Highlights of 2011 - Institute for Policy Research - Northwestern ...

Politics, Institutions, and Public Policy
From left: IPR political scientists Dennis Chong, Laurel Harbridge, and Georgia Kernell reflect on a presentation on political identity
and ideology at the Chicago Area Political and Social Behavior workshop.
RESEARCH TOPICS:
• Public opinion and political deliberation
• Congress—budgets and partisanship
• Political communication and campaign strategies
• News, technologies, and online behavior
• Income inequality and social welfare programs
Political Identity and Ideology
More than 80 social scientists and graduate students gathered
to discuss the formation of political identity and ideology at
the fifth Chicago Area Political and Social Behavior (CAB)
Workshop at Northwestern on May 6. It was organized by IPR
political scientist James Druckman and co-sponsored by the
Institute. The workshop welcomed top political scientists who
examined the roles of geography, ideology, political elites, and
misinformation within the U.S. political landscape.
Indiana University’s Edward Carmines unpacked the role of
citizens in the political polarization of elites. Cara Wong of
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign examined
how people understand their environments as a map-based
measure of context. In her talk on the “geography of power,” the
University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Katherine Cramer Walsh
explored rural perspectives of political inequality. MIT’s Adam
Berinsky talked about his research analyzing the factors behind
whether people believe or reject political misinformation. The
workshop concluded with a roundtable on political polarization,
with Carmines, IPR political scientists Daniel Galvin and Laurel
Harbridge, and the University of Notre Dame’s Geoff Layman.
The Politics of America’s 1 Percent
What political attitudes do the very wealthy hold? A new study
led by IPR associate and political scientist Benjamin Page and
colleagues, including IPR social policy professor Fay Lomax
Cook and IPR graduate research assistant Rachel Moskowitz,
sheds light on how the wealthiest 1 percent think about social
and economic issues and engage in politics. The pilot study,
which randomly surveyed 104 Chicagoans with a median
household wealth of $7.5 million, discovered some large differences
between the wealthy and average Americans. Marked
differences were found on questions of tax policy, economic
regulation, and social welfare policy. Particularly stark were contrasting
attitudes toward federal government programs, with
the wealthy tilting toward cutbacks and the public generally
preferring their expansion. Page, Gordon S. Fulcher Professor of
Decision Making, and his colleagues are currently expanding the
pilot study into a nationwide survey. Several working papers
have been written that examine methods for interviewing
wealthy Americans about their philanthropy and their political
attitudes and behaviors (see p. 70). The pilot study received
support from the Russell Sage Foundation, and the MacArthur
Foundation is supporting ongoing work.
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