NSF grant funds re-surveying of Mood of the Nation Poll participants

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Americans’ evolving thoughts on the state of democracy continue to be put under the microscope by Penn State’s McCourtney Institute for Democracy.

Liberal Arts Professor of Political Science Eric Plutzer and McCourtney Institute Director and Professor of Political Science Michael Berkman recently received a one-year grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to re-survey people who have participated in their Mood of the Nation Poll.

Through the grant, Mood of the Nation’s partner, online polling organization YouGov, is re-surveying 3,000 people who took the 2022, 2023 or 2024 polls to gauge whether their opinions on democracy and freedom have changed due to ongoing political and societal factors.

As usual, the survey asks respondents three open-ended questions built around the theme, “What do you value most about democracy?”

“We believe this is the first U.S. survey to follow the same citizens to see how their opinions have changed over a period of years,” Plutzer said. “We are excited about digging into the data, and appreciate the support of the U.S. National Science Foundation. A small amount of funds can go a long way in social science research and we are grateful to receive it.”

Mood of the Nation first launched in 2016, with its democracy-specific work beginning in 2019. Its mission remains as timely as ever, Plutzer said, given the waning enthusiasm for democracy in the United States and other western nations over the past several decades.

“If you ask most Americans, they’ll say, ‘Democracy is the best system on the planet,’” Plutzer said. “We try to probe them by asking, ‘Well, what is it about democracy you like the most?’ And that’s where we get interesting responses, when people can explain themselves in their own words.”

Through previous iterations of the survey, Plutzer and Berkman have found that respondents prioritize different aspects of American democracy. Some value its robust protections for individual liberty and rights, while others are more attracted to the idea of the “voice of the people’s” effect on electing officials and influencing policy.

“Those who are mostly interested in individual rights want the government to stay out of their lives and be able to do whatever they want,” Plutzer said. “And those who think it’s all about the voice of the people, they’re very sensitive to things that would diminish turnout or favor people who have lots of money in the political system. So, people in each camp have their faith in democracy tested by different things.”

And then there are those who get really upset about the state of things, leading to cynicism and a pronounced disillusionment with the whole democratic experiment, Plutzer said.

Based on the previous surveys, this camp primarily consists of political independents and young people, he said.

“Independents have no team. They tend to think politicians are all bad, they’re not engaged in mainstream news, they don’t vote all that frequently,” Plutzer said. “Many younger voters fall into that camp, too. They are especially prone to being cynical, and to calling out adults for not living up to the ideals they espouse. The question we can’t answer is whether this young generation will move back to being strong supporters of democracy as they get older, like their parents and grandparents, or if they’ll be a generation that remains very cynical through their lives.”

Plutzer said he and Berkman decided to pursue the new survey after last year’s Democratic National Convention, where an entire day’s worth of programming was devoted to freedom and liberty, a theme typically associated with Republicans, but which had been more recently championed by prominent Democrats like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

“I thought, ‘Gee, if the Democrats are pivoting and trying to own the themes of freedom and liberty, will that make a difference with the public?’” said Plutzer, noting the Trump administration’s actions over the past few months also make the new poll timely.

The questionnaires were designed by Plutzer and Berkman, then distributed by YouGov to a demographically diverse sampling of previous respondents. The responses are usually analyzed and classified by Mood of the Nation student researchers, but because of the expedited nature of the NSF grant, that work will now be assisted by a machine learning process developed by Mike Burnham, an incoming assistant professor of political science at Texas A&M University who received his doctorate from Penn State.

Plutzer said the results should be ready within the next couple of months.

“One of the things we’re hoping to learn is, ‘Are people’s feelings about democracy deeply embedded in who they are and difficult to change?’ It’s possible we’ll see people give the same answers as they did previously,” he said. “For those who seemed disaffected earlier, we could see if they changed their views. Maybe participating in a presidential election has made them more supportive of democracy. It’s also possible that some of them who emphasized the political equality and voice of the people angle will now find liberty and freedom to be more salient and give answers that reflect that. Those are the kinds of things we’ll be looking for.”

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