The Politics of Opinion: Individuals and Groups and the Social Psychology of Opinion in the Public Sphere

  • Oakes, Penelope (PI)
  • McGarty, Craig (CoI)

    Project: Research

    Project Details

    Description

    Public opinion is crucial to democratic theory and practice, but its extensive multi-disciplinary literature is littered with contested definitions. One major (and heated) debate concerns whether public opinion should, in principle, comprise the views of individuals, as aggregated in polls, or of groups, as expressed through collective statements and action. This project examines public opinion in reality rather than in principle, using social psychology to predict that individuated and group-based representations serve distinct purposes for specific social actors under specific social and political conditions. It offers new answers to longstanding questions about the role of citizen opinion in democratic politics.
    StatusFinished
    Effective start/end date1/01/0331/12/06

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