scholarly journals Flight to Safety: COVID-Induced Changes in the Intensity of Status Quo Preference and Voting Behavior

Author(s):  
JAMES BISBEE ◽  
DAN HONIG

The relationship between anxiety and investor behavior is well known enough to warrant its own aphorism: a “flight to safety.” We posit that anxiety alters the intensity of voters’ preference for the status quo, inducing a political flight to safety toward establishment candidates. Leveraging the outbreak of the novel coronavirus during the Democratic primary election of 2020, we identify a causal effect of the outbreak on voting, with Biden benefiting between 7 and 15 percentage points at Sanders’s expense. A survey experiment in which participants exposed to an anxiety-inducing prompt choose the less disruptive hypothetical candidate provides further evidence of our theorized flight to safety among US-based respondents. Evidence from 2020 French municipal and US House primary elections suggests a COVID-induced flight to safety generalizes to benefit mainstream candidates across a variety of settings. Our findings suggest an as-yet underappreciated preference for “safe” candidates in times of anxiety.

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 161-171
Author(s):  
Iulia Bobăilă ◽  

Ecocritical Perspectives and Narrative Tensions in Belén Gopegui’s Snow White’s Father. The relationship between literature and ecology has come to the fore in the last few decades and has encompassed several dimensions approached within the evolving framework of ecocriticism. In this context, our purpose is twofold: to explore the possibilities of an ecocritical reading of Belén Gopegui’s novel Snow White’s Father and to highlight the way in which the characters’ uncomfortable questions, the fully-articulated answers and those still latent make up an intricate network of narrative tensions. At the core of the novel lies an all-pervading need of self-questioning and collective reassessment of values, interactions and ethical limits. Its characters are marked by doubt and hesitations regarding the reasons that make them strive for a change or defend the status quo they are fond of. Gopegui is able to perform a delicately-balanced walk on a tightrope between stern anti-capitalist principles and complex human motivations. Keywords: system, ideology, capitalism, ecocriticism, collective subject


Author(s):  
Nadejda K Marinova

Utilizing firsthand interviews with activists and Lebanese diaspora leaders, the chapter centers on the active role of a coalition of Lebanese-American organizations who advanced their positions and those of the Bush administration in promoting, before UN diplomats, members of Congress, the public, and the media, the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004). UNSCR 1559 mandated Syrian withdrawal from Lebanese territory and militia disarmament. The chapter also analyzes the involvement of Lebanese-American organizations in lobbying for the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (2003). The novel relationship between US policymakers and their junior Lebanese-American allies was in contrast to the 1990s, when Washington was interested in preserving the status quo with Syria and doors had been closed for the Lebanese diaspora activists. The relationship upholds the theoretical model central to this work, and it traces the interaction between the Bush administration and Lebanese-American organizations from 2001 until 2005, when Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Wykowska ◽  
Jairo Pérez-Osorio ◽  
Stefan Kopp

This booklet is a collection of the position statements accepted for the HRI’20 conference workshop “Social Cognition for HRI: Exploring the relationship between mindreading and social attunement in human-robot interaction” (Wykowska, Perez-Osorio & Kopp, 2020). Unfortunately, due to the rapid unfolding of the novel coronavirus at the beginning of the present year, the conference and consequently our workshop, were canceled. On the light of these events, we decided to put together the positions statements accepted for the workshop. The contributions collected in these pages highlight the role of attribution of mental states to artificial agents in human-robot interaction, and precisely the quality and presence of social attunement mechanisms that are known to make human interaction smooth, efficient, and robust. These papers also accentuate the importance of the multidisciplinary approach to advance the understanding of the factors and the consequences of social interactions with artificial agents.


2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aziz Ahmad ◽  
Rab Nawaz Khan

The study unveils the Afghan patriarchal ideology and norms that are in conflict and challenge with liberal feminist ideology in Khaled Hosseini’s (2013) And the Mountains Echoed, depicting the cultural and socio-political context of Afghanistan. Tools of critical stylistics, developed by Jefferies (2010), have been used to delve into the conflict as mentioned above. The conflict in ideologies leads to gender differences, and inequalities. Patriarchs view liberal feminism and its motive as a threat to patriarchal social structure. The study reveals how women challenge the monopoly and status-quo of patriarchs to raise their voice for their emancipation and free will in matters of their life. Women in Afghanistan are the nang (pride) and namoos (honor) of their families. Men, especially patriarchs, misperceive the status and image of women as damaging their reputation if they are granted full freedom in matters and walks of life. Nila Wahdati, a liberal feminist character in the novel, challenges the stereotypical image of women as fragile, fickle, and prone to sex. She even resists and negates the imposed traditional, conservative ideology and supremacy of her father. Through the use of language, women challenge the Afghan patriarchal thinking. The novelist has manipulated verb processes to represent the patriarchal ideology of the Afghan men, while the discourse-producers utilize nouns and modifications to indicate patriarchs’ contrary thinking towards women. Linguistic tools, like nouns, pronouns, pre-modifiers, negative evaluative words, epistemic modality, and subordinate clauses, describe the conflict and challenge between patriarchal and liberal feminist ideologies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ylagan

