Mobilizing Public Opinion: Black Insurgency and Racial Attitudes in the Civil Rights EraWhat motivates us to change our opinions during times of political protest and social unrest? To investigate this question, Taeku Lee's smartly argued book looks to the critical struggle over the moral principles, group interests, and racial animosities that defined public support for racial policies during the civil rights movement, from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. Challenging the conventional view that public opinion is shaped by elites, Lee crafts an alternate account of the geographic, institutional, historical, and issue-specific contexts that form our political views. He finds that grassroots organizations and local protests of ordinary people pushed demands for social change into the consciousness of the general public. From there, Lee argues, these demands entered the policy agendas of political elites. Evidence from multiple sources including survey data, media coverage, historical accounts, and presidential archives animate his argument. Ultimately, Mobilizing Public Opinion is a timely, cautionary tale about how we view public opinion and a compelling testament to the potential power of ordinary citizens. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
ONE Elite Opinion Theory and Activated Mass Opinion | 17 |
TWO Black Insurgency and the Dynamics of Mass Opinion | 43 |
THREE The Sovereign Status of Survey Data | 71 |
FOUR Constituency Mail as Public Opinion | 91 |
FIVE The Racial Regional and Organizational Bases of Mass Activation | 120 |
SIX Contested Meanings and Movement Agency | 150 |
SEVEN Two Nations Separate Grooves | 186 |
APPENDIX ONE Question WordingScales and Coding of Variables in Survey Analysis | 211 |
Other editions - View all
Mobilizing Public Opinion: Black Insurgency and Racial Attitudes in the ... Taeku Lee No preview available - 2002 |
Mobilizing Public Opinion: Black Insurgency and Racial Attitudes in the ... Taeku Lee No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
activated mass opinion African Americans appeals black insurgency Carmines and Stimson chapter citizens civil rights movement cognitive conception constituency mail contexts correspondents counterelite critical democracy desegregation dynamics election electoral elite opinion theories elite theory example expression group-based ideological distance institutions interpretive frames issue position John Zaller letter-writing Little Rock crisis mass activation mass media mass public measure media coverage ment mobilization Montgomery bus boycott movement activism movement activists movement-based movement-initiated events NAACP National Negro notes opinion polls opinion research ordinary individuals organizations particular partisan partisanship perceived proximity percent of letters political actors political elites predispositions president public opinion public views race racial attitudes racial equality racial policy preferences references response rights and racial role salience sample school desegregation segregation Selma shift social movements South southern whites specific survey data survey research tion V. O. Key voice voting welfare liberalism white Americans Zaller