Module 9 Public Opinion and Interest Groups

Overview

Module 9 for the ninth week of the course includes a page giving an overview of the Module’s content and the week’s activities. It is reproduced here:

Module 9 (Week 9) OVERVIEW (READ THIS FIRST!) – Public Opinion and Interest Groups

[insert cartoon from Calvin and Hobbes 1994 – Calvin informing Dad that his popularity rating is down 5 points]

[insert image from 538.com chart of Joe Biden popularity based on aggregation of public opinion polls]

Chapter 6 – Public Opinion

Public opinion polls in American politics are surveys that tell us about the attitudes and opinions of members of the public – especially voters – on important public policy issues or on their preferences for candidates for elective office. Chapter 6 is intended to give you a better understanding about how polls measure public opinion, how the results are used, what determines their reliability, and how they can be used (or misused) to shape public opinion.

During the  heights of the coronavirus pandemic, many polls focused on the attitudes of Americans about how well the pandemic was being handled by both state and federal governments, how people felt about stay at home restrictions, the financial impacts people were experiencing, and the prospects for economic reopening. Other polling sampled opinions about the claims of election fraud in the 2020 elections and public confidence in our democratic elections system. Polling results can vary dramatically across regions of the country, different demographics of age, gender, ethnicity, education level and income. Who does the polling and why is there so much of it? How do you think this kind of polling influences government decision makers? How do polling results affect you and your own attitudes? Did you know that your chance of being selected to answer a national public opinion poll is only about .001 percent? (Odds of 1,000 to 1; winning MegaMillions lottery? – 290 million to 1.)

In the months leading up to the presidential general election in November 2020 a lot of polls focused on the race between Biden and Trump. Most of these kinds of polls are known as “horse race” polls, as they track who is leading or trailing in the campaign at any given time, and how they may have gained or lost ground over a select period of time. We will take a look at polls that were done prior to the 2020 presidential election and the 2022 midterm elections and discuss how predictive they were of the eventual election results. Polls before the 2016 presidential election uniformly failed to predict Donald Trump’s victory. How accurate was polling for November 2020 election? November 2022?

We will also take a closer look at public opinion based on the key demographic of age – specifically, how opinions vary depending on which generation is measured, e.g., Millennials vs. Generation Z (to which most of you belong!).

[insert photo of David Hogg, a leader of Parkland mass shooting survivors giving speech]

Chapter 11 – Interest Groups

In chapter 9’s focus on political parties, it was noted that the Framers thought they had written the Constitution in a way to prevent “factions” from arising. Of course, they were wrong — instantly — as the Federalists and anti-Federalists grew into the first US political parties. Interest groups are also a kind of “faction”, and political parties are a kind of interest group that focuses on obtaining the reins of governmental power, in general. Compared to political parties, interest groups have more limited goals, seeking to influence government decision-makers for specific results rather than gain government office themselves. This might include supporting candidates for public office, like parties do, but it also includes a wide range of other activity.

Interest groups are voluntary organizations outside of government. They represent the interests of their members in seeking results from government that benefit their members. These are often referred to as special interest groups (e.g., businesses, labor unions, professional associations), while groups whose goals are broader are often referred to as public interest groups (e.g., environmental, government reform, gun rights or gun control). All such groups are based on the idea of collective action – that seeking benefits from government is more effective when done as a group rather than as an individual. It also raises the problem we encountered earlier in the quarter about the free rider – those who don’t bother to participate in politics (not voting, not joining groups) but still benefit from the actions of those who do.

What motivates people to join or participate in interest groups or their activities? Were the protesters who stormed the Capitol January 6, seeking to stop the electoral vote count, acting only as individuals or were they members of, or organized by, an interest group? Does this knowledge affect how such protests are perceived by the public or by elected officials? What would motivate YOU to join or participate in an interest group or its activities? We will examine the “benefits” some groups offer to recruit members to join.

We will also look at the different strategies groups use to achieve their goals – “inside” strategies focused directly on government decision-makers, or “outside” strategies designed to bring pressure to bear on government officials by influencing public opinion or seeking remedies in court. And let’s not forget the influence of groups using money, especially “dark money” that masks the identity of the donor, as seen in the film Dark Money.

[insert photo of Black Lives Matter protest march from 2020]

Interest groups and your Research Project

Finally, keep in mind two of the requirements of your Research Project – 1) to identify an advocacy (interest) group from within the marginalized community you have researched to see what solutions they have proposed (remember – “nothing about us without us”) to the issue you are researching, and 2) how an individual could step up as an ally to help with this issue for this community – often joining or supporting an advocacy group is a ready-made way to do it.

Classroom Lessons and Activities

Discussion 9.1 – VIDEO: Parkland Students and Interest Group Strategy

For Class Discussion on Thursday: Open and download/print the document “10 Questions Framework: Parkland Viewing Guide”. [from a lesson plan in https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/10-questions-present-parkland-student-activism]

As you watch the video at the link below, try to answer as many of the questions in the Framework as you can (jot down brief notes only – for discussion), and think about how they relate to interest groups’ formation, organization and strategy.

Click on the link below to watch the video, to be discussed in class:

The Road to Change Tour – How Parkland Students Went from Teens to Activists
https://video.vice.com/en_ca/video/the-road-to-change-tour-how-parkland-students-went-from-teens-to-activists/5b71bee4be4077655e22eb62Links to an external site.

Additional Resources

Other resources and documents used in class for this Module, including PowerPoint lecture slides, are in the Appendix.