A political ideology is defined as a coherent and consistent set of beliefs about who ought rule, what principles rulers ought to obey and what policies rulers ought to pursue. Political scientists measure in two ways:

1. By seeing how frequently people use broad political categories to describe their own views or to justify their preferences for various candidates and policies.

2. By seeing to what extent the policy preferences of a citizen are consistent over time or based at any one tme on certain consistent principles.

Surveys find that the largest groups of American voters is the moderates. The second largest is of conservatives and the smallest, liberals. Public opinion polls also find, however, that people give different answers depending on the time period, the nature of the problem and the wording of the question.

People can have an ideology without defining themselves as liberal or conservative. This is due to the fact that people are often "inconsistent" in their beliefs. For example, a person may favor spending on education and a larger military budget. Most citizens pick and choose their positions without regard to "liberalism" or "conservatism."

Now, "liberal" refers to an active government that intervenes in the economy creating social welfare programs and assisting certain groups such as labor unions. This meaning "liberal" came about when FDR used it to refer to his political program. "Conservatives" became, and still are, those who oppose this.

Three categories prove useful when trying to determine whether someone is liberal or conservative:

1. government policy concerning the economy--liberals favor efforts to ensure everyone has a job, to spend more money on medical and educational programs and increase taxes of the wealthy

2. civil rights and race relations--liberals favor strong federal action for desegregation, increasing hiring opportunities and compensatory programs for minorities, enforcing civil-rights laws strictly

3. public and politcal conduct--liberals are tolerant of protest demonstrations, favor legalizing marijuana, emphasize protecting the rights of the accused over punishing criminals, see the solution to crime in eliminating its causes rather than getting tough with offenders

The following is an oversimplification of four ideologies, with data taken from a study by William S. Maddox and Stuart A. Lilie:

1. pure liberals--liberal on both economic policy and personal conduct; want to reduce economic inequality, regulate business, tax the rich heavily, "cure" economic causes of crime, allow abortions, protect rights of the accused and guarantee broad freedoms of speech and press

2. pure consevatives--conservative on both economic and conduct issues; want gov't to cut back on welfare state, allow market to allocate goods and services, keep taxes low, lock up criminals, and curb forms of conduct they regard as antisocial

3. libertarians--conservative on economic issues and liberal on social ones; want small, weak gov't with little control over either the economy or the personal lives of citizens

4. populists--liberal on economic issues and conservative on social ones; want gov't that will reduce economic inequality and control business, but also want it to regulate personal conduct, lock up criminals and permit school prayer

The one group that can be purely classified as liberals or conservatives is that of the political elites. Elite refers to people who have a disproportionate amount of a valued resource such as money, schooling, prestige, athletic ability, political power, etc. Every society has an elite. In the US, we call political elites "activists." Political elites tend to display a definite ideology, and the more they are involved in politics, the more defined it is. There are two main reasons for this. First, is information. The more informed people are the more they tend to show a given ideology. Second, is peers. The more you are involved the more you will associate with people who agree with you on some issues and the more your other views will shift to match theirs.

Some say that political elites are a "new class," consisting of people who are advantaged by the power, resources and growth of government as opposed to the power, resources and growth of business as the old class was. This could be partly due to the spread of higher education.

Elites see politics in very different ways from the general public. The elites influence public opinion in two important ways. First, they raise and frame political issues by influencing what issues capture public attention and how those issues are debated. Second, they state the norms by which issues are settled. Norms are standards of right or proper conduct. For example, elites have emphasized that racism, sexism, etc. are wrong, and now, the public strongly opposes them.

Elites, however, do NOT define economic problems. They shape policy, but they do not define problems.