Review Article: Putting Polarization in Perspective

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc J. Hetherington
Keyword(s):  
Review Article ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Public ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Mass Attitudes

Scholarly research has demonstrated rather conclusively that American political elites have undergone a marked partisan polarization over the past thirty years. There is less agreement, however, as to whether the American electorate is polarized. This review article evaluates the evidence, causes and consequences of polarization on both the elite and mass levels. A marked difference between the two is found. Elites are polarized by almost any definition, although this state of affairs is quite common historically. In contrast, mass attitudes are now better sorted by party, but generally not polarized. While it is unclear whether this potentially troubling disconnect between centrist mass attitudes and extreme elite preferences has negative policy consequences, it appears that the super-majoritarian nature of the US Senate serves as a bulwark against policy outcomes that are more ideologically extreme than the public would prefer. Moreover, a public more centrist than those who represent it has also at times exerted a moderating influence on recent policies.

Progress of Psychiatry in 1902

1903 ◽  
Vol 49 (204) ◽  
pp. 152-154
Author(s):  
H. M. Bannister
Keyword(s):  
Financial Management ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Special Events ◽  
American Psychiatry ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The One

The past year has not been notable for any special events in American psychiatry, though the usual amount of activity has existed. There has been no retrogression, and signs of a better future ahead as regards political control of charitable institutions have appeared in quarters where they are most welcome. In Illinois, for example, where for ten years past politicians have controlled the institutions, recent events have made reform in this regard a political issue, and both parties are, so to speak, tumbling over each other in their zeal to utilise it to their own advantage. The scandal that excited this was not abuse of patients or bad financial management, for neither of these has been proven, but the assessment of employés for political purposes, which has at last aroused the public conscience. The outcome can hardly fail to be good, and we may hope at least for a better state of affairs than existed even before the politicians took control. It is a slow work educating the public as to the political neutrality of hospitals for the insane, but it is being done, and the prospect is that they will before very long be as free from the abuses of partisan politics in Illinois as in any of the older states of the Union. I have spoken of this matter in previous letters, but it is right that I mention it again, for it is the chief fault of our public institutions, and the one that is more than everything else responsible for their failings.

Life in the Middle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neilan S. Chaturvedi
Keyword(s):  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Congressional Record ◽  
The Us ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Two Sides

For almost thirty years, political scientists have believed that the US Senate would be less affected by partisan polarization due to the existence of a handful of moderate senators who would act as power brokers between the two sides, yet year after year we see partisan gridlock. Life in the Middle argues that the belief in the powerful, pivotal moderate neglects their electoral circumstances and overestimates their legislative power. Indeed, not all senators are elected under equal circumstances where the modern centrist has to balance between two conflicting constituencies like Susan Collins in Maine, or represents a state where the opposition outnumbers their base like Joe Manchin in West Virginia. Using data compiled from the Congressional Record, the book examines the legislative behavior of moderates and finds that they seldom amend legislation to their preferences, rarely speak on the record, and often lose on final votes. Using unique interview data with nineteen legislative directors and six retired centrist senators, it also finds that the behind-the-scenes conversations mirror the on-stage behavior where centrists are not influential or viewed as pivotal by party leaders. Furthermore, moderates reported less satisfaction with legislative outcomes than their peers. Life in the Middle suggests that lawmaking needs to be re-evaluated as being much more variable and less reliant on the work of moderates and more on party leaders. Indeed, the mainstream concerns about polarization and its negative effects of increased gridlock and ideological legislation may be true.

Precarious Labor and the Contestation of Policymaking in Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-108
Author(s):  
Saori Shibata
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Precarious Labor ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of Japan's precarious workers' movement on policymaking in Japan, highlighting three cases through which one can witness the effects of opposition mobilized by Japanese nonregular workers on policy outcomes. In each case, one witnesses political elites being forced to respond to successful mobilizations by precarious workers and organizations that have emerged to represent their interests. These mobilizations have served to attract public attention to the impact that neoliberal government policy has on precarious workers. When faced with criticism and opposition from the public, on each occasion governments were forced either to compromise on policy goals or proposals or to abolish or postpone policies to reduce criticism. While precarious workers were not always able to achieve all of their goals, collectively they have become an important actor that is able to gain concessions or raise significant obstacles to the implementation of neoliberal policy options so that their demands must be accommodated in some way.

