scholarly journals Owning Immigration: Messenger Ethnicity, Issue Ownership, and Support for Latino Candidates

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-259
Author(s):  
Allyson Shortle ◽  
Tyler Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Issue Ownership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Source Cues ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractThe public opinion literature stresses the importance of source cues in determining which types of messages affect attitudes and which types do not. Building upon such research, we seek to determine if messenger ethnicity influences how individuals evaluate candidates speaking on immigration in the context of a campaign. Do Americans (and Anglo Americans in particular) view Latino candidates as more experienced, stronger leaders, more trustworthy, and more qualified on immigration than Anglo candidates? Moreover, do such relationships hold regardless of the valence of the message itself? Through an original survey experiment presenting subjects with immigration talk on the campaign trail, we find Latino candidates are reviewed more positively than Anglo candidates when it comes to the immigration messages they speak (especially when it comes to pro-immigration messages). Such findings give us insight into whether or not Latino candidates have the potential to “own” the issue of immigration, as well as offering another path by which Latino candidates can gain a strong foothold with the public in the context of a campaign.

scholarly journals Easing the Heavy Hand: Humanitarian Concern, Empathy, and Opinion on Immigration

2013 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin J. Newman ◽  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
Patrick L. Lown ◽  
Stanley Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Opinion Survey ◽  
Public Opinion Survey ◽  
The Public ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Yielding Support

The bulk of the public opinion research on immigration identifies the factors leading to opposition to immigration. In contrast, we focus on a previously unexplored factor yielding support for immigration: humanitarianism. Relying upon secondary analysis of national public opinion survey data and an original survey experiment, we demonstrate that humanitarian concern significantly decreases support for restrictive immigration policy. Results from our survey experiment demonstrate that in an information environment evoking both threat and countervailing humanitarian concern regarding immigration, the latter can and does override the former. Last, our results point to the importance of individual differences in empathy in moderating the effects of both threat and humanitarian inducements.

Reality Asserts Itself: Public Opinion on Iraq and the Elasticity of Reality

2010 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Baum ◽  
Tim Groeling
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sustained Change ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Over Time

AbstractPrevailing theories hold that U.S. public support for a war depends primarily on its degree of success, U.S. casualties, or conflict goals. Yet, research into the framing of foreign policy shows that public perceptions concerning each of these factors are often endogenous and malleable by elites. In this article, we argue that both elite rhetoric and the situation on the ground in the conflict affect public opinion, but the qualities that make such information persuasive vary over time and with circumstances. Early in a conflict, elites (especially the president) have an informational advantage that renders public perceptions of “reality” very elastic. As events unfold and as the public gathers more information, this elasticity recedes, allowing alternative frames to challenge the administration's preferred frame. We predict that over time the marginal impact of elite rhetoric and reality will decrease, although a sustained change in events may eventually restore their influence. We test our argument through a content analysis of news coverage of the Iraq war from 2003 through 2007, an original survey of public attitudes regarding Iraq, and partially disaggregated data from more than 200 surveys of public opinion on the war.

Investigations and Public Opinion

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas L. Kriner ◽  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
American People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Congressional Investigations ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Investigative Activity

This chapter proposes and empirically tests a general mechanism through which congressional investigative activity could affect presidential behavior and policy making more broadly: by influencing the president’s well of support among the American people. It proceeds in four parts. First, it describes two mechanisms through which committee investigations of executive misconduct are well positioned to shape levels of public support for the president. The empirical analysis then begins by asking a basic, but essential pre-cursor question: does the public generally support Congress employing its investigative powers to uncover and pursue allegations of abuse of power by the executive branch? Having answered this question in the affirmative, the analysis continues by merging the database of congressional investigative activity described in Chapter 2 with more than sixty years of public opinion data measuring support for the president. The chapter then presents the results of several original survey experiments that isolate the influence of congressional investigations on public opinion independent of potential confounding factors.

scholarly journals Responsibilization and Sexual Stigma Under Austerity: Surveying Public Support for Government-Funded PrEP in England

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-653
Author(s):  
Timothy Hildebrandt ◽  
Leticia Bode ◽  
Jessica S. C. Ng
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sexual Stigma ◽  
The Government ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Media Narratives

