Skepticism about the competence of the masses to govern themselves is as old as mass self-government. Even so, when that competence began to be measured statistically, around the end of the Second World War, the numbers startled almost everyone. The data were interpreted most powerfully by the political scientist Philip Converse, in an article on "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics," published in 1964. Forty years later, Converse’s conclusions are still the bones at which the science of voting behavior picks.And whence the lack of interest?
Converse claimed that only around ten per cent of the public has what can be called, even generously, a political belief system. He named these people "ideologies," by which he meant not that they are fanatics but that they have a reasonable grasp of "what goes with what" -— of how a set of opinions adds up to a coherent political philosophy....
Just because someone's opinions don’t square with what a political scientist recognizes as a political ideology doesn’t mean that those opinions aren’t coherent by the lights of some more personal system of beliefs. But Converse found reason to doubt this possibility....
All political systems make their claim to legitimacy by some theory, whether it's the divine right of kings or the iron law of history. Divine rights and iron laws are not subject to empirical confirmation, which is one reason that democracy's claims have always seemed superior. What polls and surveys suggest, though, is that the belief that elections express the true preferences of the people may be nearly as imaginary. When you move downward through what Converse called the public's "belief strata," candidates are quickly separated from ideology and issues, and they become attached, in voters' minds, to idiosyncratic clusters of ideas and attitudes.
In the face of this evidence, three theories have arisen. The first is that electoral outcomes, as far as "the will of the people" is concerned, are essentially arbitrary. The fraction of the electorate that responds to substantive political arguments is hugely outweighed by the fraction that responds to slogans, misinformation, "fire alarms" (sensational news), "October surprises" (last-minute sensational news), random personal associations, and "gotchas."...
A second theory is that although people may not be working with a full deck of information and beliefs, their preferences are dictated by something, and that something is élite opinion....
The third theory of democratic politics is the theory that the cues to which most voters respond are, in fact, adequate bases on which to form political preferences. People use shortcuts—the social-scientific term is "heuristics" -— to reach judgments about political candidates, and, on the whole, these shortcuts are as good as the long and winding road of reading party platforms, listening to candidate debates, and all the other elements of civic duty....
The principal shortcut that people use in deciding which candidates to vote for is, of course, the political party. The party is the ultimate Uncle Charlie in American politics. Even élite voters use it when they are confronted, in the voting booth, with candidates whose names they have never seen before....
Of course, if Converse is correct, and most voters really don’t have meaningful political beliefs, even ideological "closeness" is an artifact of survey anxiety, of people’s felt need, when they are asked for an opinion, to have one. This absence of "real opinions" is not from lack of brains; it’s from lack of interest....
First, the rise of the professional political class and its support system of allied interest groups has taken most decisions out of the hands of the typical voter. It's like the workplace: most of the work gets done by a minority of workers. Why take an interest when what you do matters little to the outcome?
Second, the rise of the professional political class and its support system of allied interest groups has dragged government into matters in which government shouldn't be involved, such as social security and redistributive taxation. Such issues are too complex for most professional politicians and academicians, the majority of whom are mindlessly predisposed toward tinkering with the economy. So, it's really a matter of blind elites trying to lead blind masses.
No wonder voters take shortcuts. It enables them to spend more time on things they can do something about: making a living, raising a family, and having fun.
