Yes, But Did They Learn Anything? An Experimental Investigation of Voter Decision Making on Foreign Policy Issues

ABSTRACTDo non-graded, one-time, short presentations by a panel of professors on foreign policy issues affect voting behavior among students? Did the panel itself contribute to students’ understanding of the importance of foreign policy in evaluating candidates? Did presentations lead to changes in students’ candidate preferences? And, finally, did the event lead to sustained changes in students’ preferences? We find that even though issues of foreign policy tend not to be front and center in American elections, when young voters are presented with information about candidate’s foreign policy positions, as we did in this study, it does seem to have an impact on which candidate they plan on voting for.

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How government-controlled media shifts policy attitudes through framing

Political Science Research and Methods ◽

10.1017/psrm.2021.35 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Jennifer Pan ◽

Zijie Shao ◽

Yiqing Xu

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Public Opinion ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

Policy Positions ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Composite Measures ◽

Policy Attitudes ◽

Tv News

Abstract Research shows that government-controlled media is an effective tool for authoritarian regimes to shape public opinion. Does government-controlled media remain effective when it is required to support changes in positions that autocrats take on issues? Existing theories do not provide a clear answer to this question, but we often observe authoritarian governments using government media to frame policies in new ways when significant changes in policy positions are required. By conducting an experiment that exposes respondents to government-controlled media—in the form of TV news segments—on issues where the regime substantially changed its policy positions, we find that by framing the same issue differently, government-controlled media moves respondents to adopt policy positions closer to the ones espoused by the regime regardless of individual predisposition. This result holds for domestic and foreign policy issues, for direct and composite measures of attitudes, and persists up to 48 hours after exposure.

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Government decision making during a crisis

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v17i1.6724 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Michael Webster

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Health Economic ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

New Zealand ◽

Prime Minister ◽

Central Government ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Government Decision ◽

The Government

A key component of New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was how the government was organised and supported to make decisions in relation to the health, economic, social, foreign policy, legal and other policy issues it faced. The New Zealand system of central government decision making, as set out in the Cabinet Manual and operated by the Cabinet Office, was continually adapted to ensure that the Prime Minister and Ministers, and the officials working to them, were provided with a system that facilitated both rapid and considered decision making and promulgation of those decisions.

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Do U.S. Senators Moderate Strategically?

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1958067 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 82 (1) ◽

pp. 237-245 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Robert A. Bernstein ◽

Gerald C. Wright ◽

Michael B. Berkman

Keyword(s):

Voting Behavior ◽

General Direction ◽

Policy Positions ◽

Policy Issues ◽

Analytical Results ◽

Selection Of ◽

Candidate Behavior

Do U.S. senators adjust their policy positions or voting behavior—engage in “strategic moderation”—in their quest for reelection? In the June 1986 issue of this Review, Gerald Wright and Michael Berkman sought to demonstrate that Senate incumbents moderate their ideological positions as elections near. This endeavor was part of their larger effort to show the importance of policy issues in the selection of members of Congress. Robert Bernstein takes the view that the claims about strategic moderation rest on methodological flaws. But Wright and Berkman argue that most investigators agree on the general direction of senatorial candidate behavior. The controversy turns on conception and interpretation of analytical results.

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