Monday, November 25, 2013

Addendum to More on the Political Ideology of the American Electorate




Thinking about my last post, I wondered how much the percentages of the various ideologies had changed since the publication of Beyond Liberal and Conservative; so I pulled out my copy and reviewed Maddox and Lilie's findings.

Here are Maddox and Lilie’s results for 1972, 1976, and 1980:

Ideology
1972
1976
1980
Liberal
17.3%
16.4%
24.4%
Conservative
18.3%
18.0%
16.5%
Libertarian
9.4%
13.0%
17.7%
Populist
30.0%
23.7%
26.3%
Divided
19.2%
19.2%
10.6%
Inattentive
5.7%
9.6%
4.6%
Total
99.9%
99.9%
100.1%

An explanation is necessary for two categories that are in the table above. First, by “Divided,” Maddox and Lilie mean those people who express a combination of attitudes that does not fit one of the four primary categories that they employ (liberal, conservative, libertarian, and populist) because they express middle-of-the-road responses. They constitute the “Moderates” in the previous post. Second, the “Inattentive” fail to respond to enough of the major issues that were used to classify respondents into one of the categories.

Interestingly, the percentages are similar to those in the previous post; however, conservatives and libertarians in 1972, when Nixon defeated McGovern, were a smaller percentage of the population than in 2012. On the other hand, populists were a much greater percentage of the population. One caveat is that Maddox and Lilie were considering the ideology of the population, whereas Carmines, Ensley, and Wagner were considering the ideology of the electorate, which is, of course, a much smaller group.



A better comparison is with the data for the same years by Carmines, Ensley, and Wagner. Here are their data for 1972, 1976, and 1980:

Ideology
1972
1976
1980
Liberal
23%
26%
31%
Conservative
30%
29%
29%
Moderate
21%
24%
19%
Libertarian
12%
12%
13%
Populist
15%
9%
10%
Total
98%
100%
102%

The differences are rather dramatic, especially for populists, liberals, and conservatives. Remember, however, the caveat above.


 

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