Patterns of Issue Orientations

JIy ESPITE recent findings of increased attitudinal consistency, there does not appear to be any correspondingly large change in levels of political conceptualization among the American electorate. Gains in attitudinal consistency, even if as dramatic as some authors claim, do not necessarily reflect higher levels of ideological sophistication. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that the changes of the past few years stem primarily from the greater salience of politics and from clearer party and candidate differentiation on the issues, and not from any widespread changes in the use of abstract ideological frameworks.1 Similarly, rather than reflecting a dramatic improvement in the electorate's cognitive abilities, recent findings of increased ideological sophistication reveal little more than an increase in the use of ideological keywords.2 Moreover, it is safe to say that the use of these terms, in many instances, is unaccompanied by a contextual understanding of them. Certainly this conclusion is suggested by Klingeman and Wright's study of the 1968 election and Miller and Miller's analysis of the 1972 election in which these authors, unlike some other contemporary researchers, use the same methodology as the early Michigan studies and find 6 percent and 7 percent respectively of the electorate to rate an ideologue classification.3 The presence of relatively low levels of political conceptualization among the American electorate is an inescapable conclusion of electoral research. However, the fact that only a very small proportion of the electorate uses an overarching ideology, particularly the liberal-conservative continuum, to organize its political beliefs does not mean that the electorate is incapable of making informed electoral choices. Although cited as evidence

Economic geography · Geography · Political science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Psychology

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