Political Awareness, Opinion Constraint and the Stability of Ideological Positions
- 1 June 2000
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Political Studies
- Vol. 48 (3), 467-484
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00270
Abstract
Some studies of public opinion suggest that most people are ignorant about the detail of politics and are simply unable to arrive at a considered vote. They hold that voters are ignorant about the ideological substance of politics, since their opinions do not appear to be constrained by ideas and are unstable over time. However, other studies cast doubt on both the definition of ideology employed in these studies and their operational measures. It is suggested that, once allowance is made for measurement error, the opinions of most voters are constrained and highly stable. This article demonstrates that differences in political awareness result in considerable heterogeneity among the electorate. The opinions of more aware voters are subject to greater constraint and are more stable over time than those of less aware voters. It is therefore suggested that issue-voting models must be applied with caution to less aware voters.This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Left-Right Position Matters, But Does Social Class? Causal Models of the 1992 British General ElectionBritish Journal of Political Science, 1998
- Political Expertise and Issue Voting in Presidential ElectionsPolitical Research Quarterly, 1997
- Measuring Left-Right and Libertarian-Authoritarian Values in the British ElectorateBritish Journal of Sociology, 1996
- Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential ElectionsAmerican Journal of Political Science, 1996
- The Measurement of Core Beliefs and Values: The Development of Balanced Socialist/Laissez Faire and Libertarian/Authoritarian ScalesBritish Journal of Political Science, 1994
- A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing PreferencesAmerican Journal of Political Science, 1992
- Heterogeneity in Models of Electoral ChoiceAmerican Journal of Political Science, 1988
- Structure and Consistency in Public Opinion: the Role of Core Beliefs and ValuesAmerican Journal of Political Science, 1988
- A Hierarchical Model of Attitude ConstraintAmerican Journal of Political Science, 1985
- Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey ResponseAmerican Political Science Review, 1975