American Values

This book focuses on the measurement of three values that scholars consider critical values in American political culture. My research employed in-depth interviews to explore how individuals think about the values of limited government, moral traditionalism and equality. The research used the values battery of questions in the National Election Studies (NES) as a starting point. The NES survey, funded by the National Science Foundation, has asked a battery of questions related to values for decades, providing a comprehensive time series measurement of the values of the public in the United States. The research described in this book advances the study of public opinion by systematically evaluating the sources of instability in the measurement of values.

Chapter 1 reviews research on how values and ideology structure public opinion. What are the most important values for understanding public opinion? Do core values serve as an anchor for many specific attitudes? The next three chapters explore how individuals think about each value.

Chapter 2 explores the value of limited government through in-depth interviews. What is limited government? Should the scale of government be expanded to address social problems or guarantee jobs? What does the public believe about why and how government power should be limited? Whether a respondent used an individual or a social frame of reference to think about limited government often affected how they answered this question. Consideration of different types of government programs or parts of the government also could affect how individuals answered.

Chapter 3 discusses moral traditionalism. A number of questions are addressed, including the following: Are moral beliefs absolute? Should different moral systems be tolerated? What is tolerance? Should morality change with the times? How important are traditional family ties? Are new lifestyles leading to the breakdown of society? Individuals were conflicted when they considered different meanings of what tolerance was and who it should be applied to.

Chapter 4 explores the value of equality through discussions of many specific questions, including: What is equality? Would society be better off with more equality? Can equal rights be pushed too far? For equality, individuals were often conflicted between different dimensions of equality, including equality before the law, equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.

Chapter 5 provides conclusions on why the public is so conflicted about their own core values. How do people think about and define values as they answer survey questions? What are the sources of instability in the values expressed by the public and what are the implications for American politics and public policy?

About the Author

Laurence O'Rourke is a public policy consultant at ICF, where he engages in multidisciplinary research on transportation, energy and environmental policy issues. He writes about a range of issues associated with public policy and governance. He is also the author of the book "Great Debates in American Political Science" as well as numerous journal articles, conference papers and reports on public policy issues. He obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Maryland and an M.A. in Government from Johns Hopkins University.