Abstract Introduction Under austerity, governments shift responsibilities for social welfare to individuals. Such responsibilization can be intertwined with pre-existing social stigmas, with sexually stigmatized individuals blamed more for health problems due to “irresponsible” sexual behavior. To understand how sexual stigma affects attitudes on government healthcare expenditures, we examine public support for government-provisioned PrEP in England at a time when media narratives cast the drug as an expensive benefit for a small, irresponsible social group and the National Health Service’s long-term sustainability was in doubt. Methods This paper uses data from an original survey (N = 738) conducted in September 2016, when public opinion should be most sensitive to sexual stigma. A survey experiment tests how the way beneficiaries of PrEP were described affected support for NHS provision of it. Contrary to expectations, we found that support was high (mean = 3.86 on a scale of 1 to 5) irrespective of language used or beneficiary group mentioned. Differences between conditions were negligible. Discussion Sexual stigma does not diminish support for government-funded PrEP, which may be due to reverence for the NHS; resistance to responsibilization generally; or just to HIV, with the public influenced by sympathy and counter-messaging. Social policy implications Having misjudged public attitudes, it may be difficult for the government to continue to justify not funding PrEP; the political rationale for contracting out its provision is unnecessary and flawed. With public opinion resilient to responsibilization narratives and sexual stigma even under austerity, welfare retrenchment may be more difficult than social policymakers presume.

How Priming Innocence Influences Public Opinion on Police Misconduct and False Convictions

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Donovan ◽  
Charles F. Klahm
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Police Misconduct ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Police Use Of Force ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Nationally Representative

Issues of innocence have become more salient to the public in recent years, including the problem of police misconduct. However, citizens also tend to be supportive of the police, perceiving them as ethical, honest, and trustworthy. Using a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample, we explore the degree to which public opinion toward police misconduct is influenced by priming respondents on the issue of innocence. We find that reminding citizens of these issues increases their willingness to admit police misconduct that contributes to this problem by roughly 7 percentage points overall. Moreover, this effect is driven by conservatives and, to a lesser extent, moderates, presumably because liberals do not need priming. In contrast, the efficacy of the prime was not affected (i.e., moderated) by the race of the respondent. We place these results in the context of the current debate regarding police use of force as well as the ideological divide in rhetoric surrounding the recent string of high-profile police shootings.

scholarly journals Measuring corruption: whose perceptions should we rely on? Evidence from Iceland"

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gissur Ólafur Erlingsson ◽  
Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
General Public ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Direct Experience ◽  
The Public ◽  
Corruption Perception ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
International Corruption

The extent of corruption in Iceland is highly contested. International corruption measures indicate a relatively small amount of corruption while domestic public opinion suggest a serious corruption problem. Thus, uncertainty prevails about the actual extent of corruption and whose perceptions to rely on. This problem is relevant for corruption research in general. Perceptions are increasingly used as proxies for the actual levels of corruption in comparative research. But we still do not know enough about the accuracy of these proxies or the criteria they must meet in order to give dependable results. In fact, radical differences exist concerning evaluations of perceptions between those who believe in unbiased learning and those believing perceptual bias to be widespread. The purpose of this article is, therefore, to attempt to gauge which factors may influence how perceptions of corruption are shaped and why differences in corruption perceptions between different groups may be so pronounced. We present findings from original survey data from three parallel surveys – among the "public", experts, and "municipal practitioners" – conducted in Iceland in 2014. Expectations based on the perceptual bias approach are tested, indicating that perceptions may be affected by (1) information factors, (2) direct experience of corruption and (3) emotive factors. The validity of perception measures should be considered with this in mind. Domestic experts are likely to be well informed and avoid perceptual bias to a greater extent than other groups. Our examination of the Icelandic case suggests that the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) tends to underestimate corruption problems in "mature welfare states", such as Iceland, whilst the general public tends to overestimate it.

scholarly journals Keeping the euro at any cost? Explaining attitudes toward the euro-austerity trade-off in Greece

