Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:30:23.084Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Critical Events and Attitude Change: Support for Gun Control After Mass Shootings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2018

Jon C. Rogowski  and
Patrick D. Tucker
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When and to what extent do crises and significant events induce changes in political attitudes? Theories of public opinion and policymaking predict that major events restructure public opinion and pry open new political opportunities. We examine the effect of major events on support for public policies in the context of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in December 2012 using a nationally representative panel survey of US adults. Across both cross-sectional and within-subject analyses, we find no evidence that Americans granted greater support for gun control after the Sandy Hook shooting. Our null findings persist across a range of political and demographic groups. We also find no evidence of attitude polarization as a result of Sandy Hook. Our results suggest that elite polarization in a particular issue area leads citizens to employ motivated reasoning when interpreting critical events, thereby reducing the capacity for attitude change. Our findings have important implications for identifying the conditions under which major events affect support for public policies and create political opportunities for policy change.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 903 - 911
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Jon C. Rogowski is the Assistant Professor in the Department of Government, Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02143 ([email protected]). Patrick D. Tucker is the Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Center for the Study of American Politics, Yale University, ISPS C226, 77 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511 ([email protected]). We thank Steve Smith, Betsy Sinclair, and the Weidenbaum Center for the Economy, Government, and Public Policy for providing the data used in this project. Dan Butler, Andrew Reeves, Betül Demirkaya, the Editor, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2018.21

References

Barry, Colleen L., McGinty, Emma E., Vernick, Jon S., and Webster, Daniel W.. 2013. ‘After Newtown – Public Opinion on Gun Policy and Mental Illness’. New England Journal of Medicine 368:1077–1081.Google Scholar
Brewer, Paul R. 2003. ‘Values, Political Knowledge, and Public Opinion About Gay Rights’. Public Opinion Quarterly 67:173–201.Google Scholar
Carmines, Edward G., and Stimson, James A.. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chong, Dennis, and Druckman, James N.. 2007. ‘Framing Theory’. Annual Review of Political Science 10:103–126.Google Scholar
Christenson, Dino P., and Glick, David M.. 2015. ‘Issue-Specific Opinion Change: The Supreme Court and Health Care Reform’. Public Opinion Quarterly 79:881–905.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E. 1964. ‘The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics’. In E. Apter David (ed), Ideology and Discontent, 206–261. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Darren W., and Silver, Brian D.. 2004. ‘Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America’. American Journal of Political Science 48:28–46.Google Scholar
Druckman, James N., Peterson, Erik, and Slothuus, Rune. 2013. ‘How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation’. American Political Science Review 107:57–79.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Michael, B. MacKuen, and Stimson, James A.. 2002. The Macro Polity. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feldman, Stanley, and Conover, Pamela Johnston. 1983. ‘Candidates, Issues and Voters: The Role of Inference in Political Perception’. Journal of Politics 45:810–839.Google Scholar
Haider-Markel, Donald P., and Joslyn, Mark R.. 2001. ‘Gun Policy, Opinion, Tragedy, and Blame Attribution: The Conditional Influence of Issue Frames’. Journal of Politics 63:520–543.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies 2nd ed. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Krosnick, Jon A., Holbrook, Allyson L., Lowe, Laura, and Visser, Penny S.. 2006. ‘The Origins and Consequences of Democratic Citizens’ Policy Agendas: A Study of Popular Concern about Global Warming’. Climatic Change 77:7–43.Google Scholar
Mueller, John. 1973. War, Presidents and Public Opinion. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Page, Benjamin I., and Shapiro, Robert Y.. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rogowski, Jon C. 2018. ‘Voter Decision Making with Polarized Choices’. British Journal of Political Science 48(1):1–22.Google Scholar
Zaller, John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Rogowski and Tucker Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/1SBYFJ
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Rogowski and Tucker supplementary material

Appendix

Download Rogowski and Tucker supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 319.1 KB