Public opinion is a crucial driver for policy-making and the individual behavior is strongly driven by individual political attitudes and preferences. But how swayable is public opinion? Can people be easily influenced by the latest political argument they hear? Or do they usually hold firm? What is the impact of external shocks on political attitudes? Does the stability of political attitudes depend on political knowledge, education or personality traits? In this course, we will study and examine the stability of political attitudes over time.
In terms of theories, we will discuss three approaches on the question of stability and change of political attitudes. One approach examines the role of external shocks such as natural disasters but also changes in living conditions, such as changing family situation or a a unexpected cash flow for the malleability of political attitudes. A second approach centers on personal characteristics such as political knowledge, education or personality for the stability of attitudes over time. A third argument centers on feedback effects where individuals are expected to adapt their attitudes to changes in the institutional environment.
In terms of empirical examples for the term paper, we will study the stability and change of attitudes on broad range of policy domains such as attitudes towards the welfare states, energy production, national defense, refugees and political trust.
The themes are taught by combining lectures, discussion of readings in groups and class, group assignments, and the writing of a final term paper in the second term. Accordingly, students will write research design that outlines the research question, the main argument(s), expectations and empirical approach of the term paper in the last sessions the first term. The research design will be presented and subsequently discussed in class.
The second term is dedicated to the writing of an original term paper (60 000 letters without spaces) on a question pertaining to the subject of the course and the discussion of the paper in several stages. As such, we will discuss students’ revised research designs. Students will comment on a fellow student’s research design with constructive remarks. This involves presenting the design and moderating the discussion.
Please note that this is a reading intense course (particularly the first term), but also note that the intensity does vary from session to session declining in intensity as we move on. Readings might be subject to change. The focus is generally on advanced industrial democracies, e.g., democracies in North America and Western Europe with Germany being of special interest.
Syllabus: https://box.hu-berlin.de/d/5461beccdc4f4d5fa0f3/
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