Polling for Peace

2021 ◽  
pp. 56-89
Author(s):  
Megan Faragher
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Support ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newspaper Industry ◽  
Public Opinion Survey ◽  
Public Response ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Financial Interests

Reflecting on British public response to Italy’s incursion into Abyssinia in 1935, journalist F.W. Deedes argued that the 1934 Peace Ballot, a widespread national referendum evincing public support for the League of Nations, had successfully turned public opinion against interventionism. Completed by over eleven million people, the Peace Ballot was the most influential public opinion survey of the 1930s. It was also a press sensation, drawing praise by League advocates and disdain from conservative papers, which referred to it as a “Ballot of Blood.” This chapter traces both optimism and skepticism over polling when it first entered public discourse via the newspapers. While Waugh’s Scoop (1938) details the hapless efforts of the aesthete and nature-writer William Boot to provide honest reporting of the Abyssinian Crisis, the overwhelming powers of press magnates and their financial interests undermine his work by manipulating and capitalizing on public opinion. Waugh’s skeptical vision of public opinion in Scoop mirrored his public critiques of the research organization Mass-Observation, whose practices of public observation he likened to the actions of “keyhole-observers and envelope-steamers,” and whose methods, he argued, would empower authoritarians seeking to control public opinion. Mirroring similar themes of Storm Jameson’s novel None Turn Back (1936), Scoop not only critiques the newspaper trade, but also denounces institutionalized public opinion and its imbrication in the newspaper industry in the 1930s. Like other skeptics, Waugh challenges the utopian notion that polling fosters unmediated exposure to public thought; the mediation of polling through the political morass of newspapers elicited fears that polling would become just one more media cudgel with which to shape and manipulate public sentiment.

Correlates of Public Attitudes toward the Umbrella Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stan Hok-Wui Wong
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Public Opinion Survey ◽  
The Rule Of Law

From the start, the Umbrella Movement failed to win overwhelming public support. Why would many Hong Kong people not endorse a civil disobedience movement aimed at dismantling the exclusionary political order and bringing forth democracy? Based on an original public opinion survey collected during the movement, this article provides preliminary answers to these questions. I find that those who disapproved of the movement are no less politically informed. Instead, three factors were strong predictors of disapproval of the movement: (1) satisfaction with the performance of the chief executive; (2) distrust of democracy as a solution to Hong Kong’s problems; and (3) concern about the negative impact of the protest on the rule of law.

Hong Kong's Post-1997 Institutional Crisis: Problems of Governance and Institutional Incompatibility

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony B. L. Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
National Security ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Political Logic

The protest by over half a million people on July 1, 2003, unleashed the most serious crisis of governance in Hong Kong since its retrocession to China in 1997. Triggered by the government's attempt to legislate new national security legislation, it exposed more fundamental institutional defects of an increasingly weakened government. This article puts forward two arguments. First, the political logic of the pre-1997 period was not compatible with the post-1997 political environment and public sentiment, resulting in a widening cognitive gap between government and people. Second, the former colonial administration, despite its non-democratic nature, was able to secure sufficient public acquiescence and acceptance through economic performance and service delivery. The new government was constrained by both economic and fiscal difficulties and unexpected social crises. A declining capacity to perform effectively had further eroded public support. Attempted reforms of the bureaucracy and the introduction of a new ministerial system had caused greater political-administrative disjunction and actually compounded the crisis of governance.

scholarly journals AGITATIONAL POLITICS IMPACTS ON NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF KHAN’S AGITATION 2014

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
Khadija Murtaza ◽  
◽  
Dr. Mian Muhammad Azhar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Specific Area ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Institutions ◽  
Form Of Government