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-405
Author(s):  
Ignacio Jurado ◽  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Nikitas Konstantinidis ◽  
Elias Dinas
Keyword(s):  
Strong Support ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
The Public ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Theoretical Mechanism ◽  
The Common ◽  
Original Survey

Despite years of crisis, the euro has enjoyed strong popular support across the Eurozone periphery. In light of the high costs of internal devaluation strategies, this begs the question why the public has remained in favor of the common currency. In this article, we propose a theoretical mechanism that accounts for both voters’ pocketbook preferences and their sociotropic assessments over the noisy trade-offs associated with the outcomes of euro membership and euro exit. Using original survey data from three consecutive survey waves in Greece (conducted in July, September, and December 2015, respectively), we analyze the attitudes of Greek voters toward the euro in an environment of acute uncertainty, austerity, high unemployment, and economic recession. First, we juxtapose our uncertainty mechanism of popular euro attitudes against other explanations put forward in the literature and find strong support for our argument. Second, we conduct a survey experiment to tap into attitudes toward the euro-austerity trade-off and find that as uncertainty over policy outcomes diminishes, framing effects abate in significance, especially among those who voted No in the July 2015 referendum. Finally, we derive distinct sets of euro preferences for different ‘vulnerability profiles’. Over time, as the trade-offs of euro membership become more pronounced, we find a marked fall in euro support between July and December 2015.

scholarly journals The public worth of Mary Somerville

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAIRE Brock
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Century Science ◽  
Insight Into

This article assesses the reputation of Mary Somerville in the 1830s and suggests that critical confusion over her status in the changing world of early nineteenth-century science is not new. Drawing on Somerville’s own writings, contemporary newspaper and periodical reviews, political debates and unpublished manuscripts, Somerville's ‘uniqueness’ as a public figure is examined through the eyes of both the nascent scientific community of the time as well as the wider audience for her work. Somerville's status as a popularizer and an educator is more complicated than may have previously been assumed and can be both confirmed and undermined by an analysis of contemporary public opinion. Although her works were directed at the public who indirectly paid her pension for services to science, Somerville's private and published comments about and within her writings offer an alternative interpretation. Despite an apparent turn to more popular works in order to bolster her finances, Mary Somerville relished the specialist aspect of her writings and valued the difficulties which prevented the ordinary reader from obtaining ultimate insight into celestial mechanics.

The evolution of human trafficking messaging in the United States and its effect on public opinion

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tabitha Bonilla ◽  
Cecilia Hyunjung Mo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Security Problem ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractDespite a near unanimous agreement that human trafficking is a morally reprehensible practice, there is confusion around what qualifies as human trafficking in the United States. Adopting a mixed-method strategy, we examine how human trafficking is defined by the public; how contemporary (mis)understanding of human trafficking developed; and the public opinion consequence of this (mis)understanding. The definition of human trafficking has evolved over time to become nearly synonymous with slavery; however, we demonstrate that media and anti-trafficking organisations have been focussing their attention on the sexual exploitation of foreign women. We show that general public opinion reflects this skewed attention; the average citizen equates human trafficking with the smuggling of women for sexual slavery. Using a survey experiment, we find that shining light on other facets of human trafficking – the fact that human trafficking is a security problem and a domestic issue – can increase public response to the issue.

Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons

2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 188-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
DARYL G. PRESS ◽  
SCOTT D. SAGAN ◽  
BENJAMIN A. VALENTINO
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
The Public ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Willingness To Use ◽  
Do So

How strong are normative prohibitions on state behavior? We examine this question by analyzing anti-nuclear norms, sometimes called the “nuclear taboo,” using an original survey experiment to evaluate American attitudes regarding nuclear use. We find that the public has only a weak aversion to using nuclear weapons and that this aversion has few characteristics of an “unthinkable” behavior or taboo. Instead, public attitudes about whether to use nuclear weapons are driven largely by consequentialist considerations of military utility. Americans’ willingness to use nuclear weapons increases dramatically when nuclear weapons provide advantages over conventional weapons in destroying critical targets. Americans who oppose the use of nuclear weapons seem to do so primarily for fear of setting a negative precedent that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by other states against the United States or its allies in the future.

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