Humanities 2319
American Minorities: Political Culture in A Global Environment
Lecture 6: Ideology & Political Participation:
Culture Exposed TOP
Every human society has its own shape, its own
purposes,
its own meanings.
Every human society expresses these, in
institutions, and
in arts and learning. The making of a society
is the finding of
common meanings and directions, and its
growth is an active
debate and amendment under pressures
of experience,
contact, and discovery, writing themselves
into the land.1
We have seen how political rights have been expanded, suffrage extended and political culture changed over time. We have also seen how African-Americans, Native Americans, other immigrants, and women have all helped shape the political discourse through their thoughts and words. We will now explore the concept of ideology and how it is formed and political participation, in all its forms as well as the factors that affect it.
....you say to-MAY-toe, I say toe-MAH-toe----why?
Why do we believe what we believe? Where do our ideas about power, its distribution, the role and scope of government and where we fit in come from? Of course, if you have taken an introductory sociology or psychology course, you are familiar with how we learn and how we develop and you should recall from Lecture 1 the discussion about agents of socialization. We are all socialized as a member of a family and a community and depending upon how homo- or heterogeneous that f community is, our views on the roles individuals play vary. For example, we know racial prejudice is a learned behavior, typically accepted by children and as they move through the socialization process and are exposed to more ideas and different people, the ideas that were initially taught and provide the foundation for prejudices are challenged and in some people, are either rejected or are reinforced.
Can these differences in our views be delineated by sex? geography? age? ethnicity? religion? educational attainment? income levels?
These are all factors that influence and shape our ideas and as these change as we move through the stages of our 'life cycle' where different things are happening at different ages. Clearly, this is the basis for the ideas you possess as a teenager that your parents cannot POSSIBLY understand what you are going through---according to teenagers, the world is TOTALLY about----your parents, on the other hand, have bills to pay. The ideas you possess about equity as a child change dramatically as you age and begin to have children of your own. This is, in large part, why there are differences present in our society that we call 'gaps'. Generation gaps, gender gaps, ethnic gaps are all examples of things that when measured between groups present stark contrasts.
There is significant evidence in the literature that how we express ourselves politically is generationally tied and rooted in immutable characteristics like our ethnicity and gender, but can be significantly influenced by major events that occur during our life cycle, the level of education that we acquire, the level of income we achieve, our mobility and geographic location, our religion, as well as any pressures to conform we perceive in our society. These differences can create significant conflict within a community and ultimately, a nation-state.
One example is the polarized division of individuals and communities because of political ideology. Political ideology is the manifestation of our beliefs and we will typically characterize ourselves as liberal, conservative or moderate. These 'characterizations' are labeled as political parties and we align ourselves with these parties based upon cleavages we have as members of groups, whether those be by income class, level of education, gender or ethnicity. However, the literature seems to indicate that there is a hierarchical arrangement of cleavages. For example, ethnicity seems to be a very strong influence and explains why eight out of every 10 African Americans align themselves with the Democratic party.
....donkeys, elephants and greens, oh my~
Political parties reflect the 'packaging' and 'labeling' of our ideology. As has already been mentioned, there are several factors which influence our ideology, and these factors have been very thoroughly studied in the literature and tested repeatedly over the last forty years. These factors are referred to as 'predictors' and serve as markers, if you will, that predict the likelihood of identifying with a particular ideology as well as serving to foretell the propensity that exists for an individual to participate in politics.
The single most important book on the psychology of voting is The American Voter2 which was based upon national election surveys. These provided the foundation on which vote choice and behavior is studied, even to the present day. In fact, the authors were responsible for establishing a new movement and the creation of a new field of study in political science called political psychology! The authors discovered that ideology is inextricably tied to the predictors and these include our gender, ethnicity, educational attainment and income level, our age and even our geographic location. While enabling political scientists to gauge ideological affinity and propensity for voting behavior, this work was done during a very tumultuous time in our nation's history and much has changed since then. While these factors still remain very strong indicators for predicting voting behavior, the do not help explain the rise of 'the independent voter' who are those individuals that fail to identify with a political party.
But you might, like many others, not be quite sure what a liberal or conservative is. If we consider the definitions of liberal and conservative, it becomes a little easier, but even those definitions do not fully encapsulate the views of both. The absolute definition of a liberal is one who advocates change, new ideas and typically views government in a positive light; conservatives avoid change, value tradition and precedent and typically views government in a negative light. Generally, we view political ideology linearly, as on a spectrum from 'left' to 'right.'
