The New Progressive Dilemma through the Lens of Comparative Welfare State and Party Research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Attitudinal Change ◽  
Welfare Institutions ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Expenditures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross National

The chapter summarizes the New Progressive Dilemma (NPD) debate, identifying three arguments from comparative welfare state and party research likely to be relevant to the relationship between immigration and welfare state retrenchment: public opinion, welfare institutions, and political parties. Alignment of anti-immigrant sentiments and welfare support varies considerably between countries, especially between the US and Europe, leading to different party incentives vis-à-vis welfare state retrenchment. The chapter introduces insights from comparative welfare state and party research to the debate, discussing inter alia, political parties in terms of welfare retrenchment, immigrants as a voter group, and cross-national variation of existing welfare institutions. It addresses the complex debates around attitudinal change caused by immigration, levels of welfare support, voting behavior, and social expenditures. Combining these strands of literature, a common theoretical framework is developed that is subsequently applied to both the US and Western European context.

Regime Type, Post-Materialism, and International Public Opinion about US Foreign Policy: The Afghan and Iraqi Wars

2006 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN E. GOLDSMITH
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Security Cooperation ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Several Variables ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Relationship

Previous research (e.g., Horiuchi, Goldsmith, and Inoguchi, 2005) has shown some intriguing patterns of effects of several variables on international public opinion about US foreign policy. But results for the theoretically appealing effects of regime type and post-materialist values have been weak or inconsistent. This paper takes a closer look at the relationship between these two variables and international public opinion about US foreign policy. In particular, international reaction to the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) are examined using two major multinational surveys. The conclusions of previous research are largely reinforced: neither regime type nor post-materialist values appears to robustly influence global opinion on these events. Rather, some central interests, including levels of trade with the US and NATO membership, and key socialized factors, including a Muslim population, experience with terrorism, and the exceptional experiences of two states (Israel, Albania) emerge as the most important factors in the models. There is also a consistent backlash effect of security cooperation with the US outside of NATO. A discussion of these preliminary results points to their theoretical implications and their significance for further investigation into the transnational dynamics of public opinion and foreign policy.

scholarly journals Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in Young Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172199363
Author(s):  
Raimondas Ibenskas ◽  
Jonathan Polk
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Expert Surveys ◽  
Cross National

Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party–voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party–voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties’ manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties’ positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters’ preferences provide strong support for this argument.

Redistricting and Electoral Competition in American Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Electoral Competition ◽  
Congressional District ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Congressional Districts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
The Relationship

Redistricting, or the process of redrawing congressional district boundaries, can be a highly contentious and political affair. Electoral competition within districts is dependent on both of the major American political parties being evenly balanced. Therefore, redistricting can enhance or diminish competition through how it distributes partisans across districts. Indeed, politicians have used this process to manipulate boundaries in their favor for centuries. In fact, the term most commonly used for exploiting the redistricting process for partisan gain—gerrymandering—was coined in 1812 as Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry signed legislation creating a map with heavily distorted districts, one of which resembled a salamander. Thus, the portmanteau “gerry-mander” was born. The misshapen districts produced the intended effect of facilitating greater electoral success for members of the governor’s party. Throughout history, Congress, the US Supreme Court, individual states, the American electorate, and an ever-evolving political environment have all impacted the construction of district maps. Additionally, each of these factors further influences the level of electoral competition within the district. Therefore, this work seeks to outline how redistricting can directly or indirectly influence electoral competition within congressional districts. Directly, different redistricting entities (legislatures, commissions, and courts) possess different motivations and constraints when drawing district lines, which can impact competition. Indirectly, redistricting can influence voting behavior and the incumbency advantage, which can also impact competition. This work also explores the tradeoff between representation and competition, the relationship between redistricting and polarization, what constitutes a gerrymander, and how durable redistricting plans are over time. Each can have a substantial impact on electoral competition, which in turn bears consequences for our understanding of the consequences of redistricting.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Minority Populations ◽  
Depressing Effect ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cross National

By briefly summarizing the New Progressive Dilemma (NPD) debate, this introduction presents to the reader the general research question: does immigration necessarily lead to welfare cuts? It outlines the significance of relationships between immigrants and native citizens, showing how these relate to redistributive policies in the US and Western Europe—but with very different results. In the US, states with high minority populations tend to favor lower welfare benefits, whereas in cross-national comparisons no such depressing effect of immigration on welfare spending can easily be identified. The book applies the insights from comparative welfare state and party research to the NPD to explain this difference, analyzing the effect of immigration on welfare state retrenchment. Finally, the introduction presents the book’s overall line of reasoning and the structure of its chapters.

The Condemnation-Absolution Syndrome: Issues of Validity and Generality

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-471
Author(s):  
Robert O. Keohane
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Just War ◽  
Moral Equality ◽  
National Attitudes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Moral Equality Of Combatants ◽  
Cross National

AbstractIn their article “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants,” Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino argue that the American public evaluates soldiers’ wartime actions more according to whether the war they are fighting was initiated justly, than on their actions during warfare. In this respect, their views are more similar to those of revisionist philosophers than to those of traditional just war theorists. Before leaping to broad conclusions from their survey, it should be replicated. If the findings hold in the replication, intriguing questions could be asked about comparative cross-national attitudes and about the relationship between democracy and war.

