Curmudgeonly Advice

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74807/1/j.1460-2466.2006.00335.x.pd

Democratic Discussion

In this piece one of the country’s most accomplished survey researchers joins forces with a major democratic theorist (they happen to be colleagues at the same institution, the University of Michigan)—and together they try to reconcile what might seem irreconcilable: survey research findings about voter ignorance, on the one hand, with John Stuart Mill’s ideal of government by discussion, on the other. Read them carefully to ascertain the basis of reconciliation, for it is subtle: they extrapolate from John Dewey’s concept of “contingent social practices.” That is undoubtedly a mouthful, but it implies—as you will see—that the relative political sophistication of the citizenry’s many members, the extent to which they “get” what is happening with political debates, varies according to how much competitive politics pulls them in. Citizens have the capacity to follow public debate clearly in their own minds, even if they have no immediate plans for writing effective letters to the editor or speaking at local meetings about an issue. But that ca-pacity depends to a considerable extent on how absorbing the larger political environment is. And sometimes that environment can be very absorbing indeed—as the next article, by John Zaller, shows

Democratic Discussion

Democracy, remarked H. L. Mencken, is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. Mencken found American politics a droll spectacle and showered contempt on the dullards he named the booboisie. Plenty of other intelligent and perceptive observers have concluded that ordinary citizens are flatly incapable of shouldering the burdens of democracy. Uninformed and uninterested, absorbed in the pressing business of private life, unable to trace out the consequences of political action, citizens possess neither the skills nor the resources required for what Walter Bagehot pithily named government by discussion. In this light, democratic theorists might appear hopelessly naive or romantic, bent on promoting a politics we haven\u27t seen yet, and likely never will. We want here to take the challenge of antidemocratic thought seriously, particularly on the question of the intelligence of democratic discussion. Our aim is to assess the quality of the political conversations that go on between the American public and American leaders. Our special interest is in what citizens have to say, both to each other and to their elected representatives. But assessing the quality of such discussions requires an assessment not only of the skills and interests of citizens but of the political environment in which citizens find themselves: the opportunities for political learning and the quality of political information (Page and Shapiro 1988, 13) that are made available to them. And we want to evaluate both where we are now and where we might be in the future, not in some utopian and unrealizable rendition of American society, but in a foreseeable one. We begin by summarizing Mill\u27s vision of democracy, which accords discussion a central place. Next we review the attack on the possibility of democratic discussion implicitly mounted in recent American survey research, especially as set out in the authoritative and influential writings of Philip Converse. Then, in the heart of the chapter, we examine several different lines of argument and evidence that offer the possibility of modifying Converse\u27s melancholy conclusions. Democratic discussion may be more than just a romantic dream. We needn\u27t be breathless and starry-eyed-determined to see some blue sky in the midst of clouds of disillusioning facts (Schumpeter 1942, 256 )-to resist the thesis that voters are invincibly ignorant

Ethnocentrism as a Short‐Term Force in the 2008 American Presidential Election

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91187/1/AJPS_564_sm_suppmat.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91187/2/j.1540-5907.2011.00564.x.pd

Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites: Evidence from Technology Entrepreneurs

Economic elites regularly seek to exert political influence. But what policies do they support? Many accounts implicitly assume economic elites are homogeneous and that increases in their political power will increase inequality. We shed new light on heterogeneity in economic elites' political preferences, arguing that economic elites from an industry can share distinctive preferences due in part to sharing distinctive predispositions. Consequently, how increases in economic elites' influence affect inequality depends on which industry's elites are gaining influence and which policy issues are at stake. We demonstrate our argument with four original surveys, including the two largest political surveys of American economic elites to date: one of technology entrepreneurs—whose influence is burgeoning—and another of campaign donors. We show that technology entrepreneurs support liberal redistributive, social, and globalistic policies but conservative regulatory policies—a bundle of preferences rare among other economic elites. These differences appear to arise partly from their distinctive predispositions

EC85-219 1985 Nebraska Swine Report

This 1985 Nebraska Swine Report was prepared by the staff in Animal Science and cooperating departments for use in the Extension and Teaching programs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Authors from the following areas contributed to this publication: Swine Nutrition, swine diseases, pathology, economics, engineering, swine breeding, meats, agronomy, and diagnostic laboratory. It covers the following areas: breeding, disease control, feeding, nutrition, economics, housing and meats

Modern American populism: Analyzing the economics behind the Silent Majority, the Tea Party and Trumpism

This article researches populism, more specifically, Modern American Populism (MAP), constructed of white, rural, and economically oppressed reactionarianism, which was borne out of the political upheaval of the 1960’s Civil Rights movement. The research looks to explain the causes of populism and what leads voters to support populist movements and politicians. The research focuses on economic anxiety as the main cause but also examines an alternative theory of racial resentment. In an effort to answer the question, what causes populist movements and motivations, I apply a research approach that utilizes qualitative and quantitative methods. There is an examination of literature that defines populism, its causes and a detailed discussion of the case studies, including the 1972 election of Richard Nixon; the Tea Party election of 2010; and the 2016 election of Donald Trump. In addition, statistical data analysis was run using American National Election Studies (ANES) surveys associated with each specific case study. These case studies were chosen because they most represent forms of populist movements in modern American history. While ample qualitative evidence suggested support for the hypothesis that economic anxiety is a necessary condition for populist voting patterns that elected Nixon, the Tea Party and Trump, the statistical data only supported the hypothesis in two cases, 2010 and 2016, with 1972 coming back inconclusive. The data also suggested that both economic anxiety and racial resentment played a role in 2010 and 2016, while having no significant effect in 1972 in either case. This suggests that further research needs to be conducted into additional populist case studies, as well as an examination into the role economic anxiety and economic crises play on racial resentment and racially motivated voting behavior