Political climate
Encyclopedia
The political climate is the aggregate, current mood and opinions of a populace about political issues that also currently affect that population. It is generally used to describe a state of change in mood and opinions rather than a state of equilibrium. The phrase has origins from both ancient Greece
and medieval-era France
.
While the concept of a political climate
has been used historically to describe both politics
and public reactions to political actions in various forms, the naming of the concept by the addition of the modifier “political” to the base “climate” has been fairly recent. Public opinion
is also widely used incorrectly as a synonym for political climate.
As for judging what the climate is at any given time, there is no way to know an entire country’s views on certain subjects. So, polls are used to estimate what the political climate “feels” like on a regular basis. However, this only works to some degree as polls cannot involve the entire population at once.
, the base climate comes from the Middle French climat which was first used to describe a region’s prevailing weather conditions around 1314 C. E. One of the first recorded uses of climate as a description of prevailing political attitudes was in The Vanity of Dogmatizing by Joseph Glanvill
in 1661 where he mentions “divers Climates of Opinions”.
From 431 B.C.E to 404 B.C.E. ancient Greece was torn apart by the Peloponnesian War
between Athens
and Sparta
.
The war concluded with an Athenian defeat, and several years of oppression by pro-Spartan rulers. By 399 B.C.E, Athens had returned to self-rule through revolution. At this time, Athens was undergoing social turmoil due to the apparent failure of democracy as an effective form of government, which created a public backlash against anything anti-democratic. Socrates—the self-described “gadfly” of Athens due to his practice of “elenchos” (critical interrogation) – was seen by many as being anti-democratic and thus a traitor to Athens due to both his associations with Critias and Alcibiades (the former a Spartan supported tyrant, the latter a deserter to Sparta) and his frequent praises of the Spartan and Creten governments because of their similarity to many of his philosophical opinions on government.
Overall, the prevailing political climate of distrusting anything remotely anti-Athens or anti-democracy coupled with attacks from Socrates’ personal enemies led to the philosophers execution by poison in 399 B.C.E.
and a major figure of the French Renaissance
, around 1588 C.E.
It is generally used to describe the overall opinion of the public body about a certain issue. The phrase is commonly used interchangeably with political climate but the two actually refer to separate concepts. Public opinion
is the aggreggate logical thoughts that the public thinks and expresses about an issue (which doesn’t have to be political in nature), while political climate is what the public’s emotional reaction to those logical thoughts are. Depending on the nature of the thoughts, (could they be considered controversial or extreme) the emotional reaction can range from nothing to a highly violent state. Accordingly, controversial issues in the public eye are usually accompanied by or can even produce a “volatile” political climate. For example, the introduction of, following passage of, and court fight over California Ballot Proposition 8 brought a controversial issue into the public sphere which resulted in such a drastic change in the political climate of the United States as to produce many protests throughout the nation, some of them violent.
is a survey of public opinion from a particular group of people or sample. For determining the political climate, this usually would be a cross-section
of the population in question. Opinion polls conduct series of questions and then extrapolate the average opinion of the sample according to their answers. However, opinion polls generally have appreciative margins of error due to the inability to survey the entire population, and the improbability of surveying a perfectly random cross-section of the population. For example, the Wall Street Journal estimated in 2006 that the average margin of error is about 3-5% in opinion polls due to a wide variety of potential inaccuracies such as response bias
and selection bias
.
Opinion polls are also known to be entirely incorrect when predicting the outcome of certain events. The best-known example of this is the 1948 US presidential election where the prediction was that Thomas Dewey would easily defeat Harry S. Truman. Major polling organizations, including Gallup and Roper, indicated a landslide victory for Dewey when in fact Truman was the victor in a close election and kept the presidency.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and medieval-era France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
While the concept of a political climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
has been used historically to describe both politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
and public reactions to political actions in various forms, the naming of the concept by the addition of the modifier “political” to the base “climate” has been fairly recent. Public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
is also widely used incorrectly as a synonym for political climate.
As for judging what the climate is at any given time, there is no way to know an entire country’s views on certain subjects. So, polls are used to estimate what the political climate “feels” like on a regular basis. However, this only works to some degree as polls cannot involve the entire population at once.
climate
According to the Oxford English DictionaryOxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
, the base climate comes from the Middle French climat which was first used to describe a region’s prevailing weather conditions around 1314 C. E. One of the first recorded uses of climate as a description of prevailing political attitudes was in The Vanity of Dogmatizing by Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvill was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the approach of the English natural philosophers of the later 17th century.-Life:He was...
in 1661 where he mentions “divers Climates of Opinions”.
political
The modifier (politic with the –al suffix) comes originally from the ancient Greek noun polis which referred to both a Greek city state, and the ideal state or government. Over time, this evolved through the Latin noun politicus which is defined as the civil government, to the Middle French adjective politique which is the state of government, or relating to government.Historical Example
Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
between Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
and Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
.
