PSCI 211
Public Opinion and Political Behavior Fall 2015
Division II Quantitative/Formal Reasoning
This is not the current course catalog

This course examines public opinion and political behavior in American politics. The course examines how these influence government actions. The influence of public opinion on public affairs and popular governments is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of governments (largely subsequent to the American and French revolutions). We can see from recent events the impact of public opinion: In the early 1990s the American public quickly became interested in drought and starvation in Somalia pressing the American government to intervene, if briefly and unsuccessfully. Some have claimed that American journalists successfully provoked the American public to go to war (the Spanish-American War, creating the slogan, “Remember the Maine”), and the public movement against the war eventually led the US Government to withdraw from that war (Viet Nam). More recently President Bush sought public support for the War launched in 2003 against Iraq and more recently still President Obama is seeking public support for the war against ISIL. We often see political leaders make use of the “bully pulpit” to rally support for their agendas, efforts that sometimes succeed and other times fail. There are many questions we shall examine. Among them: How do events and crises influence public opinion? Which psychological, sociological, and political factors impact public opinion formation? When and under what circumstances do pressure groups influence public opinion and political behavior of the broader public? Do mass beliefs alter individual voters’ choices? When and how do political leaders influence public opinion and when does public opinion and public action influence the behavior of their political leaders? We have direct access to the holdings of the Roper Center, using iPOLL. These holdings enables direct exploration of the thousands of polls on American public opinion from 1937 to today.