scholarly journals Party over Pocketbook? How Party Cues Influence Opinion When Citizens Have a Stake in Policy

Author(s):  
RUNE SLOTHUUS ◽  
MARTIN BISGAARD

Do political parties influence opinion when citizens have a personal stake in policy? With an experimental design that exploits a naturally occurring, sharp variation in party cues, we study the effects of party cues during a collective bargaining conflict over the salary and work rights for public employees in Denmark. Even in this context—where the self-interest of public employees was strongly mobilized and where their party went against it—we find that party cues move opinion among partisans at least as much as in previous studies. But party cues do not lead citizens to go against their self-interest. Rather, we show that party cues temper the pursuit of self-interest among public employees by moderating the most extreme policy demands. These findings highlight an unappreciated potential of political parties to moderate—not fuel—extreme opinion.

Author(s):  
Robert Lee Borges de Paula Vidigal

ResumoA opinião pública sobre as ações afirmativas não é consensual, especialmente entre os brancos. Em um desenho experimental de pesquisa, as cotas raciais são estudadas na Universidade de Brasília (UnB) e na Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). A técnica utilizada é conhecida como experimento de lista, a qual consiste essencialmente de um experimento embutido em um survey convencional. O delineamento experimental garante a privacidade necessária para os respondentes se sentirem livres para darem respostas honestas, evitando o efeito chamado de desejabilidade social. Os resultados mostram que a teoria do autointeresse não tem efeitos sobre as atitudes raciais, e o efeito de desejabilidade social é muito forte entre os estudantes brancos. Palavras-chave: Experimentos; Experimento de lista; Opinião Pública; Metodologia de Pesquisa. ResumenLa opinión pública sobre las acciones afirmativas no es consensual, especialmente entre los blancos. Aquí, en un diseño experimental, las cuotas raciales son estudiadas en la Universidad de Brasilia (UnB) y en la Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). La técnica empleada es conocida como experimento de lista que es esencialmente un experimento dentro de un estudio convencional. El diseño experimental garantiza la privacidad de los encuestados que se sienten libres para dar respuestas honestas, evitando el efecto de deseabilidad social. Los resultados muestran que la teoría de la auto-interés no tiene efectos sobre las actitudes raciales, y el efecto de deseabilidad social es muy fuerte entre los estudiantes blancos. Palabras clave: Experimentos; Experimento de lista; Opinión Pública; Metodología de la Investigación. AbstractPublic opinion on affirmative actions is not consensual, especially among whites. Here in an experimental design the racial quotas are studied at the University of Brasilia (UnB) and University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). The technique employed is known as the list-experiment, which consists essentially of an experiment embedded in a conventional survey. The experimental design ensures privacy for respondents to feel free to give honest answers, avoiding the social desirability effect. The results show that the self-interest theory has no effects on the racial attitudes, and the social desirability effect is very strong among the white students.Keywords: Experiments; List-experiment; Public Opinion; Research Methodology.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila L. Nemesi

AbstractOn the basis of examples drawn from seven classic Hungarian film comedies, I argue in this article that the place of humor within the Gricean–Leechian model needs to be revisited and extended towards social psychological pragmatics to account for a wider range of humorous material. Scrutinizing the relevant controversial details of Grice’s conceptual framework, my concern is to find a practical way of fitting the various forms of humor into an adequate (and not an idealistic) pragmatic theory. I propose to differentiate between two levels and five types of breaking the maxims, introducing the Self-interest Principle (SiP) supposed to be in constant tension with, and as rational as, Grice’s Cooperative Principle. Politeness and self-presentational phenomena are subsumed under the operation of the SiP which embraces and coordinates the speaker’s own personal and interpersonal purposes.


1988 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 981-982
Author(s):  
Kerry C. Martin ◽  
Jay Hewitt

Men and women were presented descriptions of two dyadic work groups. In both groups, one member of the dyad did approximately two-thirds of the work. For one of the groups, subjects were asked to imagine that they were the worker of high productivity while for the other group subjects were asked to imagine that they were impartial observers. Subjects were asked to divide the rewards among the two workers for both groups. Men and women did not differ in allocation of reward when acting as impartial observers. When subjects imagined themselves as the worker of high productivity, men gave themselves a greater share of the reward than did women. It was concluded that the results were consistent with the self-interest explanation of sex differences in allocation of reward.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 340-364
Author(s):  
Md. Abdul Mannan

This article examines the connection between politics of Islamo-nationalism in Bangladesh and Bangladesh’s policy of balancing against India. In response to India’s regional supremacy in South Asia, especially India’s dominance over Bangladesh, policy makers in Bangladesh have constantly faced two options: either ‘bandwagoning’ with India, or ‘balancing’ against the regional hegemon. Interestingly, since the 1990s until 2013, Bangladesh’s response has always swung from one side to another – from bandwagoning to balancing – in connection with the rotation of Bangladesh regime between two major political parties: the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Bangladesh Awami League (AL). Bangladesh – with the BNP’s hold on power – preferred a policy of balancing against India’s dominance. During the regime of the AL, such policy dramatically shifted towards bandwagoning with India. The BNP’s preference for a balancing policy constitutes a puzzle. Weak states – which are not capable of changing unequal outcomes in the face of a preponderant power – generally pursue a policy of bandwagoning. Thus, the puzzle is as to why Bangladesh – despite being a weak actor vis-a-vis India’s overwhelming regional supremacy – pursued a policy of balancing against India during the BNP’s hold on power. This article asserts that the BNP’s politics of Islamo-nationalism is a key variable that can answer the above puzzle. The ‘self–other’ notion of Islamo-nationalism defines the national ‘selfness’ of Bangladesh in terms of the Islamic identity for its overwhelming Muslim masses, and constructs India, henceforth in this article, ‘Hindu India’, as the ‘enemy–other’ to ‘Muslim Bangladesh’.


1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-85
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill

Philosophers have debated for millennia about whether moral requirements are always rational to follow. The background for these debates is often what I shall call “the self-interest model.” The guiding assumption here is that the basic demand of reason, to each person, is that one must, above all, advance one's self-interest. Alternatively, debate may be framed by a related, but significantly different, assumption: the idea that the basic rational requirement is to develop and pursue a set of personal ends in an informed, efficient, and coherent way, whether one's choice of ends is based on self-interested desires or not. For brevity I refer to this as “the coherence-and-efficiency model.” Advocates of both models tend to think that, while it is sufficiently clear in principle what the rational thing to do is, what remains in doubt is whether it is always rational to be moral. They typically assume that morality is concerned, entirely or primarily, with our relations to others, especially with obligations that appear to require some sacrifice or compromise with the pursuit of self-interest.


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