Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public
228
Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public
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Overview
Well, American elites disagree fiercely. But average Americans do not. This, at least, was the position staked out by Philip Converse in his famous essay on belief systems, which drew on surveys carried out during the Eisenhower Era to conclude that most Americans were innocent of ideology. In Neither Liberal nor Conservative, Donald Kinder and
Nathan Kalmoe argue that ideological innocence applies nearly as well to the current state of American public opinion. Real liberals and real conservatives are found in impressive numbers only among those who are deeply engaged in political life. The ideological battles between American political elites show up as scattered skirmishes in the general public, if they show up at all.
If ideology is out of reach for all but a few who are deeply and seriously engaged in political life, how do Americans decide whom to elect president; whether affirmative action is good or bad? Kinder and Kalmoe offer a persuasive group-centered answer. Political preferences arise less from ideological differences than from the attachments and antagonisms of group life.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780226452593 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2022 |
| Series: | Chicago Studies in American Politics |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 228 |
| File size: | 995 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Neither Liberal nor Conservative
Ideological Innocence in the American Public
By Donald R. Kinder, Nathan P. Kalmoe
The University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 2017 The University of ChicagoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-45231-9
CHAPTER 1
Converse's Claim
According to Converse, most Americans display little or no evidence of ideology in their thinking about public affairs. Of liberalism and conservatism — not to speak of more arcane political programs — Americans are largely innocent. In this chapter we retrace Converse's famous and foundational argument. If we are to make sense of the great debate over the ideological capacity of mass publics, we must begin at the beginning, with what Converse was up to back in 1964.
Ideology Defined
When Converse alleges that Americans are innocent of ideology, what is it he is claiming they are missing? Innocent of what, exactly?
This question is less straightforward than it may appear, for ideology has been defined in multiple ways and put to a variety of purposes. The result, predictably enough, is confusion. According to Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill, and Bryan Turner (1980, 187), "the notion of 'ideology' has given rise to more analytical and conceptual difficulties than almost any other term in the social sciences." To Giovanni Sartori (1969, 398), the growing popularity of the term "ideology" is matched only "by its growing obscurity." Jon Elster (1985, 460) warns us that the study of ideology "is fraught with dangers and difficulties, provoking resignation in some, foolhardiness in others." We could go on.
The term itself has experienced a serpentine history. It was invented by a French aristocrat who survived the Revolution to publish Éléments d'Idéologie (Destutt de Tracy 1801). By ideology, Count Antoine Destutt de Tracy meant those ideas drawn from competing political philosophies designed to inspire political loyalties and motivate political action (Lakoff 2011). Ideologies were "social romances" — collections of "political proposals, perhaps somewhat intellectualistic and impractical but at any rate idealistic" (Geertz 1973, 193).
By the middle of the twentieth century, the meaning of ideology had taken a sinister turn. In his essay "Ideology and Civility," published in 1958, Edward Shils offered a warning against the ideological outlooks that had "encircled and invaded public life" (450). As cases in point, Shils had in mind Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and Russian Bolshevism. Such programs differed from one another in important ways, but they shared "the assumption that politics should be conducted from the standpoint of a coherent, comprehensive set of beliefs which must override every other consideration" (450). An odious feature of ideology, defined this way, is its imperial domination of all spheres of life. Ideology "replaces religion, provides aesthetic criteria, rules over scientific research and philosophic thought, and regulates sexual and family life" (451).
Although we acknowledge that ideology, carried to an extreme, can become the enemy of reason, Shils's conception of ideology is not ours. Nor is it what Converse had in mind. Indeed, critics who charged that Converse had underestimated the presence of ideology among the American electorate and sought to set things right believed they were doing ordinary people a favor.
The debate over the ideological capacity of mass publics began with Converse, and now more than fifty years later, it is not over yet. What has all the shouting been about? Without imagining that our conception of ideology will suit all tastes, we should at least lay our cards on the table. Here they are.
Ideology is a form of cognition. Ideology can of course refer to doctrine, as in the Communist Manifesto, or to practice, as in the division of labor between husbands and wives. Here, however, ideology refers to belief, or better, to configurations of beliefs. Ideology exists — if it exists — in the mind.
The subject of ideology is society, economics, and politics — as they are, and especially as they should be. That is, ideology expresses what people take to be right and proper. Opinions and actions justified in ideological terms lay claim to what all members of a political community should value.
The various ideas that comprise an ideology form an organized structure. Structure implies both that ideas are arranged in orderly, predictable patterns and that change in one idea requires change in others. Structure is a necessary condition for ideology. No structure, no ideology.
Ideological structures are shared. "The significance of ideology," as Hans Noel has written, "is that it organizes politics for many, not just for one" (2013, 41). Rival ideologies "compete over providing and controlling plans for public policy"; they are deployed "with the aim of justifying, contesting, or changing the social and political arrangements and processes of a political community" (Freeden 2003, 32).
