Why Voters Aren't Motivated by a Laundry List of Positions on Issues

Provides an introduction to cognitive policy – the values, frames, and arguments that makesense of the political process.

There is a faulty view of voting behavior – widely held by political strategists on the left – that people already know what they want.

There are two kinds of policy: cognitive and material. Material policies are familiar: they outline

what is to be done in the world. For example, the details of a health care plan, or a plan for getting

out of Iraq. Material policies each have a cognitive dimension, often unconscious and implicit. This

includes the ideas, frames, values, and modes of thought that inform the political understanding of

the material policy.

Progressives have lacked a cognitive policy-making arm. As a result, they try to sell policies on a

case-by-case basis via “messaging,” last-minute PR for the specific policy (e.g., listing polar bears as

an endangered species), rather than developing a progressive worldview that automatically makes

sense of the policy and counters conservative ideas.

When conservatives are in power, they can institute policies that are designed to fail—fail in a way

to support conservative cognitive policies. In short, for conservatives in power, deliberate material

policy failure can lead to cognitive policy success, and hence many strategic successes in the

future

Also see Comparing Climate Proposals - A Case Study in Cognitive Policy