Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Paper/Poster Proposal
Abstract: Macro-level studies of public opinion have noticed a seeming paradox in American public opinion: the American electorate is operationally liberal, but symbolically and ideologically conservative. The mass public, in other words, holds liberal preferences on a wide range of spending, social, and cultural issues, but identifies primarily as politically “conservative.” At the micro level, this “paradox” means that a large segment of the population possesses conflicted political preferences, identifying as ideologically conservative, but holding predominantly liberal positions on issues. These “conflicted conservatives,” who comprise around one-fifth of the American public and identify in roughly equal numbers with the Democratic and Republican parties, present an interesting and important puzzle for scholars of public opinion.
This paper builds on the ideological self-identification and elite framing literatures to develop a micro-level theory for the preponderance of “conflicted conservatives.” In both political and non-political contexts, the word “conservative” is both more multidimensional and more popular than the word “liberal.” Because of the way arguments are framed by party elites, religious and cultural leaders, and the mass media, the dominant messages that citizens receive from political elites are themselves conflicted in a way that leads certain segments of the mass public to identify as “conservative” despite holding predominantly liberal issue preferences. The idea of “conflicted conservatives” suggests that the meanings of ideological terms—and the use of ideology in structuring mass decision making—are more multifaceted than is often assumed. The impact of ideology on political choices is not simply conditioned by education and sophistication; rather, ideological terms mean substantively different things to different groups of people. These findings have implications for the study of both mass opinion and American electoral dynamics.