Music Training and Nonmusical Abilities: Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Glenn Schellenberg ◽  
Ellen Winner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Music Perception ◽  
Music Training ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Academic Benefits ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
New Research

the objective of this special issue of Music Perception, which includes contributions from researchers based in Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the US, is to present the best new research on associations between music training and nonmusical abilities. Scholarly interest in associations between music training and nonmusical cognitive functioning has sparked much research over the past 15–20 years. The study of how far associations between music training and cognitive abilities extend, and whether such associations are more likely for some domains of cognition than for others, has theoretical relevance for issues of transfer, modularity, and plasticity. Unlike most other areas of scientific inquiry, there is parallel interest on the part of the public, the media, and educators who want to know if nonmusical intellectual and academic benefits are a welcome by-product of sending children to music lessons. Indeed, some educators and arts advocates justify music training in schools precisely because of these presumed and desired nonmusical associations.

'Deepfakes' could irreparably damage public trust

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
National Security ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Department Of Homeland Security ◽  
Digital Videos ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Senate

Subject Deepfake technology. Significance The US Senate on October 24 passed an act that requires the Department of Homeland Security to publish a yearly report on how ‘deepfake’ technology may be used to harm national security. Deepfakes are believable digital videos, audios or photos created using artificial intelligence (AI) to portray a person saying or doing something that the person never said or did, or portraying an event as real that never took place. The level of sophistication of this technology has leapfrogged over the past two years, raising a wide spectrum of concerns. Impacts A market for anti-deepfake verification technologies will emerge. Lawmakers will need to define the lines between art/entertainment and malicious deepfakes. Upcoming elections will be impacted by the existence of this technology.

scholarly journals Preparing Astronomy Majors for the Job Market of the New Millennium

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-148
Author(s):  
Victor Migenes
Keyword(s):  
Job Market ◽  
Graduate Studies ◽  
Career Expectations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
The Us ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
American Physical ◽  
Undergraduate Programs ◽  
The University

AbstractIn the past few years the American Physical Society (APS) has conducted a number of surveys among the graduate student population in the US and also among young researchers. The purpose was to get an idea of the career expectations of the students and how these are met later on in their life. Two of the conclusions were: (1) students want to work in a research environment, preferably academic, and (2) graduate and undergraduate programs are not preparing them well for the different challenges and goals found in industry, the private sector and national laboratories. Jobs in academia, especially tenured positions, have been difficult to obtain forcing many students to give up on their goals after one or two postdoctoral positions. Some have found jobs in other sectors but others feel frustrated that their careers have not met their expectations and are poorly ‘prepared’ for other options. In the areas of Physics and Astronomy there is not much of a job market without graduate studies. So most students must continue graduate work, in these or other fields, in order to compete well in the job market. Graduate and undergraduate programs must become more responsible for the present state of affairs and for implementing improvements. This can be done by broadening the scope of the present programs so that a student is better prepared to face the challenges of other job opportunities. We present here a BSc program designed by astronomers and physicists, at the University of Guanajuato, to try to address some of these concerns and better prepare the students for either continuing with graduate studies or finding employment in an ever-changing job market.

Report Of The Food And Agriculture Commission (Review Article)

1962 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
A. F. A. Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Review Article ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Specialized Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
Research Institutes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Government

The Report of the Food and Agriculture Commission1 is the most comprehensive official study of the problems of food and agriculture undertaken in Pakistan since independence. The Report contains twelve chapters of which six are devoted to policy recommendations. The Report also contains seven appendices of which Appendix IV is the Interim Report of the Commission which was submitted to the Government in February 1960. The methods followed by the Commission in its enquiry are similar to those followed by agricultural commissions in the past. Questionnaires were circulated to government agencies, officials and members of the public likely to possess specialized knowledge in the field of food and agriculture. Also, fairly extensive tours were undertaken by members of the Commission all over the country to gain first-hand knowledge of the problems of agriculture; they visited agricultural colleges, research institutes, experimental stations, and seed and livestock farms, holding discussions with government officials and others on a wide range of topics. An interesting feature of the enquiry was the setting-up of seventeen advisory panels on particular topics composed almost entirely of officials having specialized knowledge or interest in the field in question. A few non-officials were also included in the panels but their number was very few. Unfortunately, the reports of the panels, which were presumably responsible for much of the technical work on which the Commission drew for their elucidation of the problems in hand as well as for policy recommendations, are not made available in the report.

