Political climate

Last updated December 09, 2024

The political climate is the aggregate mood and opinions of a political society at a particular time. It is generally used to describe when the state of mood and opinion is changing or unstable. The phrase has origins from both ancient Greece and medieval-era France.

While the concept of a political climate has been used historically to describe both politics and public reactions to political actions in various forms, the naming of the concept by the addition of the modifier "political" to the base "climate" has been fairly recent. Public opinion is also widely used incorrectly as a synonym for political climate.

As for judging what the climate is at any given time, there is no way to know an entire country's views on certain subjects. So, polls are used to estimate what the political climate "feels" like on a regular basis.

Etymology

Climate

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the base climate comes from the Middle French climat, which was first used to describe a region's prevailing weather conditions around 1314.^[1] One of the first recorded uses of climate as a description of prevailing political attitudes was in The Vanity of Dogmatizing by Joseph Glanvill in 1661 where he mentions "divers Climates of Opinions".^[2]

Political

The modifier (politic with the –al suffix) comes originally from the ancient Greek noun polis which referred to both a Greek city state, and the ideal state or government.^[3] Over time, this evolved through the Latin noun politicus which is defined as the civil government,^[3] to the Middle French adjective politique which is the state of government, or relating to government.^[4]

Usage

Historical example

From 431 B.C.E to 404 B.C.E., ancient Greece was torn apart by the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.^[5] The war concluded with an Athenian defeat and several years of oppression by pro-Spartan rulers. By 399 B.C.E, Athens had returned to self-rule through revolution. At this time, Athens was undergoing social turmoil due to the apparent failure of democracy as an effective form of government, which created a public backlash against anything anti-democratic.

Socrates—the self-described "gadfly" of Athens because of his practice of elenchos (critical interrogation)—was seen by many as anti-democratic and thus a traitor to Athens due to his associations with Critias and Alcibiades (the former a Spartan supported tyrant, the latter a deserter to Sparta) and his frequent praises of the Spartan and Creten governments because of their similarity to many of his philosophical opinions on government.^[6] The prevailing political climate of distrusting anything remotely anti-Athens or anti-democracy coupled with attacks from Socrates's personal enemies led to the philosopher's execution by poison in 399 B.C.E.^[7]

Public opinion

The phrase originates from the French term opinion publique, which was first attributed to Montaigne, the father of modern Skepticism and a major figure of the French Renaissance, around 1588 C.E.^[8] It is generally used to describe the overall opinion of the public body about a certain issue. The phrase is commonly used interchangeably with political climate but the two actually refer to separate concepts. Public opinion is the aggregate logical thoughts that the public thinks and expresses about an issue (which does not have to be political in nature), while political climate is what the public's emotional reaction to those logical thoughts are.

Depending on the nature of the thoughts (if they are considered controversial or extreme), the emotional reaction can range from nothing to a highly violent state. Accordingly, controversial issues in the public eye are usually accompanied by or can even produce a polarizing political climate. For example, the introduction, passing, and court fight over Proposition 8 in California brought a controversial issue into the public sphere, which resulted in such a drastic change in the political climate of the United States as to produce many protests throughout the nation, some of them violent.^[9]

Opinion polls

An opinion poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular group of people or sample. For determining the political climate, this usually would be a cross-section of the population in question. Opinion polls conduct series of questions and then extrapolate the average opinion of the sample according to their answers. However, opinion polls generally have appreciative margins of error because of the inability to survey the entire population and the improbability of surveying a perfectly random cross-section of the population. For example, the Wall Street Journal estimated in 2006 that the average margin of error is about 3-5% in opinion polls because of a wide variety of potential inaccuracies such as response bias and selection bias.^[10]

Opinion polls are also known to be entirely incorrect when predicting the outcome of certain events. The best-known example of this is the 1948 US presidential election, in which the prediction was that Thomas Dewey would easily defeat Harry Truman. Major polling organizations, including Gallup and Roper, indicated a landslide victory for Dewey when, in fact, Truman was the victor in a close election and kept the presidency.^[11] 2016 saw the validity of opinion polls enter the debate once more, as polls in both the UK "Brexit" referendum and the US presidential election were ultimately shown to be largely incorrect.^[12] Polls widely predicted a win for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, while instead Republican candidate Donald J. Trump won the Electoral College and, therefore, the presidency.^[13]

Related Research Articles

The Second Peloponnesian War, often called simply the Peloponnesian War, was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world. The war remained undecided until the later intervention of the Persian Empire in support of Sparta. Led by Lysander, the Spartan fleet finally defeated Athens which began a period of Spartan hegemony over Greece.

The Trial of Socrates was held to determine the philosopher's guilt of two charges: asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts by Socrates: "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities".

Year 404 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Volusus, Cossus, Fidenas, Ambustus, Maluginensis and Rutilus. The denomination 404 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

This article concerns the period 409 BC – 400 BC.

This decade witnessed the continuing decline of the Achaemenid Empire, fierce warfare amongst the Greek city-states during the Peloponnesian War, the ongoing Warring States period in Zhou dynasty China, and the closing years of the Olmec civilization in modern-day Mexico.

Lysander was a Spartan military and political leader. He destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, forcing Athens to capitulate and bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end. He then played a key role in Sparta's domination of Greece for the next decade until his death at the Battle of Haliartus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thrasybulus</span> Athenian general and politician (c. 440 – 388 BC)

Thrasybulus was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the ultimately successful democratic resistance to the coup. As general, he was responsible for recalling the controversial nobleman Alcibiades from exile, and the two worked together extensively over the next several years. In 411 and 410, Thrasybulus was in command along with Alcibiades and others at several critical Athenian naval victories.

