Philip Converse

Philip Ernest Converse (November 17, 1928 – December 30, 2014) was an American political scientist.

He was a professor in political science and sociology at the University of Michigan who conducted research on public opinion, survey research, and quantitative social science.

Converse was born November 17, 1928, in Concord, New Hampshire.

Philip earned his B.A. in English at Denison University in 1949, and he earned a master's degree in English literature from the University of Iowa in 1950.

Converse was drafted into U.S. military service during the Korean War, working as a newspaper editor on a base in Battle Creek, Michigan.

His sister, Connie was a singer-songwriter who recorded music in the 1950s before disappearing in the 1970s.

Converse studied for a time in France before returning to the United States to earn an M.A. in sociology at the University of Michigan in 1956, followed by a Ph.D. in social psychology at Michigan in 1958.

As he began his graduate education, Converse worked as the assistant study director of Michigan's Survey Research Center, joining forces with Warren Miller and Angus Campbell to field the 1956–1960 National Election Study panel survey.

Next, Converse empirically analyzes belief systems in the mass public using survey data from 1956, 1958, and 1960 American National Election Studies.

He proceeds in four parts.

In the first section, he shows that, when asked to describe their views on the political parties and candidates, very few Americans rely on abstract principles (possibly a liberal-conservative continuum) or other signs of ideological thinking ("ideologues").

In a second category, labeled "near-ideologue", Converse groups people that peripherally mention some abstract principles used to guide their decisions, but they may not have placed much evaluative dependence on the principle or showed evidence of misunderstanding.

Using the idea of a yardstick as a model, Converse explains that an ideologue would explicitly reference the yardstick when explaining their reasoning, while a "near-ideologue" may imply the existence of a yardstick, but could use it incorrectly or show obvious misunderstanding.

Instead, the largest category of people think about politics and parties in terms of "group benefits" based on which prominent social groups they see as advantaged or disadvantaged by Democrats or Republicans.

These social group ties tend to be stronger and more prominent when the groups are considered "visible", such as a church, union, or race, as opposed to an "invisible" social group, like social class.

It is important for the masses to be cognizant of their group to see this "group benefits" category appear.

Others thought about parties based on the "nature of the times" (issue- or party-driven) or "no issue content."

In sum, regular people don't talk about politics in ideological ways.

In the second section, Converse shows that when Americans are asked explicitly to explain the terms "liberal" and "conservative," many struggle to link those terms to the political parties and to give meaningful reasons for those pairings.

That work produced his text for political behavior, The American Voter (1960).

Converse became an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan in 1960.

In 1961, Converse married social scientist Jean G. McDonnell, an expert in interviewing techniques who directed the Detroit Area Study.

Converse's book chapter "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics" (Ideology and Discontent, edited by David E. Apter, 1964) held that most people lack structure and stability in their political views.

With Angus Campbell, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, he co-wrote The American Voter, which used data from the American National Election Studies to create a set of surveys of American public opinion carried out by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center and the Center for Political Studies.

He quickly earned tenure with promotion to associate professor in 1964.

One year later, he was promoted to the rank of full professor in sociology and a joint appointment in political science.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1969.

After being awarded two named chair positions in the 1970s and 1980s, Converse was selected as the 1987 Henry Russel Lecturer.

He served in leadership roles for the center and for the broader Institute for Social Research (ISR) in which it was housed for the rest of his career, including as director of the Center for Political Studies (1981–1986) and director of ISR itself (1986–1989).

Converse left the University of Michigan to become director of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 1989.

He returned to the University of Michigan as an emeritus professor of sociology and political science in 1994.

Converse died December 30, 2014, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the age of 86.

He was survived by his wife, Jean, and his two sons.

Converse is known for his work on ideology and belief systems, voters and elections, partisanship, political representation, party systems, the human meaning of social change, and political sophistication.

His work drew on extensive public opinion survey data from the United States and France.

According to Professor Michael Traugott, director of the University of Michigan Center for Political Studies:

In The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics, Converse challenged the notion that ordinary citizens share the sophisticated ideological structure in political thinking seen among political elites.

He argues first that belief systems are ultimately about "constraint"—if one's view changes on an issue central to the belief system, that change shifts attitudes throughout the network of other views when constraint is high.

In contrast, other views do not change in a low-constraint belief system when another attitude changes.

Converse says belief systems are constructed by political elites, who decide the issue views that go together, and he says political information is key for determining whether members of the mass public are capable of following these connections in their own thinking.