When an Immovable Object Meets an Irresistible Force

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-190
Author(s):  
Jonathan D. Caverley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Immovable Object ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Contemporary United States

In a period in which much conventional wisdom about American politics has been thrown into question two essential facts remain: the public popularity of the US military remains high relative to any other US institution and the level of partisan polarization continues to climb. Recent crises in US civil-military relations suggest it unlikely that both of these facts can continue to simultaneously be true. This essay therefore introduces the concept of affective polarization to the study of civil-military relations. When a population is affectively polarized, multiple social identities reinforce a disdain within a group for members outside of it. In the contemporary United States, these social identities have coalesced within political parties. While the US military may not be interested in affective polarization, affective polarization is definitely interested in the US military. This essay lays out how, as it continues to evolve into an exercise in fiscal rather than social mobilization, the US military may grow more prone, like most other national institutions, to being swallowed.

Famine, Memory, and Politics in the Post-Soviet Space: Contrasting Echoes of Collectivization in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 476-491
Author(s):  
James Richter
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Politics Of Memory ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
Soviet Space ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Cultural Constraints ◽  
Post Soviet Space

AbstractStalin’s collectivization campaigns and the associated famine killed millions in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, yet the two countries commemorate the events quite differently. In Ukraine, the Holodomor (death by hunger) occupies a prominent place in the public sphere and is remembered most frequently as a genocidal policy against the Ukrainian nation. In Kazakhstan, the famine takes up little space in the public arena, and officials remain reluctant to call it a genocide. This article explores these differences using two models explaining variation in the politics of memory: one emphasizing the instrumental calculations of political elites and the other emphasizing the historical and cultural constraints that frame contemporary debates. These two models complement each other rather than compete. The contest over the famine in Ukraine was in part a consequence of eastern and western Ukraine’s differing histories, but it intensified when governing politicians deployed the memory of the famine instrumentally in the 2000s. In Kazakhstan, political calculations led the regime to emphasize unity and stability over divisive debates about the past, but historical factors made depoliticizing the famine feasible.

scholarly journals Propaganda Chimera: Unpacking the Iranian Perception Information Operations in the Arab World

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-174
Author(s):  
Mona Elswah ◽  
Mahsa Alimardani
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Information Operations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Foreign Politics ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
To Receive

Abstract In the past four years, Iranian Information Operations (IOs) have received a lot of scrutiny by social media companies and policymakers. From 2018 to 2021, several accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were taken down by tech companies for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Despite the heated relationship between Iran and many Arab countries, the Iranian IOs in the Arabic online sphere have received less academic attention over the years. This study fills this gap by being one of the few studies to investigate the Iranian IOs in the Arab world. We analyse more than 9.3 million tweets posted from 2008 to 2020 using the hashed datasets shared by Twitter’s Election Integrity Hub. We found that Iran’s IOs have made the Arab world its primary target—despite the attention the US claims to receive from them. However, these IOs demonstrate very little engagement and reach amongst Arab users, limiting the possibilities of Iran infiltrating the online Arabic sphere, and fostering weak yet unruly Arab counterpublics. This study argues that Iran’s IOs garner their power from being perceived as efficient and dangerous operations that could pollute the public sphere of overseas nations, rather than through actual infiltration through engagement. We understand Iran’s efforts to be preoccupied with old propaganda efforts, through their investment in websites and imitation of news organisations. However, their efforts prove that Iran adopted the tactics of “new propaganda” that depend on creating a perceived atmosphere of distrust and chaos. We contribute to the discussion on information operations by proposing the term “perception IOs”, referring to IOs by governments that aspire to be perceived as effective meddling countries in foreign politics.

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