POLI 2051 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Institute For Operations Research And The Management Sciences, New Deal Coalition, Party System
11 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
The collected attitudes of citizens on a given issue or question. Because in a democracy, there must be some link between what the public thinks, and what the government does. The nature of that link can vary greatly. It"s the delegate vs. trustee distinction we made earlier. Surveys show that people are not very interested in politics, are ignorant of much that goes on, and rely heavily on cues and shortcuts rather than informed issue positions. Where does it come from: we learn our behaviors and attitudes as we grow, we are born this way (nature vs. nurture) We learn these things; they occur throughout our lives. Political socialization and the agents of socialization family, community, education, peers, etc. Think about how each of these agents socializes people. Our behavior may also be based on our biology. We used to have to guess, but now we do polls.