There exists a sociocultural function to humour that is geared towards maintaining order through a subversion (or inversion) of the more serious, structured status quo, and while there is a pragmatic side to the dispensation of humour across any given society, humour can also serve a fundamentally ontological function in determining and representing a group’s identity. Though notions of social organization and culture exist and are perpetuated primarily within a group’s literary canon, as espoused for example in the privileging of genres such as the epic or the novel as loci of national identity, this paper argues that such identities can be just as effectively – if not better – constructed through popular representations in humour, especially in satirical content found in “ephemeral” mediums such as comic strips. Such representations in turn can be mobilized to complement or even dismantle the status quo and offer alternative paradigms of understanding national identities and cultural affiliations.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 10-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Ho

The issue of investor responsibility reveals a stubborn bias within international investment law. That law addresses mistreatment by host states of foreign investors but consistently fails to address investor misconduct in host states. The traditional emphasis on state responsibility in this context has allowed abusive, pollutive, and corrupt investor behavior to thrive. International investment law is the current object of scrutiny, criticism, and reform in large part because many see it as overprotecting investors. However, scholars and reformers have focused on state responsibility, tinkering with the legal and institutional conditions that determine the international wrongfulness of state conduct. Unless and until investor responsibility is integrated into international investment law reform, the overprotection of investors owing to an accountability gap will continue to undermine its legitimacy. This essay posits that the first step to integration is understanding why investor responsibility scrabbles to find purchase in international investment law. I argue that elusive investor responsibility was created by omission, with injurious consequences that highlight the need to alter, rather than accept, the status quo.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-432
Author(s):  
Unnati G Hunjan ◽  
Jayasankara Reddy

Companion animals and pets can be helpful during the novel coronavirus-19 pandemic. Interactions with them and positive physical contact lead to a variety of physiological and psychological benefits. It also releases biochemicals which can further boost the immune system and enhance health and well-being. This perspective discusses the benefits of these interactions, the modes of interactions and the activities that can be used. It also highlights the individuals that should avoid this approach and the status of the animal’s health before engaging with them.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 411-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Mund ◽  
Christine Finn ◽  
Birk Hagemeyer ◽  
Franz J. Neyer

When examining the associations between personality traits and partner relationships, the majority of studies have focused on the one-way effects of personality traits on the quality and stability of relationships. Recent work, however, has shown that relationships likewise retroact on personality traits and their development. Apart from these mutual influences, recent studies have also emphasized the necessity of considering both members of a couple in order to understand how their personalities and perceptions of the relationship interact. We review the status quo of research on personality-relationship transactions and outline suggestions for future research that move the focus from predicting the interplay between the two domains to explaining how personality traits and partner relationships dynamically interact. Specifically, we propose the need for (a) a functional perspective on personality traits, (b) a differentiated view of behavior, and (c) acknowledgment of the dynamic nature of traits and relationships in appropriate analysis models.


Author(s):  
Michael Hoffman

Despite the predictions of Marxists and secularization theorists alike, the relationship between religion and government legitimacy is mixed. Religion, in its various forms, can serve to promote regimes of virtually any type—democratic or otherwise—and can just as easily undermine such regimes. Observers hoping for a one-size-fits-all account of the link between religion and legitimacy will surely be disappointed; the reality is far more complicated. Religion, encompassing a nearly infinite variety of beliefs, behaviors, and actors, exercises a diverse set of influences on its political context. For regimes, this diversity can be either helpful or dangerous. Religion is neither inherently pro-status quo nor revolutionary; it can be either one depending on the context. Likewise, religion is neither necessarily pro- nor anti-democratic. Political and theological conditions influence the ways in which religion interacts with politics, and in particular, the role it plays in building or undermining legitimacy. Twenty-first-century research highlights the Janus-faced relationship between religion and political legitimacy. In some settings, religion has been the foundation of non-democratic rule. In others, it has been a crucial catalyst for unseating dictators in favor of democratic alternatives. Theological differences can only explain part of this variation. The same religious tradition may serve as a defense of authoritarianism in one instance but a spark for democracy in another. Political factors play a key role in explaining why religion sometimes supports the status quo but in other instances may fuel revolutionary fervor.


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