Collaborative Research: Americans' Response to the Economic Crisis: Public Attitudes toward Social Policies

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SES-0960960Ernest BrooksIndiana UniversitySES-0961536Jeff ManzaNew York UniversityHow does the American public respond to economic and political change in the 21st century? Did the ongoing economic crisis affect voters' policy preferences? And have the crisis and legislative responses by the Obama administration generated more (or less?) support for government interventions when it comes to social welfare, taxes, and national security? This collaborative research seeks to develop answers to these questions. The project does so through a new national survey to be conducted in 2010: The Survey of American Policy Attitudes toward the Crisis (SAPAC). This survey uses experimental methods to gauge the dynamics of policy attitude formation. The data collection coincides with a far-reaching economic downturn (and set of legislative conflicts) that are mechanisms potentially exerting pressure toward opinion change. The survey experiments will offer results with which to adjudicate two competing views of how public opinion is formed during times of crisis. The economic approach views public opinion as a self-regulating system in which environmental and policy changes continually exert pressure toward shifts in public attitudes. A second approach sees mass opinion as more fundamentally shaped by pre-existing social forces and ideological biases. This approach anticipates greater resistance to change pressures, and also quite different responses to such pressures among such key groups as liberals and conservatives, and middle and working-class Americans. Broader Impacts In addition to advancing scholarship on the dynamics of opinion formation, the 2010 SAPAC survey will also make possible a broad, over-time portrait of how American policy attitudes are currently evolving. This is because the 2010 data collection will directly extend earlier surveys we fielded in 2007 and 2009. In looking at questions concerning social welfare, taxes, and national security, this research brings into focus issues of lasting importance to Americans in the 21st century.