Strategic Position with the Public

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
General Direction ◽  
The Public ◽  
Strong Position ◽  
Strategic Position

This chapter illustrates the advantages of focusing on the president’s existing opportunity structure by analyzing Barack Obama’s strategic position with the public to explain why he faced such difficulties in obtaining the public’s support. It argues that all presidents wishing to make important changes in public policy should seek to answer the following questions about their strategic position with public opinion: Did the public provide the president an electoral mandate for his policies? Does the public support the general direction of the president’s policies? How polarized is public opinion? How malleable is public opinion? By answering these questions, we are in a strong position to understand the potential of presidential leadership of the public and more importantly, to predict the likelihood of the president obtaining the public’s support for his programs.

Asking the Right Questions

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Successful Leadership ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
The Right

This book examines the role of presidential leadership in American politics, arguing that the key to successful leadership for the president is not persuasion but the president’s broad strategic position regarding the public, and that to reveal this position requires asking the right questions. It illustrates the advantages of focusing on the president’s existing opportunity structure by analyzing the first two years of Barack Obama’s second term. In particular, it considers Obama’s strategic position—his opportunity structure—with the public to explain why he faced such difficulties in obtaining the public’s support. It also explores the president’s opportunity structure in Congress and how he exploits existing public opinion on policies. Finally, it discusses the importance of strategic assessments in presidential leadership and the leverage they give us in evaluating the likely success of strategies for governing.

Strategic Position with Congress

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ideological Polarization ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Key Questions

This chapter examines Barack Obama’s strategic position with Congress, again explaining why he was not more successful. Presidential persuasion is at the margins of congressional decision making. There are several components of the opportunity for obtaining support from both Democrats and Republicans, aside from existing public support for the president’s initiatives. The chapter first provides an overview of partisanship in Congress and the ideology of Congress before addressing a number of key questions; for example, whether there is a perception in Congress that the president received an electoral mandate on behalf of specific policies, whether the president’s party enjoys a majority in a chamber, the degree of ideological polarization in Congress, or whether the structure of the decision facing Congress favors the president. The chapter shows that presidential leadership is highly dependent on the opportunity structure not only with the public but also with Congress.

Public opinion and public policy in Turkey

2018 ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
Sedef Turper
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys

This chapter focuses on political attitudes and policy preferences of Turkish citizens in various salient policy domains. The chapter makes use of several public opinion surveys conducted in Turkey during the period between 1990 and 2015. Firstly, the chapter is concerned with levels of political interest among the Turkish public, and across different subpopulations. The chapter then goes on to consider the public policy issues which have been salient to the Turkish public over the last ten years and the policy preferences of Turkish citizens regarding these salient public policy issues. The current analysis of the policy preferences of the Turkish public points at probable causes of discontent with certain public policies in Turkey as well as the potential areas for policy change where substantial public support can be consolidated.

Squaring the public policy circle

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Taylor-Gooby
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Target Setting ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Democratic Debate

This chapter examines the strategies that have been developed to manage the dilemma between maintaining services and constraint. These include shifting responsibility in various areas towards the market and the individual or voluntary sector, target-setting, manifold attempts to manage and restrain public provision, and attempts to change people's behaviour to cut demand. It argues that none of these approaches is entirely acceptable to public opinion and none has been markedly successful in solving the problem. This suggests that the dilemma of spending versus cutting will continue to underlie policy-making, that future policies must combine a range of approaches, and that greater attention to fostering a more informed and genuinely democratic debate is necessary so that new policy directions will be able to gain public support.

Predicting the Presidency

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
George C., III Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Leadership ◽  
Opportunity Structure ◽  
White House ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Skills ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Realistic View ◽  
Strategic Position ◽  
Presidential Success

Millions of Americans—including many experienced politicians—viewed Barack Obama through a prism of high expectations, based on a belief in the power of presidential persuasion. Yet many who were inspired by candidate Obama were disappointed in what he was able to accomplish once in the White House. They could not understand why he often was unable to leverage his position and political skills to move the public and Congress to support his initiatives. This book explains why Obama had such difficulty bringing about the change he promised, and challenges the conventional wisdom about presidential leadership. The book shows how we can ask a few fundamental questions about the context of a presidency—the president’s strategic position or opportunity structure—and use the answers to predict a president’s success in winning support for his initiatives. If presidential success is largely determined by a president’s strategic position, what role does persuasion play? Almost every president finds that a significant segment of the public and his fellow partisans in Congress are predisposed to follow his lead. Others may support the White House out of self-interest. The book explores the possibilities of the president exploiting such support, providing a more realistic view of the potential of presidential persuasion. The book sheds new light on the limitations and opportunities of presidential leadership.