The war concluded with an Athenian defeat, and several years of oppression by pro-Spartan rulers. By 399 B.C.E, Athens had returned to self-rule through revolution. At this time, Athens was undergoing social turmoil due to the apparent failure of democracy as an effective form of government, which created a public backlash against anything anti-democratic. Socrates—the self-described “gadfly” of Athens due to his practice of “elenchos” (critical interrogation) – was seen by many as being anti-democratic and thus a traitor to Athens due to both his associations with Critias and Alcibiades (the former a Spartan supported tyrant, the latter a deserter to Sparta) and his frequent praises of the Spartan and Creten governments because of their similarity to many of his philosophical opinions on government.
Overall, the prevailing political climate of distrusting anything remotely anti-Athens or anti-democracy coupled with attacks from Socrates’ personal enemies led to the philosophers execution by poison in 399 B.C.E.
Public Opinion
The phrase originates from the French term l’opinion publique, which was first attributed to Montaigne, the father of modern SkepticismSkepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
and a major figure of the French Renaissance
French Renaissance
French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century...
, around 1588 C.E.
It is generally used to describe the overall opinion of the public body about a certain issue. The phrase is commonly used interchangeably with political climate but the two actually refer to separate concepts. Public opinion
Public opinion
Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views....
is the aggreggate logical thoughts that the public thinks and expresses about an issue (which doesn’t have to be political in nature), while political climate is what the public’s emotional reaction to those logical thoughts are. Depending on the nature of the thoughts, (could they be considered controversial or extreme) the emotional reaction can range from nothing to a highly violent state. Accordingly, controversial issues in the public eye are usually accompanied by or can even produce a “volatile” political climate. For example, the introduction of, following passage of, and court fight over California Ballot Proposition 8 brought a controversial issue into the public sphere which resulted in such a drastic change in the political climate of the United States as to produce many protests throughout the nation, some of them violent.
Opinion Polls
An opinion pollOpinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
is a survey of public opinion from a particular group of people or sample. For determining the political climate, this usually would be a cross-section
Cross-sectional data
Cross-sectional data or cross section in statistics and econometrics is a type of one-dimensional data set. Cross-sectional data refers to data collected by observing many subjects at the same point of time, or without regard to differences in time...
of the population in question. Opinion polls conduct series of questions and then extrapolate the average opinion of the sample according to their answers. However, opinion polls generally have appreciative margins of error due to the inability to survey the entire population, and the improbability of surveying a perfectly random cross-section of the population. For example, the Wall Street Journal estimated in 2006 that the average margin of error is about 3-5% in opinion polls due to a wide variety of potential inaccuracies such as response bias
Response bias
Response bias is a type of cognitive bias which can affect the results of a statistical survey if respondents answer questions in the way they think the questioner wants them to answer rather than according to their true beliefs...
and selection bias
Selection bias
Selection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...
.
Opinion polls are also known to be entirely incorrect when predicting the outcome of certain events. The best-known example of this is the 1948 US presidential election where the prediction was that Thomas Dewey would easily defeat Harry S. Truman. Major polling organizations, including Gallup and Roper, indicated a landslide victory for Dewey when in fact Truman was the victor in a close election and kept the presidency.
See also
- ClimateClimateClimate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
- SocratesSocratesSocrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
- Peloponnesian WarPeloponnesian WarThe Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases...
- CritiasCritiasCritias , born in Athens, son of Callaeschrus, was an uncle of Plato, and a leading member of the Thirty Tyrants, and one of the most violent. He was an associate of Socrates, a fact that did not endear Socrates to the Athenian public. He was noted in his day for his tragedies, elegies and prose...
- AlcibiadesAlcibiadesAlcibiades, son of Clinias, from the deme of Scambonidae , was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last famous member of his mother's aristocratic family, the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War...
- Montaigne
- Proposition 8
- BiasBiasBias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
Further reading
- Bagby, Laurie. Political Thought: A Guide to the Classics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, 2002. Print.
- Bishop, George. The Illusion of Public Opinion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005. Print.
- Lewis, Justin. Constructing Public Opinion. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001. Print.
- Moore, David. The Superpollsters. 2nd. New York, NY: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995. Print.
- Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Gutenburg: Project Gutenburg, 2009. eBook.
- “Plato”. Classics of Moral and Political Theory. Ed. Michael L. Morgan. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2005. Print.