Alcibiades was an Athenian statesman and general. The last of the Alcmaeonidae, he played a major role in the second half of the Peloponnesian War as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician, but subsequently fell from prominence.

Anytus, son of Anthemion of the deme Euonymon, was a politician in Classical Athens. Anytus served as a general in the Peloponnesian War of 431 to 404 BCE, and later became a leading supporter of the democratic forces opposed to the Thirty Tyrants who ruled Athens from 404 to 403 BCE. He is best remembered as one of the prosecutors of the philosopher Socrates in 399 BCE; probably because of that role, Plato depicted Anytus as an interlocutor in the dialogue Meno.

Theramenes was an Athenian military leader and statesman, prominent in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War. He was active during the two periods of oligarchic government at Athens, the 400 and later the Thirty Tyrants, as well as in the trial of the generals who had commanded at Arginusae in 406 BC. A moderate oligarch, he often found himself caught between the democrats on the one hand and the extremist oligarchs on the other. Successful in replacing a narrow oligarchy with a broader one in 411 BC, he failed to achieve the same end in 404 BC, and was executed by the extremists whose policies he had opposed.

Nicias was an Athenian politician and general during the period of the Peloponnesian War. Nicias was a member of the Athenian aristocracy and had inherited a large fortune from his father, which was invested in the silver mines around Attica's Mt. Laurium. Following the death of Pericles in 429 BC, he became the principal rival of Cleon and the democrats in the struggle for the political leadership of the Athenian state. He was a moderate in his political views and opposed the aggressive imperialism of the democrats. His principal aim was to conclude a peace with Sparta as soon as it could be obtained on terms favourable to Athens.

Critias was an ancient Athenian poet, philosopher and political leader. He is known today for being a student of Socrates, a writer of some regard, and for becoming the leader of the Thirty Tyrants, who ruled Athens for several months after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War in 404/403.

The Thirty Tyrants were an oligarchy that briefly ruled Athens from 404 BC to 403 BC. Installed into power by the Spartans after the Athenian surrender in the Peloponnesian War, the Thirty became known for their tyrannical rule, first being called "The Thirty Tyrants" by Polycrates. Although they maintained power for only eight months, their reign resulted in the killing of 5% of the Athenian population, the confiscation of citizens' property, and the exile of other democratic supporters.

The History of the Peloponnesian War is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League. It was written by Thucydides, an Athenian historian who also served as an Athenian general during the war. His account of the conflict is widely considered to be a classic and regarded as one of the earliest scholarly works of history. The History is divided into eight books.

Agis II was the 18th Eurypontid king of Sparta, the eldest son of Archidamus II by his first wife, and half-brother of Agesilaus II. He ruled with his Agiad co-monarch Pausanias.

Lamachus was an Athenian strategos or general in the Peloponnesian War. He commanded as early as 435 BCE, and was prominent by the mid 420s. Aristophanes caricatured him in The Acharnians and subsequently honoured his memory in The Frogs. He was one of the three generals placed in command of the Sicilian Expedition.

The prominent Athenian statesman Alcibiades has been criticized by ancient comic writers and appears in several Socratic dialogues. He enjoys an important afterlife, in literature and art, having acquired symbolic status as the personification of ambition and sexual profligacy. He also appears in several significant works of modern literature.

<i>Tides of War</i> Book by Steven Pressfield

Tides of War is a 2000 novel by Steven Pressfield, chronicling the Peloponnesian War.

<i>Socrates on Trial</i> Play written by Andrew David Irvine

Socrates on Trial is a play depicting the life and death of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. It tells the story of how Socrates was put on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens and for failing to honour the city's gods. The play contains adaptations of several classic Greek works: the slapstick comedy, Clouds, written by Aristophanes and first performed in 423 BCE; the dramatic monologue, Apology, written by Plato to record the defence speech Socrates gave at his trial; and Plato's Crito and Phaedo, two dialogues describing the events leading to Socrates’ execution in 399 BCE. The play was written by Andrew David Irvine of the University of British Columbia and premiered by director Joan Bryans of Vital Spark Theatre Company in 2007 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver.

Archestratus was a general who in 432 BCE was sent by Athens to Potidaea, in which a revolt was brewing, to take Potidean hostages and demolish the city wall. It is possible this expedition included the general Alcibiades and philosopher Socrates.

References

↑ "climate" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
↑ Glanville, Joseph. The Vanity of Dogmatizing. London: H. Eversden, 1661. 227. eBook.
1 2 "politic" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
↑ "polis" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
↑ Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Gutenburg: Project Gutenburg, 2009. eBook.
↑ Bagby, Laurie. Political Thought: A Guide to The Classics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, 2002. 3. Print.
↑ Reeve, C.D.C. The Trials of Socrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002. Print.
↑ Donsbach, Wolfgang. The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Print.
↑ Dolan, Maura (6 December 2010). "Prop. 8: Protesters on both sides of gay-marriage issue make their views known outside courthouse". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 31 July 2021.
↑ Bialik, Carl. "Grading the Pollsters". Wall Street Journal, 16 November 2006.
↑ Crabtree, Steve. "Gallup Brain: Strom Thurmond and the 1948 Election". Gallup, Inc. (December 17, 2002).
↑ Millward, David (9 November 2016). "How the pollsters got the US election wrong - just like Brexit" . The Telegraph. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
↑ Mercer, Andrew; Deane, Claudia; McGeeney, Kyley (9 November 2016). "Why 2016 election polls missed their mark". Pew Research Center. Retrieved 4 February 2017.