Values and Ideology

3 credits · Graduate

Examines the political preferences of the public through in-depth examination of the concepts of 'values' and 'ideology'. Topics include: structure of mass belief systems; core human values and core political values, their nature and origins, and their use in political judgment; nature and meaning of ideological self-identifications; origins of mass ideology in biological and psychological processes; ideology and its dynamics over time at the aggregate level; and relationship of ideology to institutional legitimacy.