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 Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...

and medieval-era

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. While the concept of a political

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

has been used historically to describe both

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

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 Public opinion, or popular opinion, is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily ...

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 ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

, the base climate comes from the Middle French ''climat'', which was first used to describe a region's prevailing weather conditions around 1314. One of the first recorded uses of climate as a description of prevailing political attitudes was in The Vanity of Dogmatizing by

Joseph Glanvill Joseph Glanvill (1636 – 4 November 1680) was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the appr ...

in 1661 where he mentions "divers Climates of Opinions".

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. Over time, this evolved through the Latin noun ''politicus'' which is defined as the civil government, to the Middle French adjective ''politique'' which is the state of government, or relating to government.

Usage

Historical example

From 431 B.C.E to 404 B.C.E., ancient Greece was torn apart by the

Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

between

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

and

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

. 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. 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.

Public opinion

The phrase originates from the French term ''opinion publique'', which was first attributed to Montaigne, the father of modern

Skepticism Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...

and a major figure of the

French Renaissance The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define ...

, around 1588 C.E. 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.

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 California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

brought a controversial issue into the public sphere, which resulted in such a drastic change in the political climate of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

as to produce many protests throughout the nation, some of them violent.

Opinion polls

opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...

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 Cross section may refer to: * Cross section (geometry) ** Cross-sectional views in architecture and engineering 3D * Cross section (geology) * Cross section (electronics) * Radar cross section, measure of detectability * Cross section (physics) ...

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 ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

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 Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby failing to ensure that the sample obtained is representative of the population inte ...

. 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 United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 2, 1948. The History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ticket of incumbent President Harry S. Truman and Senator Alben Barkle ...

, in which the prediction was that Thomas Dewey would easily defeat

Harry Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

. 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. 2016 saw the validity of opinion polls enter the debate once more, as polls in both the UK "

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

" referendum and the US presidential election were ultimately shown to be largely incorrect. Polls widely predicted a win for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, while instead Republican candidate Donald J. Trump won the

Electoral College An electoral college is a body whose task is to elect a candidate to a particular office. It is mostly used in the political context for a constitutional body that appoints the head of state or government, and sometimes the upper parliament ...

and, therefore, the presidency.