IDEOLOGICAL THINKING AMONG MASS PUBLICS AND POLITICAL ELITES

Abstract

Although the characterization of the general public's level of attitudinal constraint and continuity as modest has rested in part on assumed contrasts with political elites, there are scarcely any systematic, parallel studies of the two populations. This article utilizes comparable measures from cross-sectional and panel surveys included in the National Election Studies and in the National Convention Delegate Studies. Overall, political party elites have a vastly more constrained and stable set of political preferences—in terms of the traditional liberal-conservative dimension—than does the mass public, a conclusion that applies whether the test is a demanding one based on opinions about policy issues or a less stringent one based on appraisals of sociopolitical groups and prominent political actors. Stratifying the mass public according to level of political activity generates clear, steplike differences in constraint and continuity, but ideological consistency among party elites substantially exceeds that of even the most active stratum of the mass public. These results demonstrate that, however flawed the standard survey instrument may be as a means of ascertaining ideological thinking, it performs exceedingly well in making the kind of distinctions to be expected on a priori grounds. The contrasts between the two populations have strong implications for two-way flows of communication.