scholarly journals Elite rhetoric can undermine democratic norms

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (23) ◽  
pp. e2024125118
Author(s):  
Katherine Clayton ◽  
Nicholas T. Davis ◽  
Brendan Nyhan ◽  
Ethan Porter ◽  
Timothy J. Ryan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Democratic Norms

Democratic stability depends on citizens on the losing side accepting election outcomes. Can rhetoric by political leaders undermine this norm? Using a panel survey experiment, we evaluate the effects of exposure to multiple statements from former president Donald Trump attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential election. Although exposure to these statements does not measurably affect general support for political violence or belief in democracy, it erodes trust and confidence in elections and increases belief that the election is rigged among people who approve of Trump’s job performance. These results suggest that rhetoric from political elites can undermine respect for critical democratic norms among their supporters.

scholarly journals Conspiracy theories, election rigging, and support for democratic norms

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316802095985
Author(s):  
Bethany Albertson ◽  
Kimberly Guiler
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Election Meddling

Under what conditions does conspiratorial rhetoric about election rigging change attitudes? We investigated this question using a survey experiment the day before and the morning of the 2016 US presidential election. We hypothesized that exposure to conspiratorial rhetoric about election interference would significantly heighten negative emotions (anxiety, anger) and undermine support for democratic institutions. Specifically, we expected that Democrats who read conspiratorial information about interference by the Russians in US elections, and that Republicans who read conspiratorial information about interference by the Democratic Party in US elections would express less support for key democratic norms. Our evidence largely supported our hypotheses. Americans exposed to a story claiming the election would be tampered with expressed less confidence in democratic institutions, and these effects were moderated by prior partisan beliefs about the actors most likely responsible for election meddling.

Feeling protected: protective masculinity and femininity from Donald Trump and Joe Biden to Jacinda Ardern

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
Gendered Leadership ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Negative Feelings

This article emphasises the role that political leaders’ discourse plays in evoking positive emotions among citizens in uncertain times, such as feeling protected, secure and proud in addition to the leaders’ (often interconnected) role of encouraging negative feelings such as fear, resentment and anger. The article argues that such discourse frequently involves performances of gendered leadership. It cites examples from a range of countries to illustrate the points being made, but focuses on the 2020 US presidential election which saw a contest between two forms of protective masculinity: Trump’s exclusionary, macho, hypermasculinity versus Biden’s more socially inclusive, empathetic and softer version. Trump’s protective masculinity failure over managing the COVID-19 pandemic was arguably one of the factors contributing to his electoral defeat, while Biden aimed to make voters feel safer and more protected than under Trump. The article also provides examples of protective femininity, with a particular focus on the discourse of New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern.

scholarly journals Fusion with political leaders predicts willingness to persecute immigrants and political opponents

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas R. Kunst
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Political Leader ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Independent Effects

From the 2016 US presidential election and into 2019, we demonstrate that a visceral feeling of oneness (that is, psychological fusion) with a political leader can fuel partisans’ willingness to actively participate in political violence. In studies 1 and 2, fusion with Donald Trump predicted Republicans’ willingness to violently persecute Muslims (over and above other established predictors). In study 3, relative deprivation increased fusion with Trump and, subsequently, willingness to violently challenge election results. In study 4, fusion with Trump increased after his election and predicted immigrant persecution over time. Further revealing its independent effects, this fusion with Trump predicted a willingness to persecute Iranians (independent of identification with him, study 5); a willingness to persecute immigrants (study 6); and a willingness to personally protect the US border from an immigrant caravan (study 7), even over and above fusion with the group of Trump’s followers. These findings echo past political movements and suggest critical future research.

Democracy, Donald Trump and the Canada-US Security Community

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Wilfrid Greaves
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mutual Trust ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Security Community ◽  
Shared Identity ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Democratic Norms

Abstract This article examines Canada-US relations through their shared membership in a pluralistic security community (PSC). While the bilateral relationship has been turbulent for decades, the Trump presidency has damaged the Canada-US PSC by (1) exacerbating a decades-long trend of weakened shared identity and mutual trust between Canadians and Americans, and (2) undermining the democratic norms and institutions that uphold American domestic stability and Canadians’ expectations of peaceful change. Assessing the combined implications of the decline in shared identity, mutual trust and democratic stability, I argue that the Canada-US PSC cannot endure if the United States does not also consider Canada's national and security interests or if the United States itself poses a threat to those interests. Given current trends, the future absence of war in North America may reflect American domination over a weaker and dependent Canada rather than their continued membership in a bilateral PSC.

scholarly journals The breaching experiment. Donald Trump and the normative foundations of democracy

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Schedler
Keyword(s):  
Careful Examination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Causal Relevance ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Science Community ◽  
Democratic Stability ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Normative Foundations

AbstractIs US president Donald Trump a threat to democracy? Alerting against his manifold transgressions of democratic norms, many comparative political scientists have thought so. Their practical worries, however, have been inconsistent with prevalent theories of democratic stability. As careful examination shows, his main democratic norm violations have been discursive, and they have revealed him to be, not an ideological enemy of democracy, but a self-centered actor without deep democratic commitments. None of this should ring democratic alarm bells. But it does. As I suggest, Donald Trump has been conducting a kind of sociological “breaching experiment” on the political science community which has exposed a remarkable divergence between our main theories of democratic stability (which focus on structures, political behavior, and self-interest) and our tacit convictions (about the causal relevance of actors, political language, and normative commitments).

