Week 9 – Mass Politics

This topic was very interesting as it helped me delve deeply into the question ‘How do people decide who to vote?’ The chapter first touched upon some terminologies like beliefs, values, ideology, attitudes and schemas which were later elaborated on.

The chapter focuses on the role of information processing in political choices. It mentions how people with low interest in politics process information than those who know little. However, this concept has been negated soon by adding that even people with high interest or knowledge in politics rely on shortcuts like attitudes, schemas and heuristics. For example, some heuristics include affect referral, endorsement, familiarity, habit and viability. I can mention an example from Pakistan in this context as many families in Pakistan have been voting for a specific political party from generations over generations so they continue to vote for that political party without any further thought given to it, which basically explains the habit heuristic. Furthermore, endorsement heuristic is also widely practiced as the political choices are often influenced by people around an individual.

With access to information in this digital era, it is important to question whether it is possible for voters to have consistent political beliefs and attitudes. The answer to this question might not be that simple, however my stance on this issue would be that even the political candidates are not consistent in their beliefs and behaviors, then how is it possible to think that the followers of those candidates will have consistency in their beliefs or behaviors.

I learned about the four approaches for voter decision-making strategies – Rational choice, confirmatory, fast and frugal and semiautomatic intuitive decision-making. I was interested to know which approach would be the best approach for a voter but I think we can say that it depends on the context, for example rational choice would be the ideal approach but it might not always be possible due to less time available maybe.