ABSTRACT
Few concepts in the study of public opinion have attracted as much attention as that of ideology. While social scientists have always shown a keen interest in the nuts and bolts of belief systems, the resurgence of bitter divisions between the left and right has brought the topic back to the forefront of scholarship and lay discussion alike. In this chapter, I review past and present work on the nature of ideology and its consequences for public opinion. I begin by addressing the definitional question of what ideology actually is. Next, I provide an overview of several decades’ worth of research on what attracts individuals to different ideological postures like liberalism and conservatism and when individuals think and make judgments about issues and candidates in ways that reflect ideology. As we shall see, these two aspects of ideology do not always go hand-in-hand. While most citizens willingly identify themselves as “liberals” or “conservatives,” only those who have absorbed a great deal of information from political leaders think about politics in terms of these ideological categories and express opinions that are consistently liberal or conservative. Finally, I expand on the question of when citizens rely on ideology by suggesting that information is not the whole story. To this end, I review evidence suggesting that citizens must possess both political information and a strong desire to appraise things as “good” or “bad” in order to think ideologically and express ideologically consistent opinions.