Reality Asserts Itself: Public Opinion on Iraq and the Elasticity of Reality

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Baum ◽  
Tim Groeling
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sustained Change ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Over Time

AbstractPrevailing theories hold that U.S. public support for a war depends primarily on its degree of success, U.S. casualties, or conflict goals. Yet, research into the framing of foreign policy shows that public perceptions concerning each of these factors are often endogenous and malleable by elites. In this article, we argue that both elite rhetoric and the situation on the ground in the conflict affect public opinion, but the qualities that make such information persuasive vary over time and with circumstances. Early in a conflict, elites (especially the president) have an informational advantage that renders public perceptions of “reality” very elastic. As events unfold and as the public gathers more information, this elasticity recedes, allowing alternative frames to challenge the administration's preferred frame. We predict that over time the marginal impact of elite rhetoric and reality will decrease, although a sustained change in events may eventually restore their influence. We test our argument through a content analysis of news coverage of the Iraq war from 2003 through 2007, an original survey of public attitudes regarding Iraq, and partially disaggregated data from more than 200 surveys of public opinion on the war.

Public Support for Policies to Reduce School Shootings: A Moral-Altruistic Model

2020 ◽  
pp. 002242782095320
Author(s):  
Alexander L. Burton ◽  
Justin T. Pickett ◽  
Cheryl Lero Jonson ◽  
Francis T. Cullen ◽  
Velmer S. Burton
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
School Safety ◽  
Public Support ◽  
School Shootings ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
School Crime ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Altruistic Fear

Objectives: The recurring mass murder of students in schools has sparked an intense debate about how best to increase school safety. Because public opinion weighs heavily in this debate, we examine public views on how best to prevent school shootings. We theorize that three moral-altruistic factors are likely to be broadly relevant to public opinion on school safety policies: moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear. Methods: We commissioned YouGov to survey 1,100 Americans to explore support for a range of gun control and school programming policies and willingness to pay for school target hardening. We test the ability of a moral-altruistic model to explain public opinion, while controlling for the major predictors of gun control attitudes found in the social sciences. Results: The public strongly supports policies that restrict who can access guns, expand school anti-bullying and counseling programs, and target-harden schools. While many factors influence attitudes toward gun-related policies specifically, moral-altruistic factors significantly increase support for all three types of school safety policies. Conclusions: The public favors a comprehensive policy response and is willing to pay for it. Support for prevention efforts reflects moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear.

scholarly journals Public Opinion and Public Policy in Advanced Democracies

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Wlezien
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Descriptive Representation ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Roll Call ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Government

The representation of public opinion in public policy is of obvious importance in representative democracies. While public opinion is important in all political systems, it is especially true where voters elect politicians; after all, opinion representation is a primary justification for representative democracy. Not surprisingly, a lot of research addresses the connection between the public and the government. Much of the work considers “descriptive representation”—whether the partisan and demographic characteristics of elected politicians match the characteristics of the electorate itself. This descriptive representation is important but may not produce actual “substantive representation” of preferences in policy. Other work examines the positions of policymakers. Some of this research assesses the roll call voting behavior of politicians and institutions. The expressed positions and voting behavior of political actors do relate to policy but are not the same things. Fortunately, a good amount of research analyzes policy. With but a handful of exceptions noted below, this research focuses on expressed preferences of the public, not their “interests.” That is, virtually all scholars let people be the judges of their own interests, and they assess the representation of expressed opinion no matter how contrary to self-interest it may seem.

scholarly journals The Limits of Income Inequality: Public Support for Social Policy across Rich Democracies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau ◽  
Carola Hommerich
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberal Societies ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Income Concentration

Does public opinion react to inequality, and if so, how? The social harms caused by increasing inequality should cause public opinion to ramp up demand for social welfare protections. However, the public may react to inequality differently depending on institutional context. Using ISSP and WID data (1980-2006) we tested these claims. In liberal institutional contexts (mostly English-speaking), increasing income inequality predicted higher support for state provision of social welfare. In coordinated and universalist contexts (mostly of Europe), increasing inequality predicted less support. Historically higher income concentration predicted less public support, providing an account of the large variation in inequality within the respective liberal and coordinated contexts. The results suggest opinions in liberal societies – especially with higher historical inequality – reached the limits of inequality, reacting negatively; whereas in coordinated/universalist societies – especially with lower historical inequality – opinions moved positively, as if desiring more inequality.

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