Taeku Lee

Public opinion and the politics of obesity in America.

Health policy experts have recently sounded the warning about the severe health and economic consequences of Americas growing rates of obesity. Despite this fact, obesity has only begun to enter Americas political consciousness and we have little information about what average Americans think of obesity or whether they support obesity-related policies. Using unique survey data collected by the authors, this essay examines public attitudes toward obesity and obesity policy. We find that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity as resulting from individual failure rather than environmental or genetic sources. Given the absence of elite discourse on this problem, we also find that typical determinants of policy preferences, such as ideology or partisanship, are not good predictors of attitudes on obesity policy. Rather, with a low-valence issue such as obesity, the public utilizes other attitudinal frameworks such as their opinions on smoking policy and the environmental culpability for obesity. The implications of these findings for obesity policy and research on health-related public opinion are discussed.

Mobilizing public opinion : black insurgency and racial attitudes in the civil rights era

What motivates us to change our opinions during times of political protest and social unrest? To investigate this question, Taeku Lees smartly argued book looks to the critical struggle over the moral principles, group interests, and racial animosities that defined public support for racial policies during the civil rights movement, from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. Challenging the conventional view that public opinion is shaped by elites, Lee crafts an alternate account of the geographic, institutional, historical, and issue-specific contexts that form our political views. He finds that grassroots organizations and local protests of ordinary people pushed demands for social change into the consciousness of the general public. From there, Lee argues, these demands entered the policy agendas of political elites. Evidence from multiple sources including survey data, media coverage, historical accounts, and presidential archives animates his argument. Ultimately, Mobilizing Public Opinion is a timely, cautionary tale about how we view public opinion and a compelling testament to the potential power of ordinary citizens.

Public Opinion and the Politics of America's Obesity Epidemic

Recently, health policy experts have sounded the warning about the severe health and economic consequences of Americas growing obesity epidemic. Despite this fact, obesity has not yet entered Americas political consciousness and we have little information about what average Americans think of obesity or whether they support obesity related policies. The nascence of the obesity epidemic presents an interesting opportunity to examine public opinion at the beginning of an issues evolution. Using unique survey data collected by the authors, this paper presents the first examination of public attitudes towards obesity and obesity policy. We find that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity as resulting from individual failure rather than environmental or genetic sources. Given the absence of elite discourse on this problem, we also find that typical determinants of policy preferences, such as ideology or partisanship, are not good predictors of attitudes on obesity policy. Rather, with a low valence issue like obesity, the public relies on prior awareness, policy heuristics, and causal explanations to inform their opinions. The implications of these findings for obesity policy and research on public opinion are discussed.

FROM SHARED DEMOGRAPHIC CATEGORIES TO COMMON POLITICAL DESTINIES

Little controversy remains about the profound shifts in the demographic landscape of the United States since the mid-1960s. Far more controversial is whether this transformation will bring about a new politics of race. This paper argues that a key to settling this debate is a clearer specification of the “identity-to-politics” link: the nexus between a population defined by shared racial and ethnic labels and a collective group politics based on those definitions. The paper articulates some potential pitfalls in how this nexus is commonly specified in empirical research and proposes an approach that distinguishes five key processes that are typically lumped together in linking shared demographic categories to common political destinies: definition, identification, consciousness, venue selection, and choice. The paper describes an example of this approach (the case of ethnoracial classification and the empirical measurement of race) and concludes by discussing its potential utility and limitations.

Language-of-Interview Effects and Latino Mass Opinion

This paper extends the well-studied phenomenon of interviewer effects (race-, gender-, and ethnicity-of-interviewer) to the yet unexamined domain of language-of-interview. Using data from the 1989-1990 Latino National Politics Survey, the paper finds that the answers that survey respondents give differ, sometimes markedly, depending on whether an interview is conducted in Spanish or English. The paper then considers several explanations for why language-of-interview should matter. Methodological answers – that such effects result from sample characteristics or measurement error – fail to fully explain the effects. The influence of social desirability also does not fully explain language-of-interview effects. In addition to these factors, the findings suggest that interviews in different languages enable and evoke a distinct set of meanings, experiences, and attitudes about what it means to be Latino in the United States. Viewed thus, language-of-interview effects are more than just corrective for how we conduct surveys but also a valuable tool for examining how language informs and influences Latino mass opinion.