Converse: The nature of belief systems in mass publics
http://wikisum.com/w/Converse:_The_nature_of_belief_systems_in_mass_publics
A great majority of people neither adhere to a full, complete set of beliefs which produces a clear ideology nor do they have a clear grasp of what ideology is. This is measured by a lack of coherence in responses to open-ended questions. Ideology of elites is not mirrored by the masses and voter revolt to a political party does not reflect ideological shifts.
Converse analyzes open-ended interview questions to measure conceptualization of ideology. He concludes that the liberal-conservative continuum is a high level abstraction not typically used by the man in the street because of response instability and lack of connections made between answers. There is no underlying belief structure for most people, just a bunch of random opinions. Even on highly controversial, well-publicized issues, large portions of the electorate do not have coherent opinions. In fact, many simply answer survey questions as though they are flipping a coin.
Though some political sophisticates do structure their opinions in a larger ideological framework, such structure is rare. This level of political sophistication (one's "level of conceptualization"
is correlated positively with the respondent's level of education, degree of political involvement, and amount of political information.
Key points: Most people do not have strong belief systems; that is, they do not think ideologically. A minority of people have fixed preferences and answer survey questions consistently, but most simply give random answers. Most people do not interpret politics through an ideological lens.
The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics
http://politicalbubbles.com/The_Nature_of_Belief_Systems_in_Mass_Publics_Converse_1964.pdf
Danzig gets some parts right, but he believes those who support the President (and by extension, drone strikes) are "liberals."
I love Danzig/Misfits, but this is one of those "Shut up and play" moments.
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