scholarly journals The Geopolitical Consequences of COVID‐19: Assessing Hawkish Mass Opinion in China

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Byun ◽  
D.G. Kim ◽  
Sichen Li
Keyword(s):  
Mass Opinion

The Opinion-Mobilizing Effect of Social Protest against Police Violence: Evidence from the 2020 George Floyd Protests

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
TYLER T. RENY ◽  
BENJAMIN J. NEWMAN
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Cross Sections ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Large Dataset ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Mass Opinion ◽  
The U.S

Does social protest following the police killing of unarmed Black civilians have a widespread “opinion-mobilizing” effect against the police? Or, does the racialized nature of these events polarize mass opinion based on standing racial and political orientations? To answer these questions, we use a large dataset comprised of weekly cross sections of the American public and employ a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) approach leveraging the random timing of the police killing of George Floyd and ensuing nationwide protests. We find that the Floyd protests swiftly decreased favorability toward the police and increased perceived anti-Black discrimination among low-prejudice and politically liberal Americans. However, attitudes among high-prejudice and politically conservative Americans either remained unchanged or evinced only small and ephemeral shifts. Our evidence suggests that the Floyd protests served to further racialize and politicize attitudes within the domain of race and law enforcement in the U.S.

After the Critical Election: Presidential Leadership, Competition and the Consolidation of the New Deal Realignment

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. STEPHEN WEATHERFORD
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Consolidation Phase ◽  
National Coalition ◽  
Mass Opinion ◽  
The New Deal

The concept of critical realignment has shaped much of the thinking of political scientists and historians about the processes and patterns of change in American politics. Research on re-alignment has, however, tended to focus on successful cases and to concentrate on the electoral breakpoints rather than the process of regime formation, with the result that little systematic thinking has been devoted to the question of why some electoral upheavals lead to party realignment while other large vote shifts do not. This article begins from the proposition that the election does not so much constitute the realignment as offer the opportunity and the momentum for the new party to build a lasting national coalition. Whether the party capitalizes on this potential depends on processes and events that follow the critical election, during what could be called the ‘consolidation phase’ of the realignment. The question is ultimately one about public opinion, but the concept of consolidation needs to take in the interaction between the public and political elites, since mass opinion is formed in the context of elite initiatives and interpretations. The model of consolidation depicts two interrelated processes. The first involves strategic competition among elites, including elected officials and organized societal interests, who frame the conflict, by prioritizing issues and cleavages, and by relating policy proposals to group identities and widely-shared values. The second focuses on the public. Their standing loyalties disrupted by the crisis and the incumbents' inability to deal with it successfully, citizens engage in a process of experiential search as they seek to re-establish the stable political orientation given by attachment to a political party. The article draws on qualitative and quantitative information from the New Deal to illustrate the model of consolidation.

scholarly journals Power Approaches to Policy-Making

NCC Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-180
Author(s):  
Tej Raj Pokharel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Elite Group ◽  
Mass Opinion

Society is the mixture of mass and elite group. Elite group of society remains in apex and forcefully take the space in decision making process, direct and instruct the mass as well as administrators and drag the power in their own hands. Elites manipulate mass opinion and sentiments. They rule masses of people. Elite theories introduce not only elites, but also new important subjects like power, and raise questions for example on oligarchic tendencies in democracy.

Media-Effects Experiments in Political Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Gervais
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Media Effects ◽  
News Media ◽  
Survey Methodology ◽  
Causal Power ◽  
Selective Exposure ◽  
Experimental Methodology ◽  
Methodological Choices ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Mass Opinion

Recognizing its causal power, contemporary scholars of media effects commonly leverage experimental methodology. For most of the 20th century, however, political scientists and communication scholars relied on observational data, particularly after the development of scientific survey methodology around the mid-point of the century. As the millennium approached, Iyengar and Kinder’s seminal News That Matters experiments ushered in an era of renewed interest in experimental methods. Political communication scholars have been particularly reliant on experiments, due to their advantages over observational studies in identifying media effects. Although what is meant by “media effects” has not always been clear or undisputed, scholars generally agree that the news media influences mass opinion and behavior through its agenda-setting, framing, and priming powers. Scholars have adopted techniques and practices for gauging the particular effects these powers have, including measuring the mediating role of affect (or emotion). Although experiments provide researchers with causal leverage, political communication scholars must consider challenges endemic to media-effects studies, including problems related to selective exposure. Various efforts to determine if selective exposure occurs and if it has consequences have come to different conclusions. The origin of conflicting conclusions can be traced back to the different methodological choices scholars have made. Achieving experimental realism has been a particularly difficult challenge for selective exposure experiments. Nonetheless, there are steps media-effects scholars can take to bolster causal arguments in an era of high media choice. While the advent of social media has brought new challenges for media-effects experimentalists, there are new opportunities in the form of objective measures of media exposure and effects.

scholarly journals Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (34) ◽  
pp. 16781-16786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margit Tavits ◽  
Efrén O. Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Attitudes Toward Women ◽  
Traditional Gender Roles ◽  
Gender Neutral ◽  
Bisexual And Transgender ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Mass Opinion

To improve gender equality and tolerance toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities, several nations have promoted the use of gender-neutral pronouns and words. Do these linguistic devices actually reduce biases that favor men over women, gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals? The current article explores this question with 3 large-scale experiments in Sweden, which formally incorporated a gender-neutral pronoun into its language alongside established gendered pronouns equivalent to he and she. The evidence shows that compared with masculine pronouns, use of gender-neutral pronouns decreases the mental salience of males. This shift is associated with individuals expressing less bias in favor of traditional gender roles and categories, as reflected in more favorable attitudes toward women and LGBT individuals in public life. Additional analyses reveal similar patterns for feminine pronouns. The influence of both pronouns is more automatic than controlled.

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