Left, right, and elite, part 2

In my last post, I suggested that opinion differences between elites and the public didn't fall into the standard left/right pattern; this post will take a more systematic look.   The Chicago Council of Foreign Relations/Chicago Council on Global Affairs has a long-running series of surveys of foreign policy elites and the general public which include questions on the importance of different foreign policy goals.  The figure shows the importance that self-described liberals and conservatives in the general public put on these goals in 2016 (3 represents "very important," 2 "somewhat important" and 1 "not important at all").   

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The correlation is -.37:  that is, the ones that are important to liberals tend to be less important to conservatives, and vice versa.  The figure suggests that they fall into two groups:  one which is strongly related to ideology (the ones that fall in a downward sloping line) and another on which there is a consensus that they are very important.  These are "preventing the spread of nuclear weapons," "combatting international terrorism," "protecting the jobs of American workers," and "attaining US energy independence."

There is a moderate positive correlation between elite and liberal ratings of importance (0.43), and essentially no correlation between elite and conservative ratings.  The figure shows elite and liberal ratings:

There are substantial differences for some of the items:  protecting jobs and attaining energy independence are very important to liberals in the public, but not that important to elites.  On the other side, "defending our allies' security" and "maintaining superior military power worldwide" are more important to elites than to liberals.  Going back to the first figure, you can see that military power is more of a conservative priority in the public, while defending allies is in the middle.  

The list of possible goals offered changes from time to time, so I will show the liberal/elite comparisons for a couple of other years.  

In 2014, they asked about "strengthening the United Nations"; liberals in the public regarded it as a lot more important than elites did.  As in 2016, elites rated protecting American jobs as less important and maintaining military power and defending allies security as more important then liberals did.  As in 2016, both rated "controlling and reducing illegal immigration" low, but it was substantially lower for elites than for liberals.  

The 2004 survey also included a question on protecting jobs, and again that was less important to elites than to liberals in the public.  Strengthening the UN was also included, and was rated higher by liberals, although the gap was smaller than in 2014.  Illegal immigration was also included:  liberals rated it as of moderate importance, while elites rated it low.  On the other side, elites rated "helping to improve the standard of living of less developed nations" as a lot more important than the public did.  

Finally, turning to changes in priorities, here are the ratings for liberals and conservatives on the six items that were included in both 2004 and 2016 (blue is 2004, red is 2016).  Movements on the horizontal axis represent change among conservatives, while movements on the vertical axis represent change among liberals.  Military power and illegal immigration became less important to liberals and more important to conservatives, while "combatting world hunger" become less important to conservatives and stayed about the same among liberals.  The other three stayed about the same for both.  

I won't show the figure for elites, just say that hunger become less important, maintaining military superiority more important, and the others stayed about the same.

So elite opinions are different from liberal opinions--and not in the sense of being farther to the left on all issues.  Elites have consistently rated protecting jobs and controlling and reducing illegal immigration as relatively unimportant.  Elite priorities also can't be characterized as straightforward internationalism:  they rate defending allies as important, but strengthening the UN as not very important.  

What's the source of the differences?  One possibility is demographic differences:  elites are more educated, and more likely to be white, male, and older.  But these factors don't account for much of the differences in opinion.   Another possibility is factual knowledge:  e. g., elites will know more about how close other nations are to getting nuclear weapons.  Then there are ideas about how things work--e. g., elites will be more aware of economists' view that protecting domestic jobs will have the cost of reducing our standard of living.  You could also add values, but these tend to go along with ideas about how things work:  e. g., that a higher standard of living will make less developed nations more stable and more peaceful, so helping them to achieve a higher standard of living is a matter of enlightened self-interest.  It's hard to measure "ideas about how things work" but it's safe to say that some combination of knowledge, experience, and interactions within elite groups may combine to produce a distinct viewpoint.  I offer more thoughts about the difference between elite and popular priorities on illegal immigration in this paper.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion]

Left, right, and elite

 Ross Douthat writes "the political right has plenty of popular support but considerably less influence inside the managerial systems through which elected officials actually exercise their power," while progressivism has  "an extraordinary advantage in the meritocratic institutions, private as well as public, that actually staff and shape the power structure."  As a result, "activists and elites effect dramatic change outside the democratic process and then try to survive or sidestep backlash from the voters."  He offers several examples, including "a new regime of euthanasia in Canada."  

Back in 1947, the Gallup Poll asked, "when a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient's life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?"  This question was asked again in 1950 and has been included in the General Social Survey since 1977.  The percent who say that doctors should be allowed to end the patient's life:

Support passed 50% in the 1970s, and has been over 60% since the 1980s, but assisted death is allowed in only eleven states plus Washington, DC.  Oregon was the first to legalize it, by a referendum--it wasn't until 2013 that it was enacted through a state legislature.

I don't have as much data for Canada, but in 2000 Gallup Canada asked "When a person has an incurable disease that is immediately life-threatening and causes that person to experience great suffering, do you, or do you not think that competent doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient's life through mercy killing, if the patient has made a formal request in writing?"  and 72% said yes.  It also asked about a disease that "is not immediately life-threatening but causes that person to experience great suffering" and 54% said yes.  This was 15 years before laws allowing that were passed.

So assisted dying is not something that was imposed by elites on an unwilling public.  In fact, the question is why political elites have been reluctant to do something that has strong support among the public.  Political forces are probably part of the answer--opponents are more likely to participate in organized religion, so they are better organized and more committed than supporters.  On the other hand, more educated people are more likely to support assisted dying, and political elites have more education than the general public.  So it seems that there is something that keeps them from following the usual inclinations of their class.  One thing that separates political elites from educated people in general is that they think about legislation for a living, and I suspect that they were concerned about the possibility of a "slippery slope" (which has happened to some extent in Canada):  it's hard to write rules that draw a clear line saying exactly when it will be allowed, so they are reluctant to change the status quo.  

The general point is that Douthat, like many other people, implicitly uses a broad definition of elite--"institutions that staff and shape the power structures."  But the people who make and interpret the laws are a much smaller group, and they may have a distinct outlook that doesn't fit into the standard left/right spectrum.  I've had a few posts on this topic, and I'll return to it soon (probably in my next post).

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]