Motivational underpinnings of support for radical political leaders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska ◽  
Katarzyna Jasko ◽  
Marta Maj ◽  
Marta Szastok ◽  
Arie W. Kruglanski
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Personal Significance ◽  
Political Candidate ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Willingness To Engage

In three studies conducted over the course of 2016 US presidential campaign we examined the relationship between radicalism of a political candidate and willingness to engage in actions for that candidate. Drawing on significance quest theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018), we predicted that people would be more willing to make large sacrifices for radical (vs. moderate) candidates because the cause of radical candidates would be more personally important and engagement on behalf it would be more psychologically rewarding. We tested these predictions among supporters of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders. Our findings were in line with these predictions, as the more followers perceived their candidates as radical, the more they viewed leaders’ ideas as personally important, gained more personal significance from those ideas, and intended to sacrifice more for the leader.

scholarly journals Employment Lapses and Subsequent Hiring Disadvantages: An Experimental Approach Examining Types of Discrimination and Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110198
Author(s):  
Katherine Weisshaar
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Job Performance ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Job Applicants ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Hiring Decisions ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
Employment Gaps ◽  
Types Of Information

Employment interruption is a common experience in today’s labor market, most frequently due to unemployment from job loss and temporary lapses to care for family or children. Although existing research shows that employment lapses cause disadvantages at the hiring interface compared to individuals with no employment disruptions, competing theories predict different mechanisms explaining these hiring penalties. In this study, the author uses an original conjoint survey experiment to causally assess perceptions of fictitious job applicants, focusing on a comparison of unemployed applicants and nonemployed caregiver applicants, who left work to care for family, to currently employed applicants. The author examines whether disadvantages for job applicants with employment gaps are receptive to positive information (and therefore represent a form of “informational bias”) or are resistant to information (reflecting “cognitive bias”) and further assesses which types of information affect or do not affect levels of bias in fictitious hiring decisions. Results show that positive information on past job performance and social skills essentially eliminates disadvantages faced by unemployed job applicants, but nonemployed caregiver applicants remain disadvantaged even with multiple types of positive information. These findings suggest that unemployed applicants face informational biases but that nonemployed caregiver applicants face cognitive biases that are rigid even with rich forms of positive or counter-stereotypical information. This study has implications for understanding the career consequences of employment disruption, which is especially relevant to consider in light of labor market disruptions during the recent pandemic.

scholarly journals Model for research of the style of political leadership in Serbia at the crossing of the millennium

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Predrag Pavlicevic
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
Aforementioned Study

This article indicated a model for a scientific description of styles of political leadership in Serbia from 1990 to the present, more precisely, pointed the basic elements of concept developed by the author in the study ?The style of political leaders in Serbia in the period 1990-2006? (2010). For the evaluation the author uses analytical tools that include the aforementioned concept, simultaneously indicating correlative theoretical approaches the aforementioned study did not examine, and may be of importance for the research of political elites in Serbia. This contributes the epistemological part of the method, which is registered in the definition of the style of political leadership as a term and the category apparatus that follows - understood from the aspect of the political style: the style in building political power, the style of political communication, the style of building one?s legitimacy, the ideological style, the styles of political language, symbolism and rituals, non-verbal communication and style in expressing patriotism. Starting from the fact that political styles are related to characteristics of political cultures and that it is necessary to make a concept of ideal typical models of styles focused on political subjects, this article marked the styles of political leadership typology related to the specific acting of political leaders in Serbia: authoritarian, republican, realistic, populist, conformist, revolutionary and style of a politician-rebel.

scholarly journals Baltic States in NATO: Results of the Decade

2014 ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
V. V. Vorotnikov
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
The Baltic

In the post-Soviet period participation in NATO was one of the major goals of euro-atlantic integration for the Baltic states. Political leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have considered participation in the alliance as an important element of euro-atlantic solidarity which allows small - from all viewpoints - states claim decision-making over global issues. This satisfies demands of the political elites and victimized public consciousness for more security, makes it possible for elites to consider their states as bulwark against Russia. Throughout the whole decade, such reasoning has been reflected in doctrines and speeches of Baltic politicians. After joining NATO, the Baltic states became the most active supporters of a deeper integration in the military area and "open door" policy. They have continued reforming their armed forces and renovating military infrastructure. They have acquired "specialization" within NATO by establishing centers of excellence. In terms of euro-atlantic solidarity, the participation in the International Security Assistance Force in Afganistan has become the most important international project for the Baltic states. However, only Estonia managed to mount their defence expenses to the level of 2% GDP. During the „Ukranian crisis" the issue of Baltic membership in NATO acquired special importance. Confrontational rhetoric and appeals to "Russian threat" in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, on the one hand, make it possible for their political leaders to constantly demonstrate their importance in the eyes of Western partners and demand more activity of the alliance and, on the other hand, make ground for the political elites to consolidate the electorate, by that ensuring that the right-wing conservative forces remain in power.

A Protest-Cycle Resolution of the Repression/Popular-Protest Paradox

1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Brockett
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Central American ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
State Terrorism

Many people [in Guatemala] did begin to join the guerrillas, while many more were sympathetic or quietly supportive. The guerrillas are the only remaining source of defense left to a community or family. I know of villages that experienced actual massacres against innocent campesinos, who were not even members of coops. The survivors of these massacres would often turn to the guerrillas. With all their anger about the murders of their kin and neighbors, there was nowhere else to turn.—quoted in S. Davis and J. Hodson, Witnesses to Political Violence in GuatemalaCentral american events of recent decades show human behavior at both its most courageous and its most barbaric. The opposing phenomena of popular mobilization and state terrorism pose some of the most profound questions that can be asked by social science. How can we explain the willingness of political elites and their agents to slay thousands—tens of thousands—of their fellow human beings, even when their victims are unarmed? Conversely, how do we account for ordinary people undertaking collective action under circumstances so dangerous that even their lives are at risk?

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