Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization Among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Sullivan ◽  
Pat Walsh ◽  
Michal Shamir ◽  
David G. Barnum ◽  
James L. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Members Of Parliament

In this article, we present data showing that national legislators are more tolerant than the public in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Two explanations for this phenomenon are presented and assessed. The first is the selective recruitment of Members of Parliament, Knesset and Congress from among those in the electorate whose demographic, ideological and personality characteristics predispose them to be tolerant. Although this process does operate in all four countries, it is insufficient to explain all of the differences in tolerance between elites and the public in at least three countries. The second explanation relies on a process of explicitly political socialization, leading to differences in tolerance between elites and their public that transcend individual-level, personal characteristics. Relying on our analysis of political tolerance among legislators in the four countries, we suggest how this process of political socialization may be operating.

From Public to Publics

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amnon Cavari ◽  
Guy Freedman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Research Design ◽  
General Public ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
Socio Demographic Factors

A rich body of work examines the public agenda in democratic countries. These studies rely on aggregate responses to survey questions that ask respondents to report their issue priorities—commonly using topline data of the most important problem survey series (MIP). This research design, however, is not sensitive to differences in issue priorities between individuals and groups and, therefore, fails to account for the possible variation within the general public. To overcome this neglect in existing literature, we examine individual-level responses to the most important problem question in two countries—the United States and Israel—focusing specifically on economic and foreign policy priorities. We reveal that beyond aggregate trends in the public agenda, socio-demographic factors in both countries explain some of the variation in issue dynamics.

scholarly journals What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis across Australia, New Zealand, The United States and Canada

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Flynn ◽  
Rebecca Giblin ◽  
François Petitjean
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
Widespread Access ◽  
Access To Knowledge

A key justification for copyright term extension has been that exclusive rights encourage publishers to make older works available (and that, without them, works will be ‘underused’). We empirically test this hypothesis by investigating the availability of ebooks to public libraries across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. We find that titles are actually less available where they are under copyright, that competition apparently does not deter commercial publishers from investing in older works, and that the existence of exclusive rights is not enough to trigger investment in works with low commercial demand. Further, works are priced much higher when under copyright than when in the public domain. In sum, simply extending copyrights results in higher prices and worse access. We argue that nations should explore alternative ways of allocating copyrights to better achieve copyright’s fundamental aims of rewarding authors and promoting widespread access to knowledge and culture.

Freedom of Speech and Public Reason

2021 ◽  
pp. 136-156
Author(s):  
Wojciech Sadurski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
General Principle ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Issue ◽  
Typical Pattern ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One

This chapter addresses the salience of the Rawlsian idea of public reason for freedom of speech. It applies a philosophical template of Public Reason to a typically legal issue: what motivations for speech restrictions render the restriction legitimate under the Public Reason criterion, and what motivations taint the law as illegitimate, because they are non-endorsable by reasonable persons to whom they apply. Traces of this pattern of argument can be found in several legal systems: in the United States, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia, when they grapple with constitutionality of restrictions on freedom of speech, and choose the motive path (rather than the effects path) of scrutiny. The most typical pattern of argument is the one which disfavours content-oriented restrictions, as compared to content-neutral restrictions. This distinction offers attractive avenues of argument when it is viewed in the context of legislative motives, and how they fare under a general principle of Public Reason. The chapter then establishes that viewpoint restrictions and subject-matter restrictions—two subcategories of a broader genus of content-based restrictions of freedom of speech—correspond to two perceived wrongful motivations in regulating speech: intolerance and paternalism.

Digital Transformations of the Public Arena

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Jungherr ◽  
Ralph Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Arena ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
New Framework

Digital technologies have changed the public arena, but there is little scholarly consensus about how they have done so. This Element lays out a new framework for the digitally mediated public arena by identifying structural changes and continuities with the pre-digital era. It examines three country cases – the United States, Germany, and China. In these countries and elsewhere, the emergence of new infrastructures such as search engines and social media platforms increasingly mediate and govern the visibility and reach of information, and thus reconfigure the transmission belt between citizens and political elites. This shift requires a rethinking of the workings and dysfunctions of the contemporary public arena and ways to improve it.

Political Communication: The Public Language of Political Elites in India and the United States.

1970 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
George H. Gadbois ◽  
Satish K. Arora ◽  
Harold D. Lasswell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Public Language ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus: Elite and Public Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Merkley ◽  
Aengus Bridgman ◽  
Peter John Loewen ◽  
Taylor Owen ◽  
Derek Ruths ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multimethod Approach

The COVID-19 pandemic requires an effort to coordinate the actions of government and society in a way unmatched in recent history. Individual citizens need to voluntarily sacrifice economic and social activity for an indefinite period of time to protect others. At the same time, we know that public opinion tends to become polarized on highly salient issues, except when political elites are in consensus (Berinsky, 2009; Zaller, 1992). Avoiding elite and public polarization is thus essential for an effective societal response to the pandemic. In the United States, there appears to be elite and public polarization on the severity of the pandemic (Gadarian et al., 2020). Other evidence suggests that polarization is undermining compliance with social distancing (Cornelson and Miloucheva, 2020). Using a multimethod approach, we show that Canadian political elites and the public are in a unique period of cross-partisan consensus on important questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as its seriousness and the necessity of social distancing.

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