Public Opinion on Healthcare

2021 ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Diana Burlacu ◽  
Andra Roescu
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Regional Variation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Healthcare ◽  
Healthcare Provision ◽  
Health Policy Reform ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
New Research

This chapter explores public opinion on healthcare from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. It critically reviews the literature surrounding public opinion on healthcare, teasing out the main concepts used—support for public healthcare provision/spending, overall evaluations of the healthcare systems, and the political salience of healthcare—while also discussing implications, gaps, and potential new research avenues. The chapter examines the operationalization of these key measures in large-scale survey items and compares trends in Europe over time. While Europeans mostly agree that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure adequate healthcare, there is much more regional variation when it comes to satisfaction with healthcare systems, and their political salience. The chapter concludes by arguing for the need to further examine the link between these key public opinion measures and their impact on health policy reform.

Addressing the Barriers and Political Pressures to Safety

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Barach
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Academic Medical Centers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Patient Harm ◽  
Healthcare Provision ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Medical Centers ◽  
Academic Medical ◽  
External Pressures

<p>Numerous high profile inquiries in UK, Australia, and U.S. reveal subtle and overt external pressures that enable and support unsafe care. Understanding these ‘political’ pressures on clinical service executives to execute a government policy regardless of evidence on quality of care is essential to transforming healthcare systems. This article reviews key findings and recommendations from several international inquiries and identifies how to overcome barriers to improvement. Identifying the barriers that contribute to patient harm in national inquiries shows the important influence of external political pressures. Reviewing the commitment across professions represented by specialty boards, royal colleges, academic medical centers, and professional unions to protect patients is key. Understanding that a culture of blame can affect patient safety in healthcare systems and how they manifest depends on the political and healthcare provision characteristics of each country. Transparency the ability to openly discuss and address opportunities for improvement in the healthcare system are a recurring theme in national inquiries. All stakeholders must be involved at all stages and mechanisms for ongoing, effective consultation and communication should be provided at the local and state levels.</p>

scholarly journals Identifying and Measuring Conditional Policy Preferences: The Case of Opening Schools During a Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Green ◽  
Matthew Baum ◽  
James Druckman ◽  
David Lazer ◽  
Katherine Ognyanova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Survey Research ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
General Phenomenon ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
The Status ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Conditional Preferences

An individual’s issue preferences are non-separable when they depend on other issue outcomes (Lacy 2001a), presenting measurement challenges for traditional survey research. We extend this logic to the broader case of conditional preferences, in which policy preferences depend on the status of conditions with inherent levels of uncertainty -- and are not necessarily policies themselves. We demonstrate new approaches for measuring conditional preferences in two large-scale survey experiments regarding the conditions under which citizens would support reopening schools in their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. By drawing on recently-developed methods at the intersection of machine learning and causal inference, we identify which citizens are most likely to have school reopening preferences that depend on additional considerations. The results highlight the advantages of using such approaches to measure conditional preferences, which represent an underappreciated and general phenomenon in public opinion.

Integration of Refugees and Support for the Ethos of Conflict

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (9) ◽  
pp. 2040-2067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hall
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnic Cleansing ◽  
Public Opinion Research ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Social Identity Complexity ◽  
Migration Crisis

Following forced expulsion and campaigns of ethnic cleansing, substantial portions of national communities affected by conflict no longer live within the boundaries of the state. Nevertheless, existing wartime and postwar public opinion research is largely confined to countries directly affected by conflict. As a result, current research may overlook important war-affected populations and processes shaping their opinions. I address this problem by examining the question: does incorporation in settlement countries reduce support for conflict ideology? Examining this question requires new microdata. I examine the results of a large-scale survey of ex-Yugoslavs in Sweden. The findings suggest that incorporation undermines support for conflict ideology by increasing the socioeconomic security and social identity complexity of migrants. This has important implications for multiculturalism policies in the context of the current global migration crisis.

scholarly journals Exposure to Arguments and Evidence Changes Partisan Attitudes Even in the Face of Countervailing Leader Cues

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben M Tappin
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Face ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Demographic Subgroups

Patterns of public opinion recently observed in American politics tempt the conclusion that substantive arguments and evidence are less effective, or ineffective, at changing partisan minds when they overtly contradict cues from in-party leaders. This conclusion follows naturally from theories of partisan motivated reasoning. However, observations of public opinion do not provide the counterfactual outcomes required to draw this conclusion. Here we report a large-scale survey experiment in which we randomized exposure to the policy positions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, as well as information that overtly contradicts their positions. Our design incorporates 24 policy issues and 48 information treatments. We find that the information does persuade partisans on average, and, critically, fully retains its persuasive force even when paired with countervailing cues from in-party leaders. This result holds across policy issues, demographic subgroups, and one- and two-sided cue environments, and is puzzling for partisan motivated reasoning theory.