Globalisation and the Composition of the Welfare State

2018 ◽  
pp. 257-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Araújo ◽  
Marta Simões
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Capital Flows ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Active Labour ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Social Expenditures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Compensation Hypothesis ◽  
The Welfare State

The aim of this chapter is to examine the relationship between globalisation and the size of the welfare state taking into account the respective composition. The efficiency hypothesis argues that globalisation leads to a reduction in the size of the welfare state since this can harm international competitiveness and drive away capital flows, while the compensation hypothesis poses that globalisation induces an increase in the welfare state in order to provide citizens with wider coverage against the risks of globalisation. This relationship is analysed for 31 OECD countries over the period 1980-2010 using data on social expenditures and the KOF Index of Globalisation and their different components. The results obtained indicate that overall there is a positive association between globalisation and the size of the welfare state, more intense for spending on housing-related benefits, active labour market programs and other social policy areas, and mostly felt through political globalisation. Globalisation loses significance for the explanation of family and unemployment benefits.

Conceptualising party-driven movements

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-504
Author(s):  
James Muldoon ◽  
Danny Rye
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This article contributes to scholarship on the relationship between political parties and social movements by proposing the concept of ‘party-driven movements’ to understand the formation of a new hybrid model within existing political parties in majoritarian systems. In our two case studies – Momentum’s relationship with the UK Labour Party and the Bernie Sanders-inspired ‘Our Revolution’ with the US Democratic Party – we highlight the conditions under which they emerge and their key characteristics. We analyse how party-driven movements express an ambivalence in terms of strategy (working inside and outside the party), political aims (aiming to transform the party and society) and organisation (in the desire to maintain autonomy while participating within party structures). Our analysis suggests that such party-driven movements provide a potential answer to political parties’ alienation from civil society and may thus be a more enduring feature of Anglo-American majoritarian party systems than the current literature suggests.

Elections Activate Partisanship across Countries

2018 ◽  
Vol 113 (1) ◽  
pp. 248-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANE P. SINGH ◽  
JUDD R. THORNTON
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Party Attachment ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross National

It has long been argued that elections amplify partisan predispositions. We take advantage of the timing of the cross-national post-election surveys included in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to explore the effects that elections have on individuals’ attachments to political parties. Within these surveys, under the assumption that the dates on which respondents are interviewed are assigned independent of factors known to affect partisanship, we are able to identify the causal effects of election salience on partisan attachments. We find strong evidence that election salience increases the probability of one having a party attachment, increases the strength of attachments, and heightens the relationship between partisanship and evaluations of political actors. Empirical explorations of our identifying assumption bolster its validity. Our results substantiate the causal role that elections play in activating partisanship.

Partisan values and gay rights: Public opinion about employment nondiscrimination

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-314
Author(s):  
Laurie Rhodebeck ◽  
Jason Gainous ◽  
Tricia Gray
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Relationship

Partisan elites justify policy positions by invoking underlying values, and political parties are associated with value reputations that connect particular values to specific policy positions. Value recruitment theory explains the relationship between value framing and policy positions. Newspaper content analysis and statistical analysis of survey data show that Democrats are more likely to frame employment nondiscrimination against gay rights as an equality issue, while Republicans are more likely to frame it as morality- and capitalism-based values. Surprisingly, however, equality framing has a stronger effect on Republicans. The study extends research on nondiscrimination in employment with an empirical test of value recruitment theory. The results largely confirm expectations that the application of values can be shaped through citizen attachment to parties, generate insights into value recruitment in policy debates, and point to other questions for further analysis.

scholarly journals Kesalehan dan Politik: Islam Indonesia

2018 ◽  
pp. 639-650
Author(s):  
Azyumardi Azra
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Religious Piety ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Local Leaders

Thomas B. Pepinsky, R. William Liddle, and Saiful Mujani. 2018. Piety and Public Opinion: Understanding Indonesian Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press Saiful Mujani, R. William Liddl, and Kuskridho Ambardi. 2018. Voting Behavior in Indonesia since Democratization: Critical Democrats. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This article aims to review two books written by four foremost scholars in the field of political science. In the context of understanding Islam and the culture of democracy, these two books can answer questions that are often discussed, that is the relationship between religious piety and political behavior in Indonesia. Quantitatively, 99.7% of total Muslims in Indonesia state that religion is an important element in their lives. However, in terms of political preferences, this fact does not have implications for the votes obtained by Islamic-based political parties, especially in the post-Soeharto elections. They, instead of carrying out their own candidates, tend to be supporters in the presidential election and local leaders elections. To figure out this puzzle, these books are very pivotal works to understand the relationship between Islamic piety and politics. Both of these books show that there has been an increase in the level of piety of the Indonesian Muslims in the past two or three decades. However, creating piety does not affect their political behavior - specifically their voting behavior in elections.

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