Elite Discourse and American Public Opinion: The Case of Welfare Spending

Popular support for American welfare policies dipped sharply during the mid-1990s. The purpose of this article is to determine why this pronounced, but temporary, shift in public opinion occurred. We use data from the CPS National Election Studies to examine several explanations for temporal variabi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political research quarterly 2005-09, Vol.58 (3), p.367-379
Main Authors: Schneider, Saundra K., Jacoby, William G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
American studies
Attitudes
Budgets
Citizens
Coefficients
Discourse analysis
Elites
Government Spending
Ideology
Partisanship
Policy analysis
Political attitudes
Political partisanship
Political research
Public assistance programs
Public Opinion
Public policy
Rhetoric
Social policy
Social welfare
Spending
U.S.A
Variable coefficients
Welfare
Welfare Policy
Welfare reform
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Summary:Popular support for American welfare policies dipped sharply during the mid-1990s. The purpose of this article is to determine why this pronounced, but temporary, shift in public opinion occurred. We use data from the CPS National Election Studies to examine several explanations for temporal variability in citizens' attitudes toward welfare spending. Our results show that these changes follow similar variations in media content. Individual-level opinion change was also based entirely upon political motivations (e.g., ideology and partisanship) rather than economic beliefs or racial attitudes. We argue that this provides evidence, admittedly somewhat indirect, that elite rhetoric guides and shapes mass opinions.
ISSN:1065-9129
DOI:10.2307/3595608