Liberal (Left) <-------- Moderate (Middle) ----------> Conservative (Right)
For example, if we were to create a table depicting issues faced by our nation-state and the corresponding views of liberals versus conservatives, it might look something like this:
| Liberal (i.e. Left) | Conservative (i.e. Right) | |
| Representative Party | Democrats | Republicans |
| On Business | Mandate Regulations that would ensure consumer and worker protection | Do not mandate regulations and allow the free market to regulate |
| On Taxes | Tax the incomes more heavily on those most able to pay | End income taxes because it stifles economic growth---move to sales tax |
| Reproductive Freedom | Pro-choice, pro-family planning education | Pro-life, pro-abstinence only education |
| Social Spending | Increase | Decrease or maintain |
| Defense Spending | Decrease or maintain | Increase |
| Capital Punishment | Opposes | Supports |
| Government Size | Maintain the size of government and ensure agencies are fulfilling their regulatory missions | Reduce the size of government and privatize government services. Allow the market to 'regulate.' |
| World Peace | Utilize the Non-governmental organizations first and follow with military action if necessary warranted and supported by others | Utilize the military, preemptively if necessary. Consult with non-governmental organizations, but take action even if limited support is obtained |
| Same-Sex Marriage/Unions | Supports | Opposes |
| Affirmative Action | Supports | Opposes |
| Global Warming | Agrees with the scientific community that evidence exists suggesting this phenomenon is occurring | Opposes scientific community and believes there is insufficient evidence suggesting this phenomenon is occurring |
| Public Education | Supports free public education | Marginally supports free public education, supports the free market idea of education through vouchers and charter schools |
| Social Security | Increase age of eligibility and increase salary limits subject to social security tax | End social security and entrust individuals and the private market to dictate investments |
| Health Care | Supports universal healthcare through a single payer program | Allow the free market to meet the health-care needs of individuals |
| Religion | Maintain separation of church and state; opposes faith-based government initiatives | Supports the institutionalization of religion, supports faith-based government initiatives |
As you can see, there is diametric opposition on all of these issues, consequently, political parties emerge at different points in history to reflect these views as well as others that emerge due to unique circumstances that occur during our life cycle stages--like war, or slavery, or immigration, or women's rights to name a few.
One
of the more 'famous' maps depicting this opposition was the
Presidential Electors Map. It would seem to indicate
that America is dominated by red states, which reflect
'conservative' Republican values but this is a superficial
representation that does not effectively
or accurately depict the
ideological divide.
....go fly a kite!
Voting is merely one form of political participation. It is the most easy to measure of course, but is certainly not the only way we have to express our political ideology or identification with a party, to the extent that this exists. Certainly, we can write letters to the editor of newspapers or magazines, call or write or email our representatives, or even post political signs, but these are activities that, like the factors that cause us to identify with one party over another, can be ranked, hierarchically in terms of intensity, if you will.
Most people, when they vote, do so out of habit. In terms of the cognitive 'investment' required, the simple act of voting is often one characterized by simple responses. Compared with running for political office, voting is a 'lower form' of political participation. If we were to, like ideology, create a spectrum depicting a linear relationship, it might look like this:
| voting--> | contacting legislators--> |
protesting/ picketing involved in ----> campaigns |
petitioning---> | testifying before committees---> on matters of policy |
running for political office |
As you move from left to right across the spectrum, more effort is involved and this indicates that there is more intensity present in the individual's desire to express their political ideology. What is interesting is that since the 1960s, when this research on political ideology began, while there has been an overall decline in party identification, there has been an increase in ideological extremism.
....the culture wars and the purple states
Abortion, English-only, gay marriage, public prayer and the 10 Commandments are just a few examples of what are called wedge issues. Wedge issues are used to mobilize, typically by fear, one or more groups against another. Wedge issues have been used for decades in America to entice voters to one political party or another. Groups that attempt to use wedge issues will first appeal to their core groups, but may 'tone down' the rhetoric when the attempt to expand their reach to broader groups. Wedge issues, however, typically do not incite mass movements and arguably, may be a major factor in the trending of individuals to reject political parties altogether.
If there were a moment in modern history that could be pinpointed as the point at which elections reflects a 'clash over values' it would have been in 1980. The Republic Party Platform was transformed to include the ideas brought forth by a growing movement from the 1970s called the Moral Majority and other similar groups. Women and women's issues had proved a lightening rod--Equal rights, reproductive freedom, equal pay galvanized behind Christian organizations like Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, Phyllis Schlafly's Concerned Women for America in thwarting policies that contradicted biblical precepts on the 'right and proper' role of women as homemaker, wife and mother. Of course, their cause expanded to include other polarizing issues like Affirmative Action, gay and lesbian rights, prayer in school and the like and all of these are issues that present opportunities for the political parties to wrest voters from each other.
....the 50-50 nation---who wins?
Although
many might like to believe that we are a nation divided neatly into
red and
blue states, the reality is much different. As the map on the
right here indicates, America is a lovely shade of lavender, for the
most part. While there are clearly areas of red and blue, the
map here indicates stark contrast to the first
map you looked at earlier in the lecture. In the
grand scheme of things, our nation is divided, clearly
geographically, among competing values, but ironically,
partisanship is a
'symptom' not the illness. Competing values drive our
identification to different political parties, which in turn, while
representing them, create wedges that consequently divide us even
further. American political culture has reached a point
wherein there is real division and contention, it is not imagined or
created by the media. Diverse views and cultures and have
always found haven in America and will likely continue to; but this
diversity continues to present challenges. The question is
will America continue to represent to the world the success of 'the
great experiment' we call democracy?
This concludes Lecture 5
------------------------------------
1.
Williams, Roger.
1989. 'Culture is Ordinary', in
Resources of Hope.
London: Verso. p. 4;
2.
Campbell Angus, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, & Donald
Stokes, 1960.