Political And Social Involvement Of Public Opinion On Government Policy

Chapter six of Social Problems by Joel Best was about public reactions. The chapter explains how to measure public opinions in things like polling (166-167). Best then goes on to talk about what affects public opinion (170). Best continues to tell us what public opinion impacts (172). Lastly, Best talks about how public opinion plays a role in the social problems process (191).

According to Jost (2012), the nation has contradicting views on political issues which divide where we think the appropriate role of the government lies (p. 743). American politics is complex and reflects a partisan system, making it challenging for governmental officials to decide on whether or not to re-examine the constitution. Another crucial point when analyzing this issue, is a person’s positionality in the American society determines their view on the

In American politics, public opinion is mostly a latent force that typically has no important bearing on national decision making unless citizens become unusually attentive to politics. Many citizens are uninformed, which leads to inconsistent opinions. In Tides of Consent, there are many factors that shift public opinion. Some changes are fast and responsive, such as spikes in presidential approval, and some changes are slow, and occur in increments that may be overlooked. Public opinion in American politics is meaningless individually, but aggregately, public opinion is meaningful.

The balance between the duty of the government, both on a state and federal scale, and the citizens’ view of freedoms has been a continuous struggle throughout the readings. Although many members of America’s youth believe that their participation in politics is aimless, public opinion and voting are very important aspects of shaping the government. Without certain civil rights being granted by the government, these important rights of expression and suffrage would not exist.

In American tradition, the value of the individual, and individual opinion, is held in high esteem. Free expression is the means by which consensus is reached and central authority is balanced. In this democracy,

America is facing an all-time low in voter participation. Since 2014 the voting population has decreased by “thirty-six and four-tenths percent” (DelReal). Many theories explain the stigma of voting in America. According to the Wolfgang “the leading theory is: many minority voters are discriminated upon and do not believe their vote will count.” Many laws created infringe on the rights of Americans, however, when citizens do not vote the government seizes control on controversial issues , which in turn creates solutions that are less than satisfactory to the civilians.

a. The sample size of this poll is 1,125 adults and was limited to those that reside in the United States. The margin of error is +/- 2.9 percentage points. Most political science research embraces the 95% level of confidence (Damore

User Responses: Feedback: 1 a.equality of personal opportunity and individualism 16. Most Americans would acknowledge that those with greater resources and connections to government officials are more likely to ________. participate in politics and be represented in government participate in a

Today, it is safe to say that many of United Sates citizens are unsure about the future of our country. In Our Declaration, Danielle Allen claims that the future of our country is secured by citizens who play their part in the system. She writes, “Politics is an activity where people, thanks to their wakefulness, can organize themselves and set up institutions so that they can all collectively protect themselves without having to fight with each other” (Allen 176). She has confidence that citizens can diagnose the current state of our country and the political world through interaction with other each other to build unified intelligence through democratic conversation. Democratic conversation occurs when citizens cooperatively and intelligently discuss and provide their views on certain matters which determine the present and future state of our country. “For the Declaration we are all equal in having the capacity to judge relations among facts, principles, and courses of action” (Allen 91). But is Allen’s claim realistic? Allen is partially justified because our country is more tolerant today than it ever has been when it comes to sexuality and marriage, and gender. However, Allen’s optimism is not entirely realistic because of the common stubborn citizens, and the uneducated citizens not willing to take part in democratic conversations.

First, effective policy is derivative of decentralized power. The general public has the elect and unelect policy makers from their office. For this reason, public opinion is vital to the creation of policy. The general belief of the proposed policies is that people know better for themselves rather than a bureaucrat disconnected to their lives. To analyze public opinion this paper utilizes a variety of polls to assess the

As politics and government becomes more complex and involved, more effort is required to keep up with and understand it. As a result, many Americans have lost touch with current events and happenings. Therefore, when election time rolls around, many people lack enough information to develop an educated opinion and support a candidate with their vote, so they just do not vote at all. This lack of information is also related to the belief that one vote will not matter. People believe that their vote will not count, and are therefore following the news less and becoming out of touch with public affairs and politics (Is the System Broken?”). This lack of information is also more strongly apparent among the younger voting population. When interviewed

Data used for this term paper was obtained from Houghton Mifflin Company through the 1996 Voter's Data Set found as part of the Crosstabs package. The dependent variable (rows) I chose to highlight the 1996 U.S. presidential election voting pattern was the Final Voting Choice. The independent variables (columns) I chose were personal traits such as education, income, age, religious affiliations, race, and gender. The data made available by the Crosstabs program was compiled in a statistically scientific way by a national survey of citizens before and after the 1996 election. The objective of this research is to determine which of the personal traits of the electorate has a positive, negative, or an indifferent impact on voter turnout. Therefore, I have made the following five assertions in the below listed hypotheses:

The citizens of the United States of America populate a very privileged nation relative to the majority of developing countries. Americans are able to exercise a multitude of rights. Despite having freedom to the most basic of rights, Americans do not take full advantage of their liberties. One such instance relates to American’s right to vote in elections. Presently, U.S citizens of differing heritage, skin color, gender, and social standing has the liberty to vote for the authoritative figures who will run their government at the local, state, and nationwide scale, yet very few U.S citizens are present at voting polls during off year elections. The cause of the nationwide absence at the polls is reflective of U.S. citizens’ distrust of the political system and their state of ignorance concerning current national issues.

Returning to the three original polls, these measures of public opinion are useful. Throughout the year, we have discussed how campaigns are affected by public opinion, especially because the debates had just begun. Right now, while candidates are trying to win their respective party nominations, they are going to try to appeal to the opinions of Republicans and Democrats separately. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are not trying to appeal to the same base as Donald Trump and Jeb Bush. These polls are meaningful and candidates should be mindful of them, because people care about this issue. The three polls I have examined are similar in numbers, but there is a bit of disparity between the Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies and CBS News and the New York Times poll and the poll done by Quinnipiac University. The percentage of respondents saying that there should be a pathway to citizenship in the poll collaborated on by Hart and Public Opinion Strategies was 47%, but 55% in the Quinnipiac poll, and 61% in the CBS/New York Times poll for the final days of July. A 14% difference seems to be a significant difference, especially when one number is not a majority of the population. Over the time of the debate period, the numbers have stayed in the upper 50s. For that reason, I think that these can be meaningful polls that represent the population as a whole. Overall, opinion seems to tend to be more in favor of letting people stay who came here

Voting is very essential and one of the easiest methods to influence public policy. You just need to be registered, and go to a polling station. It is simple because the government encourages people to vote, to hear a broad range of opinions. It is a form of direct democracy because when you vote, it directly affects the side or issue you support. Your vote is one more supporting opinion for a candidate or issue that is counted. Some people may think that their vote won’t make a big difference, but if you look at it from another perspective it can impact smaller and local issues. Although voting is imperative because you are given this privilege at the age of 18, it is not the end of one’s ability to influence government, but rather the beginning.