Authoritarian Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace

2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark S. Bell ◽  
Kai Quek
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Mass Publics ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Western Democracies

AbstractThe “democratic peace”—the regularity that democracies rarely (if ever) fight with other democracies but do fight with nondemocracies—is one of the most famous findings in international relations scholarship. There is little agreement, however, about the mechanism that underpins the democratic peace. Recently, scholars have shown that mass publics in liberal democracies are less supportive of using military force against other democracies. This finding has been taken to support the idea that the content of public opinion may provide one mechanism that underpins the democratic peace. Using a large-scale survey experiment, we show that mass publics in an authoritarian regime—China—show the same reluctance to use force against democracies as is found in western democracies. Our findings expand the empirical scope of the claim that mass publics are reluctant to use force against democracies, but force us to rethink how public opinion operates as a causal mechanism underpinning the democratic peace.

Bullying, School Violence, and Climate in Evolving Contexts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Avi Astor ◽  
Rami Benbenisthty
Keyword(s):  
School Violence ◽  
School Safety ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Teacher Student ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
New Research

Since 2005, the bullying, school violence, and school safety literatures have expanded dramatically in content, disciplines, and empirical studies. However, with this massive expansion of research, there is also a surprising lack of theoretical and empirical direction to guide efforts on how to advance our basic science and practical applications of this growing scientific area of interest. Parallel to this surge in interest, cultural norms, media coverage, and policies to address school safety and bullying have evolved at a remarkably quick pace over the past 13 years. For example, behaviors and populations that just a decade ago were not included in the school violence, bullying, and school safety discourse are now accepted areas of inquiry. These include, for instance, cyberbullying, sexting, social media shaming, teacher–student and student–teacher bullying, sexual harassment and assault, homicide, and suicide. Populations in schools not previously explored, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students and educators and military- and veteran-connected students, become the foci of new research, policies, and programs. As a result, all US states and most industrialized countries now have a complex quilt of new school safety and bullying legislation and policies. Large-scale research and intervention funding programs are often linked to these policies. This book suggests an empirically driven unifying model that brings together these previously distinct literatures. This book presents an ecological model of school violence, bullying, and safety in evolving contexts that integrates all we have learned in the 13 years, and suggests ways to move forward.

Communication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian D. Liddy
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
And Control ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

The exercise of political power in late medieval English towns was predicated upon the representation, management, and control of public opinion. This chapter explains why public opinion mattered so much to town rulers; how they worked to shape opinion through communication; and the results. Official communication was instrumental in the politicization of urban citizens. The practices of official secrecy and public proclamation were not inherently contradictory, but conflict flowed from the political process. The secrecy surrounding the practices of civic government provoked ordinary citizens to demand more accountability from town rulers, while citizens, who were accustomed to hear news and information circulated by civic magistrates, were able to use what they knew to challenge authority.

Conclusions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Present Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Democratic System

The Conclusion addresses the parties’ present condition in the European political systems. Indeed, at the dawn of the new century parties have become Leviathan with clay feet: powerful in the political arena thanks to control of state resources, but very weak in terms of legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. Only by abandoning the citadelle in which they are entrenched, recasting societal linkages, relinquishing all their privileges, and dismissing their self-referential attitude might they recover the confidence of the electorate. Maintaining a state-centred status will only lead to a dead end, and this will also harm the democratic system itself. The collapse of parties’ legitimacy inevitably affects democratic institutions: the mounting populist and plebiscitary wave suggests how pervasive is the crisis and how dramatic the challenge.

Realignment and Beyond

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Societal Changes

Affluent democracies have experienced tremendous socio-economic changes since the mid- twentieth century, which has reshaped public opinion, party programs, and electoral choices. This chapter first summarizes the societal changes that have been a driving force behind the political changes described in this study. One pattern involves the longstanding economic issues of contemporary democracies, and shifting social positions on these issues. In addition, an evolving cultural cleavage and its ties to broader attitudes toward social change have altered citizen policy preferences. In most affluent democracies, the parties’ responses to these changing citizen demands have produced a realignment to represent both economic and cultural positions. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for the working of electoral systems and the democratic process more broadly.

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