Politics is all about power in a democratic form of government. In a democracy, agitation is the part of politics in the developmental stage of human rights. Agitational politics is a kind of politics which urge the public demands and utilize the public opinion for the sake of specific issue. Sometimes, it would make public violent who acts as attacking the police and damaging the official establishments. Protestors cover the specific area and refuse to move on until their demands are measured by authorities. It affects the working of government institutions and also creates political instability. The main reason behind this, agitational politics, have lack of stout and genuine leadership in Pakistan. Agitational politics is a strategy used by the opposition that indirectly creates a weak situation for democracy. In agitational politics, parties and groups make use of speeches and public opinion to gain public support. This article discusses the dharna politics of 2014 arranged by the rising political party Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf which directly disturb the political activities and also the reason of cancelation of the visit of foreign officials of different countries. This research paper will cover the impacts of agitational politics on the working of the institution. This work also explains that, how sit-in politics damage the state working institutions and also destabilize the democracy. Sometimes it strengthens the political system but most of the time it creates uncertainty in the political environment. It is the utmost scuffle that weakens the civil and national institutions and democracy faces a lot of dares.

scholarly journals The Political Communication Ethics of Traditional Dayah Ulema in Bireuen Regency, Aceh Province

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 566-575
Author(s):  
Katimin ◽  
Syukur Kholil ◽  
Yusfriadi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
The Political ◽  
Full Support ◽  
The People ◽  
Aceh Province ◽  
Ethical Communication ◽  
Political Success

The political journey of Aceh's traditional dayah ulema before, did not succeed in gaining public support in the two election periods, namely the 2009-2014 period and the 2014-2019 period. Supposedly, the politics of the Dayah ulema had the full support of the people of Aceh which incidentally were a majority Muslim. This phenomenon is influenced by various factors, including political communication. Regarding scholars as political communicators, ethics is the most important thing in determining political success. Therefore, it will be examined regarding the ethics of political communication of traditional Acehnese dayah scholars. This study uses a qualitative approach with reference to ethnographic principles. The purpose of this study is to reveal the ethics of political communication in Aceh's traditional dayah ulema in Bireuen District.The results showed that the ethics of political communication of Aceh's traditional dayah ulema in the district of Bireuen generally referred to efforts to preserve their religious status as heirs of the Prophet in the morality of al-karimah. The spirit of the cleric who made them a public figure and public opinion to attract public empathy, is considered to have used religion for political purposes. The assumption of using da'wah pulpit as a campaign media indicates that there is justification for the absence of ethical communication politics.

scholarly journals Lithuanian public opinion and the EU membership

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-312
Author(s):  
Elena Dragomir
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Context ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The People ◽  
The Eu

During the early 1990s, following the restoration of independence, Lithuania reoriented in terms of foreign policy towards West. One of the state’s main foreign policy goals became the accession to the EU and NATO. Acknowledging that the ‘opinion of the people’ is a crucial factor in today’s democracy as it is important and necessary for politicians to know and take into consideration the ‘public opinion’, that is the opinion of the people they represent, this paper brings into attention the public support for the political pro-West project. The paper is structured in two main parts. The first one presents in short the politicians’ discourse regarding Lithuania’s accession to the EU and its general ‘returning to Europe’, in the general context of the state’s new foreign policy, while the second part presents the results of different public opinion surveys regarding the same issue. Comparing these two sides, in the end, the paper provides the answer that the Lithuanian people backed the political elites in their European projects. Although, the paper does not represent a breakthrough for the scientific community, its findings could be of interest for those less familiarized with the Lithuanian post-Cold War history, and especially for the Romanian public to whom this journal mainly addresses.

Movement Means Changing Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 161-205
Author(s):  
Deva R. Woodly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Opinion Change ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 5 reports on the political impacts of the movement thus far, including the way it has reshaped public discourse and political meanings, transformed public opinion, and influenced public policy. This chapter contains extensive empirical data, including records of public opinion change over time, maps of where progressive prosecutors have been elected across the United States, lists of policies aimed at “defunding the police” or what abolitionist call nonreformist reforms, which emphasize divesting from police and prisons and investing in social support, policies that are under consideration or have been adopted by state and municipal legislatures.