Finally, beliefs that constitute an ideology are held sincerely and steadfastly. Those beliefs that occupy a central position in an ideological system — insistence on equality for one person, the value of tradition for another — are especially resistant to change. For the true believer, core beliefs are prized possessions: fiercely defended, relinquished only under extraordinary circumstances.
Ideology, understood in this way, supplies citizens with a stable foundation for understanding and action. Those who come to politics equipped with ideology enjoy a comparative advantage: "new political events have more meaning, retention of political information from the past is far more adequate, and political behavior increasingly approximates that of sophisticated 'rational' models, which assume relatively full information" (Converse 1964, 227).
Ideology seems, from this perspective, an altogether good thing. If Americans approached the political world with an ideology in mind, they would see that world clearly, understand it well, and form opinions and make decisions that faithfully reflect their core beliefs. Under this condition, strong democracy — government responsive to the articulated preferences of the people — seems less a sentimental dream and more a practical possibility. And so, putting our central question crudely: do Americans in fact approach the world of politics with an ideology in mind?
Argument and Evidence
We already know Converse's answer: a resounding, emphatic no. He arrived at this answer not through armchair theorizing but through painstaking empirical examination of the first round of national electionstudies. The studies covered the 1956, 1958, and 1960 presidential and midterm elections and were carried out to high standards by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. Respondents were selected by probability sampling, which ensured that every person in the continental United States had an equal (if small) chance of being included in the sample. Professional interviewers conducted lengthy, carefully scripted conversations on politics with Americans from all walks of life: rich and poor, men and women, those vitally interested in politics and those who could scarcely care less, and more, each proportional to their actual presence in American society.
Provided these rich materials, Converse embarked on his study. He began by investigating the extent to which Americans make use of ideological categories in their assessment of prominent political objects. Early on in the 1956 election study, respondents were asked what they liked and what they disliked about the Democratic and Republican parties, and in a separate set of questions, what they liked and disliked about Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower, the Democratic and Republican candidates for president that year. Interviewers were instructed to press gently but insistently for as many as five separate answers for each question. The questions themselves were completely open ended. People could say whatever they cared to. Whatever they said was carefully recorded by the interviewers. These verbatim transcriptions were then sent back to the Survey Research Center at Michigan and pored over by Converse for evidence of ideological thinking.
Such evidence turned out to be hard to find. Converse regarded Americans to be in possession of an ideological point of view if they justified their political attachments by invoking ideological concepts. Here's an illustration of what Converse had in mind, drawn from an interview with a Chicago suburban woman. Let's call her Fran:
Interviewer: Is there anything you dislike about the Democrats?
Fran: From being raised in a notoriously Republican section — a small town downstate — there were things I didn't like. There was family influence that way.
I: What in particular was there you didn't like about the Democratic Party?
Fran: Well, the Democratic Party tends to favor socialized medicine — and I'm being influenced in that because I came from a doctor's family.
I: Is there anything you like about the Republicans?
Fran: Well, I think they're more middle-of-the-road — more conservative.
I: How do you mean "conservative"?
Fran: They are not so subject to radical change.
I: Is there anything else in particular that you like about the Republican Party?
Fran: Oh, I like their foreign policy — and the segregation business, that's a middle-of-the-road policy. You can't push it too fast. You can instigate things, but you have to let them take their course slowly. (Campbell et al. 1960, 228–29)
In these remarks, Fran does not appear to be an exceptional observer of politics. She has absorbed some of the ideological abstractions of her time, and she makes sensible use of them in justifying her political views.
In an actuarial sense, however, Fran is exceptional. By Converse's criteria, only 2.5 percent of the American electorate merit ideological classification. This despite the fact that respondents were graded according to their most "elevated" answer: that is, any evidence of ideological justification appearing in any portion of their commentary on the parties or on the candidates was sufficient to place them into the ideological category. And yet very few pass this test. Fran, it turns out, belongs to a small and select club.
Those who made use of ideological concepts but appeared neither to rely upon them heavily nor to understand them well were placed in a second category, "Near-Ideologue." Here's an example, drawn from an interview with a man living in southern California. We'll call him David:
Interviewer: Is there anything you like about the Democrats?
David: The Democratic Party is more for higher social security. They're more for old age pensions and better working conditions for the working man. They want a higher standard of living for all people, not just a few. The promises made by the Democrats are kept if at all possible. The facts are told to the American people.
I: Is there anything you like about the Republicans?
David: I dislike everything about the Republican Party.
I: Could you explain what you mean?
David: I was growing up at the time of the Hoover Administration. What a time I had, too. There was barely enough to eat. I don't think the Republicans wanted that, but they still did nothing to stop it. Not until Roosevelt came along and made things start to happen. Now the Republican Party still stands for big business, at the expense of the farmer and the working man. Promises made are not kept — ask the poor farmer, if no one else. (234)
Near-ideologues, who "knew some of the words but were not convincing with the whole tune" (Converse 2006, 307), made up another 9 percent of the public.
