A Second Look at Views on Women’s Ordination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Knoll and ◽  
Cammie Jo Bolin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Tool ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Accurate Picture ◽  
Female Clergy ◽  
Women's Ordination ◽  
List Experiment ◽  
Item Count Technique

This chapter asks whether it is reasonable to expect that the data is revealing a fully accurate picture of the prevalence of support for female ordination in the United States. When asked by a telephone surveyor whether they are in favor of women being allowed to serve as clergy in their own congregation, respondents might feel social pressure to say “yes” when in actuality they are more hesitant. This chapter takes advantage of a survey tool called a “list experiment” (or “item-count technique”) to examine whether there is any evidence that support for female ordination is either over- or underreported in our public opinion surveys. It finds this is indeed the case: support for female clergy is likely overreported among our survey respondents, especially among women, meaning that there are fewer supporters of female ordination than our public opinion surveys would lead one to believe.

scholarly journals The January 6 Insurrection and America's Standing Abroad: Natural Experimental Evidence from Five Unexpectedly Interrupted Public Opinion Surveys

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam van Noort
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Experimental Test ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Random Digit Dialing ◽  
Random Digit ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nationally Representative

American geopolitical power partly relies on foreign public support for its leadership. Pundits worry that this support is evaporating now that the United States—which claims to be the world’s beacon of democracy—has itself experienced democratic back- sliding. I provide the first natural experimental test of this hypothesis by exploiting that the January 6 insurrection of the US Capitol unexpectedly occurred while Gallup was conducting nationally-representative surveys in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Romania, and Vietnam. Because Gallup uses random digit dialing I can identify the effect by comparing US leadership approval among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, January 6, 2021. I find that the insurrection had no effect on US approval. If even a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election does not affect US approval abroad it is unlikely that any other domestic anti-democratic event will.

Recent Public Opinion in the United States Toward Punishment and Corrections

1993 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER A. INNES
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
The Public ◽  
Generalized System ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Do So

This article reviews recent public opinion data concerning punishment and corrections, yielding a number of apparently contradictory viewpoints. Rather than being irrational or unrealistic, these patterns of responses, it is argued here, can be deciphered only by assuming that the public holds a complex, generalized system of beliefs about punishment and corrections. This system of beliefs, however, is organized around broader symbols and images, not a set of mutually exclusive and logically consistent policy options. The public appears to have an abstract commitment to justice, wants the criminal justice system to work properly, and is frustrated that it does not appear to do so. Although the public is decidedly punitive toward criminals, they are more lenient toward inmates because they are no longer seen as an immediate threat. Rehabilitative efforts, so long as they are conducted within prisons, receive strong support. But the public is more wary of programs that carry greater risks because of a perceived conflict with the higher priority goal of public safety. This view is speculative; no single survey or study has explored all these issues together. It is, however, consistent with the details of various public opinion surveys, and it also lends support to those current correctional practices that seek to integrate programs for inmates with the more general concerns of correctional management. There are, therefore, several ways that correctional administrators can present their mission in a manner that is sensitive to the concerns of the public and that avoids language or terms that may be misinterpreted.

Trust in Government and the American Public’s Responsiveness to Rising Inequality

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 790-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
State Level ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Combine Data ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The Relationship

The United States has become increasingly unequal. Income inequality has risen dramatically since the 1970s, yet public opinion toward redistribution has remained largely unchanged. This is puzzling, given Americans’ professed concern regarding, and knowledge of, rising inequality. I argue that trust in government can help to reconcile this. I combine data on state-level income inequality with survey data from the Cumulative American National Election Studies (CANES) from 1984 to 2016. I find that trust in government conditions the relationship between inequality and redistribution, with higher inequality prompting demand for government redistribution, but only among politically trustful individuals. This holds among conservatives and non-conservatives and among the affluent and non-affluent. These findings underscore the relevance of political trust in shaping attitudes toward inequality and economic redistribution and contribute to our understanding of why American public opinion has not turned in favor of redistribution during an era of rising income inequality.

scholarly journals Introduction to the Special Issue: Soft Power of Civil Society in International Relations

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-476
Author(s):  
TAKASHI INOGUCHI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Policy Makers

This special issue focuses on the role of civil society in international relations. It highlights the dynamics and impacts of public opinion on international relations (Zaller, 1992). Until recently, it was usual to consider public opinion in terms of its influence on policy makers and in terms of moulding public opinion in the broad frame of the policy makers in one's country. Given that public opinion in the United States was assessed and judged so frequently and diffused so globally, it was natural to frame questions guided by those concepts which pertained to the global and domestic context of the United States.

scholarly journals Moving a Mountain: The Extraordinary Trajectory of Same-Sex Marriage Approval in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311772765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Election Studies

Most public opinion attitudes in the United States are reasonably stable over time. Using data from the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies, I quantify typical change rates across all attitudes. I quantify the extent to which change in same-sex marriage approval (and liberalization in attitudes toward gay rights in general) are among a small set of rapid changing outliers in surveyed public opinions. No measured public opinion attitude in the United States has changed more and more quickly than same-sex marriage. I use survey data from Newsweek to illustrate the rapid increase in the 1980s and 1990s in Americans who had friends or family who they knew to be gay or lesbian and demonstrate how contact with out-of-the-closet gays and lesbians was influential. I discuss several potential historical and social movement theory explanations for the rapid liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights in the United States, including the surprising influence of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Two Models of Public Opinion: Bacon's ‘New Logic’ and Diotima's ‘Tale of Love’ (The Prothero Lecture)

1974 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Beer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Government ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Work Done

It is appropriate that an American should address himself to the subject of public opinion. For, in terms of quantity, Americans have made the subject peculiarly their own. They have also invested it with characteristically American concerns. Most of the work done on the subject in the United States is oriented by a certain theoretical approach. This approach is democratic and rationalist. Both aspects create problems. In this paper I wish to play down the democratic problem, viz., how many of the voters are capable of thinking sensibly about public policy, and emphasize rather the difficulties that arise from modern rationalism. Here I take a different tack from most historians of the concept of public opinion, who, taking note of the origin of the term in the mid-eighteenth century, stress its connection with the rise of representative government and democratic theory.

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