Political behavior

It is 5:15 in the morning. Unable to sleep, you take a quiet walk in a local park. As you pass some trees, you are surprised to see someone else. A young woman is sitting by herself, burning a red, white, and blue piece of cloth with a familiar pattern of stars and stripes. What would you do in this situation?

Assuming that you are an American, many reactions are possible. You are likely to recognize that the cloth is an American flag. You might feel anxiety, confusion, cu­riosity, or even anger. You might turn away abruptly and walk on as if you had no­ticed nothing. You might cast a disapproving look as you walk by, or you might stop and ask the person what she is doing. Your conversation might lead to a thoughtful political discussion, an angry confrontation, or even violence. You might feel sym­pathy with her action and offer verbal or actual support. Or you might decide to report the incident to law enforcement authorities.

Your responses to this incident offer interesting evidence about your reactions to the political world. Some of your responses might involve beliefs and others might involve actions. This combination of your political beliefs and actions is the essence of the domain of political science called political behavior or micropolitics. It is called micropolitics because the key object of study is the smallest political unit – the individual as a thinker and actor in the political world. Micropolitics can also include study of the political beliefs and actions of small groups, such as fam­ilies, committees, and juries.

Political Beliefs

Some of your reactions to the incident described above might involve your knowl­edge about the political world: for example, what the piece of colored cloth is and the legality of burning it. Other reactions might involve your feelings: for example, embarrassment or indifference. And some reactions might engage your powers of assessment: for example, an attempt to determine the reasons for the action you have observed. These different reactions typify the three types of orientation that constitute our political beliefs. The following paragraphs describe these cognitive, affective, and evaluative orientations.

A person’s cognitive orientations include what he believes are political “facts.” Such facts might be correct and accurate or they might be totally wrong. (Recall our discussion of “truth scores” in Chapter 1.) A person might know many things about the politics of his own locality, region, and nation as well as some things about the broader political world. This knowledge might include such facts as the names of political leaders; the policies supported by particular politicians, political groups, or nations; events in political history; the features of constitutions; or the procedures and actions of a governmental agency.

Affective orientations include any feelings or emotions evoked in a person by political phenomena. For example, what (if any) feelings are stimulated in you when:

You see your national flag?

You hear statements critical of your country’s political system?

You learn of “aggressive” actions by your country’s political opponents?

You are faced with the option of voting in an election and you don’t like the candidates?

You are present at a political demonstration supporting a policy of which you disapprove?

The nature and intensity of your feelings in these kinds of situations are instances of your affective orientations.

Finally, an evaluative orientation involves your synthesis of facts and feelings into a judgment about some political phenomenon. If you become aware that your government has proposed a policy that restricts the right of a woman to have an abortion, many different thoughts might be stimulated – your knowledge about the constitutional rights of an individual to freedom of action and of the state to limit those rights; your religious, moral, or scientific beliefs about the status of a fetus; your personal knowledge of the experiences of people who have been involved in decisions about abortions; your gut-level responses to spokespersons for and against the proposed policy. In short, your judgment about a political issue, such as the state’s policy on abortion, can be grounded in many different kinds of cognitive and affective orientations that are combined into an evaluation. Ultimately, many of the political attitudes that you would identify as your “fundamental beliefs” are likely to be evaluative orientations.