Insofar as Americans relied on ideological categories, they remained orthodox. The open-ended questions could have uncovered any variety of ideology. To be placed in the top groups, respondents had to show only that they made more or less sensible use of an ideological idea. Libertarianism, socialism, populism: any of these would have done the trick. What Converse discovered, however, when he discovered any evidence of ideology at all, came almost exclusively in terms of liberalism and conservatism.
By Converse's first test, barely one in ten Americans comes to politics with an ideology in mind. Not surprisingly, members of this select group of the ideologically inclined are unusual in other ways as well. They express special interest in politics. They are comparatively well educated. They know more about current affairs. In such circles, ideology is relatively common. Outside such circles, it is exceedingly rare.
If the overwhelming majority of Americans think about the candidates and the parties without reference to ideology, what do they refer to instead? Many appear to regard parties and candidates as agents of group interest: as standing for (or against) the working man, or big business. Some bring up (sometimes imaginary) associations between parties and candidates, on the one hand, and the good or bad times they seem to deliver, on the other. Still others explain their attachments as a consequence of family tradition. A sizeable number are so disengaged from politics that they can muster no reason at all why they might prefer one candidate or party over another.
Unprompted use of ideology is one thing. Understanding ideology is another. In principle, significant numbers of Americans could possess an understanding of liberalism and conservatism despite failing to make use of ideological concepts when justifying their own political judgments. This would be important. Those in possession of a reasonable understanding of basic ideological terms live in a different, richer, political world from those who do not. For the former, "the single word 'conservative' used to describe a piece of proposed legislation can convey a tremendous amount of more specific information about the bill — who probably proposed it and toward what ends, who is likely to resist it, its chances of passage, its long-term social consequences, and, most important, how the actor himself should expect to evaluate it if he were to expend further energy to look into its details" (Converse 1964, 214). For a person not so equipped, the term "conservative" simply flies by, contributing nothing to the person's understanding of political life.
The question here is what proportion of the American public can be said to understand ideological categories. To find out, Converse took advantage of a series of questions introduced into the 1960 election study. Respondents were asked whether they thought one of the parties was more conservative or more liberal than the other, then which party was the more conservative, and finally what they had in mind when they said that one party was more conservative than the other. Respondents who made it to the final stage were urged to offer multiple responses and were placed into the highest category merited by their "best" answer.
As expected, more Americans appear to understand ideological categories than make use of them on their own. Converse determined that about 17 percent of the public could both assign the terms "liberal" and "conservative" correctly to the parties and say something sensible about what the terms meant. They referred to differences between the parties over spending versus saving, social change, the virtues and limitations of capitalism, and the power of the federal government. By this test, about one in six Americans appear capable of following discussions carried out at an ideological level.
Most Americans are unfamiliar with liberal and conservative ideas, but this might mean only that they lack the ability to articulate the ideological principles that organize their political beliefs. The organization might be there nonetheless, and when push comes to shove, "it is the organization that matters, not the capacity for discourse in sophisticated language" (Converse 1964, 228).
This possibility motivated Converse to look for evidence of ideological organization. He did so by examining the structure of opinions on issues within each of two populations: a national cross section of the general public, and a smaller group made up of candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Both were interviewed in the fall of 1958. Both were asked their opinions on pressing domestic and foreign policy issues — aid to education, military support for countries menaced by Communist aggression, the government's responsibility to make sure that everyone who wants to work can find a job, and the like — issues that were selected to represent the major political controversies of the day.
For the general public and then for the congressional candidates, Converse calculated the correlations between opinions on each pair of issues. Differences in the structure of opinion between the two populations revealed by this simple analysis were dramatic. Candidates' views generally fell into predictable patterns. Across the various issues, prospective members of Congress tended to take liberal positions or they tended to take conservative positions. Consistency was the rule. Not so for the general public. Organization (or structure) among the opinions expressed by ordinary citizens was almost nonexistent. The rule here was — well, there seemed to be no rule. Citizens were unpredictable: liberal on some issues and conservative on others. Converse took this result to mean that widespread ideological innocence is not a surface problem — a failure to articulate the foundations of belief — but a deep one — the foundations themselves are absent. No structure, no ideology.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Neither Liberal nor Conservative by Donald R. Kinder, Nathan P. Kalmoe. Copyright © 2017 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
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Table of Contents
Preface Introduction: Innocent of Ideology?Converse and His Critics
Chapter 1. Converse’s Claim
Chapter 2. The Great Debate
The Nature of Ideological Identification in Mass Publics
Chapter 3. Meaning and Measurement of Ideological Identification
Chapter 4. Becoming Ideological
Chapter 5. In the Long Run
Chapter 6. Consequences?
Conclusion
Chapter 7. Findings and Implications Appendix A: Alternative Measures of Ideological Identification
Appendix B: Are Moderates Ideological?
Notes
References
Index