Losing Heart: Declining Support and the Political Marketing of the Afghanistan Mission

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 911-937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Fletcher ◽  
Heather Bastedo ◽  
Jennifer Hove
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Political Marketing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Government Communication ◽  
Afghanistan Mission ◽  
Canadian Military

Abstract. Public opinion shifted markedly between 2006 and 2007 regarding Canadian military participation in Afghanistan. Multivariate analysis of survey data reveals that the interplay of cognitive and emotional responses fractured support and consolidated opposition to the mission. Subsequently, a major government communication strategy, aimed at bolstering support for the Afghan mission succeeded at an informational level but failed to connect at an emotional one, leaving overall support for the mission essentially unchanged. Our analysis points to the need for nuanced interpretation of shifts in public support for war as well as in assessing political marketing efforts by government.Résumé. L'opinion publique s'est nettement décalée entre 2006 et 2007 concernant la participation militaire canadienne en Afghanistan. L'analyse multi variée des données d'aperçu indique que l'effet des réponses cognitives et émotives a divisé l'appui et a consolidé l'opposition à la mission. D'ailleurs, une stratégie importante de communication du gouvernement, destinée à augmenter le soutien de la mission afghane a réussi à un niveau informationnel, mais ne s'est pas reliée au niveau émotif, laissant le soutien global de la mission essentiellement inchangé. Notre analyse indique le besoin d'une interprétation diversifiée et nuancée des variations de soutien public face à la guerre ainsi qu'une évaluation du marketing politique du gouvernement.

Public Opinion and Setting the Agenda on the U.S. Supreme Court

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda C. Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Public Support ◽  
American People ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
First Case ◽  
Setting Process ◽  
The U.S

Arguably the most influential power the U.S. Supreme Court has is the power to choose which cases to decide. This power allows the nation’s only unelected branch of government to choose either to weigh in on key political controversies or avoid them completely. Here, I take one of the first case-level looks at the role of public opinion in the Court’s agenda-setting process. I argue justices vote to hear cases when they are likely to agree with public opinion on the outcome and eschew cases when they are out of step with the American people. However, the effect of public opinion depends on the political environment, especially on the level of public support the Court enjoys, the salience of the issue, and the case’s legal importance.

Populist rhetoric, false mirroring, and the courts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alon Harel ◽  
Noam Kolt
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Democratic Representation ◽  
Public Sentiment

Abstract The rise of populist political rhetoric signals a departure from accepted models of democratic representation. Nowadays, in Israel and in other democratic countries, many elected officials purport to give effect to the raw convictions of their constituents. We contend that calls for elected officials to mirror popular views undermine democratic representation. In addition to the theoretical challenges it faces, the narrative of mirroring public sentiment has the potential to disguise what might be the underlying intent of populist politicians—to actively manipulate the political agenda and reshape popular preferences, while passing these off as reflecting the public’s authentic convictions. We call this “false mirroring.” Populist rhetoric has also spilled over into the judiciary. Some judges embrace public opinion, incorporate it into their decision-making and, in doing so, generate populist courts. This article examines Israeli case studies in order to expose the unsettling role of populist rhetoric in both political and judicial contexts. Judges, we suggest, must continue developing tools to resist judicial populism and maintain robust and independent courts.

Public Opinion & the Supreme Court: The Puzzling Case of Abortion

Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-82
Author(s):  
Linda Greenhouse
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Response ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mass Behavior ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Roe V Wade ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between the Supreme Court and public opinion remains ambiguous, despite efforts over many years by scholars both of the Court and of mass behavior to decipher it. Certainly Supreme Court Justices live in the world, and are propelled by the political system to their life-tenured positions. And certainly the Court, over time, appears to align itself with the broadly defined public mood. But the mechanism by which this occurs–the process by which the Court and the public engage one another in a highly attenuated dialogue–remains obscure. The Court's 1973 abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, offers a case in point. As the country began to reconsider the wisdom of the nineteenth-century criminalization of abortion, which voices did the Justices hear and to which did they respond? Probing beneath the surface of the public response to Roe serves to highlight rather than solve the puzzle.

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