linkage models between public
opinion and public policies
Rational-activist,
Political parties, interest group, delegate, sharing
Ch 2 Polling: The
Scientific Assessment of Public Opinion
Sampling
Probability sampling, random sampling, multistage cluster sampling, random-digit dialing
Sample size, confidence level, margin of error (sampling error)
Question Wording
Response categories
Context/Framing effects
The misuse of surveys
Polls and predicting elections
Table 2.2
Ch 3 Microlevel opinion: The psychology of opinion-holding
Democratic theory
Knowledge
Table 3.1
Consistency/stability of opinion-holding
Table 3.3
Nonattitudes explanation, measurement error explanation
Ideological sophistication
Ideologues, near ideologues, group benefits, nature of the time, no issue content
Table 3.9
Party identification
Table 3.12
Ch 4 Macrolevel opinion
Civil Rights
Old-fashioned and symbolic racism
Figure 4.2
Foreign policy
Figure 4.4
Social issues
Figure 4.5
Ideological movement
Table 4.4
Partisan movement
Realignment (1960s and 1970s)
Dealignment
Figure 4.7
Presidential Approval
Figure 4.8
Explanations 1. Honeymoon period
2. Rally-Round-the Flag
war
international convention
patriotism
social desirability
short term effects
3. Economy
Pocket-book vs socio-tropic
Ch 5 Political
Socialization and Political Learning
Preadult years
Table 5.1
Agents of political socialization
Family, school, peer groups
Table 5.5
Table 5.6
PID
Socialization during adulthood
Generation, life cycle and party identification
Figure 5.2
Ideology
Ch 6 Public Opinion
and Democratic Stability
Support for democratic values
Table 6.1, Table 6.2, Table 6.3, Table 6.4, Figure 6.1
Theory of democratic elitism
Pluralistic intolerance
Political consensus
Political support: Trust and efficacy
Government (political) trust
Figure 6.2
Social trust (social capital)
Personality
Authoritarian personality
F scale
Milgram experiment
Ch 7 Group
Differences in Political Opinions
Class differences on economic and noneconomic issues
Table 7.1, Figure 7.1, Table 7.3, Table 7.4
Class differences in voting and party preference
Figure 7.2
Race and political opinions
Tables on p201, Table 7.6, Table on p204, Table on p205, Figure 7.4
Age and Political opinions
Table 7.7
Religion and political opinions
Table on p209, Table 7.8, Tables on p212, Table 7.9
Geography and political opinions
Table 7.10, Figure 7.6
Gender and political opinions
Table 7.11
Ch 8 The News Media and Political
Opinions
The fragmentation of the media
Table
8.1
Bias and negativity in the news
Liberal
journalists
Table
8.2
Conservative
ownership
Negativity
in the news
Models of media effects
The
minimal effects model
Agenda
setting
Framing
issues
Ch 9 Elections as Instruments of popular control
Party ID
Normal
vote
Figure
9.1, Figure 9.2
Floating
voters
Table
9.1
Policy issues
Table
9.2, Table 9.3, Table 9.4
Candidate evaluations
Table
on p282
Figure
9.6
Median
voter theorem
Table
9.8
Prediction and causation
Ch 10 The Public and Its Elected
Representatives
Sharing model
Simple
sharing model
How
do political leaders differ from the public?
Table
10.1, Table 10.2
Political parties
model
Figure
10.1
Table
10.5, Explanation of split ticket voting
How
do politicians vote?
Figure
10.2
Table
online (Party votes in the House)
Does
party control matter?
Role playing model
Trustees vs delegates
Kuklinski (1978) Study of
Ch 11 Public Opinion and the Performance of Democracy
Assessing the impact of public
opinion on policy
Table
11.1, Figure 11.1, Figure 11.2
Causal
connection
Public apathy
Mass
political incompetence
Irony
of democracy
Rational
disengagement
Elite
manipulation
Public
contentment