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AP Gov Unit 4: American Political Ideologies and Beliefs

  • Ideologies
    • Liberal: more government economic regulation, personal privacy is very important
    • Conservative: less government economic involvement, some government involvement in personal privacy (but not in regulation/education)
    • Libertarian: bare minimum government involvement in economy (only property right and voluntary trade), personal privacy (only private property/individual liberty)
  • Formation of Ideologies
    • Political socialization: process through which individual/group develops opinions/attitudes on society and politics
    • Factors: environment, age cycle, family, school, peers, media, religion, civic organizations, globalization
    • Political events/era: major political events can significantly change/spread ideologies
  • Manifestation of Ideologies
    • Linkage Institutions: allow communication of policy preferences (ex. interest groups, elections, parties)
    • Political parties: DEM - left-leaning, generally more liberal, GOP - right leaning, generally more conservative
    • %%Planned Parenthood v. Casey%%
    • %%Obergefell v. Hodges%%
    • Public Opinion: distribution of views of an issue/candidate/intuition, can indicate political will
  • Measuring Public Opinion
    • Types of Scientific Polls: opinion (small section), entrance/exit (election day), benchmark polls (for later comparison), tracking (change in 1 group), mass survey (large sample - interviews), focus group (small, in depth discussion)
    • Evaluating data: validity/veracity depends on method, questions
    • Flaws: open ended questions, insufficient sample size, high margin of error