The Effect of Changing Political Contexts on Public Opinion in Japan, 1945–2020

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yukio Maeda
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Security Treaty ◽  
The Us ◽  
Constitutional Revision

The role of public opinion in Japan has changed dramatically in response to major shifts in party politics over the past seventy years. This chapter explains how the creation and disintegration of a dominant pattern in elite political discourse shaped people’s understanding of and response to public affairs. It also describes how polling and the electorate developed side-by-side in a newly democratic Japan. During the early postwar period, Japanese people were preoccupied with achieving economic security. The party system was initially very unstable, but constitutional revision and the security treaty with the US became central issues due to the Korean War and other Cold War conflicts. A bipolar political competition over these issues drove public opinion from 1955 to the mid-1990s. The “conservative” and “progressive” ideologies were diametrically opposed over constitutional revision and the US-Japan Security Treaty. This ideological divide was institutionalized in a decades-long conflict between two political camps in the legislature. Ordinary people understood public affairs through the rhetoric of these two ideologies. In the current post–Cold War, post-reform era that began in the mid-1990s, the conflict between the conservative and progressive ideologies no longer provides signals for understanding politics. Political parties differ mostly in the fact that one group is in government and the others are in opposition. Without guiding principles to organize political discourse, short-term policy concerns and perceptions of incumbent government performance influence public opinion the most. At the same time, whether a government remains in power depends on public approval more than ever before.

The Democracy-Promotion Gap in American Public Opinion

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN TURES
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Democracy Promotion ◽  
American People ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Us

United States foreign-policymakers have enthusiastically backed policies of promoting democracy abroad. But do the American people support these plans? Evidence from polls reveals that while people generally like the idea of exporting freedom, they do not view it as a top priority. Other concepts such as political and economic security are valued more by the American public. Backing for democracy promotion also seems to be waning in recent years. I examine these issues and offer possible reasons for this “gap” in response to democracy promotion among American people. I also explain the implications of these findings for America's foreign policy, including the types of government the US appears to support in the wake of military operations. I conclude with an examination of why the policy of democracy promotion has not been more popular with the American people, evaluating competing arguments that the policy is flawed, as opposed to simply a case of poor public relations.

Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Analysis: Public Opinion, Elections, Interest Groups, and the Media

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas C. Foyle ◽  
Douglas Van Belle
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media

Societal factors such as public opinion, interest groups, and the media can influence foreign policy choices and behavior. To date, the public opinion and foreign policy literature has focused largely on data derived from the US, although this trend has begun to change in recent years. However, while much of the scholarly work suggests that public attitudes on foreign policy are both reasonable and structured, significant controversies exist over the public’s general influence on policy as well as the influence of elections on foreign policy. Meanwhile, the study of interest groups as a domestic source of foreign policy is dominated by two points of emphasis: ethnic groups acting as interest groups and the US case. These are most often considered together. This ethnic interest group literature stands largely apart from the literature on trade interest groups, which takes its inspiration from the economics literature. Finally, two aspects of media are specifically relevant to media and domestic sources of foreign policy. The first is the way the media serve as an arena of domestic political competition within democracies, and the second is the communicative role that media play in the formation of public opinions that are specific to and critical to foreign policy decision making.

Cold War redux in US–Russia relations? The effects of US media framing and public opinion of the 2008 Russia–Georgia war

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksan Bayulgen ◽  
Ekim Arbatli
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Cold War

This paper examines the Cold War rhetoric in US–Russia relations by looking at the 2008 Russia–Georgia war as a major breaking point. We investigate the links between media, public opinion and foreign policy. In our content analysis of the coverage in two major US newspapers, we find that the framing of the conflict was anti-Russia, especially in the initial stages of the conflict. In addition, our survey results demonstrate that an increase in the media exposure of US respondents increased the likelihood of blaming Russia exclusively in the conflict. This case study helps us understand how media can be powerful in constructing a certain narrative of an international conflict, which can then affect public perceptions of other countries. We believe that the negative framing of Russia in the US media has had important implications for the already-tenuous relations between the US and Russia by reviving and perpetuating the Cold War mentality for the public as well as for foreign policymakers.

scholarly journals Dynamics of the cold war concept’s figurative component in the US political discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-22
Author(s):  
N. A. Kovalev
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
Mass Consciousness ◽  
The Us ◽  
American Media ◽  
The Cold War

The article presents the results of a study aimed at analyzing the dynamics of the development of the COLD WAR concept’s figurative component in political discourse based on the material of the American media. The research conducted using the methods of discursive, conceptualdefinitional and comparative analysis has shown that the COLD WAR concept is a complex multi-component concept-scenario (or dynamic frame) that evolved during the second half of the 20th century. The figurative component of the concept manifests itself in its metaphorization and develops as the concept penetrates into the American mass consciousness. Throughout its history the COLD WAR concept has been both the source domain and the target domain of metaphorization with numerous models of metaphorical reinterpretation. Moreover, the author states that demetaphorization of the concept has also played a big part in the development of its figurative component. The article opens up a perspective for the study of the conceptual field of the “cold war” in different linguocultures, which is very important considering the changing international situation and the emergence of such concepts as COLD WAR 2, COLD WAR 2.0, etc.

Party-System Change in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Seawright
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Party System ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
System Change ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
The Cold War

From one point of view, Latin America’s party systems are in a constant state of change, with high levels of electoral volatility, recurrent episodes of personalism, and a generally low level of predictability. From a deeper analytic perspective, however, there are clear differences between periods of massive, essentially region-wide party-system change, as at the birth of mass politics in the first half of the 20th century and during the neoliberal era, and periods of relative stability, such as the period of the Cold War. Latin American party politics is thus characterized by a rhythm of (sometimes long) periods of continuity interrupted by episodes of crisis and change. Episodes of change occur when the foundations of political competition are revised: at the dawn of mass politics in the early 20th century, for example, or during the period of political and economic reform that marked the end of the Cold War. A distinctly Latin American puzzle for the study of party systems emerges from taking the long view of these periods of stability and disruption. For the most part, party systems in the region are distinctly central to politics and electoral in origin, in contrast to many other developing countries where parties are noncentral, volatile, or oriented toward nonelectoral forms of governance. Yet, these same party systems are largely unable to adjust their appeals when faced with fundamental transformations to the social, political, or economic landscape—in contrast to the party systems of much of North America and Western Europe, where many parties and party systems have successfully navigated multiple such transformations with the identities of key parties intact.

A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF THE POST-COLD WAR UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’S FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS KENYA: AN AFROCENTRIC PERSPECTIVE

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169
Author(s):  
K B Shai ◽  
T Nyawasha
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Us ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Relationship

This article uses African critical theory (also known as Afrocentricity) to appraise US-Kenya inter-state relations. It does this first by contemporaneously historicising the relationship between the two countries and also looking at the current state of the US-Kenyan affair. Largely, the study carries a historical sensibility as it traces the relationship between Kenya and the US from as far as 1963. Our interest in this study is to highlight the peculiarity of the relationship between Kenya and the US. Put yet in another way, we seek to look at the nuances of the relationship. To achieve this, we rely methodologically on both primary and secondary sources to generate data. The data are analysed through the use of interdisciplinary critical discourse in its widest form. Overall, the central question we grapple with here is why the US sees in Kenya an indispensable political ally amidst all struggles and moments; some which have become part of the Kenyan political history, as this article will show. Three underlying currents shaping the relationship between Kenya and the US are identified in this article: 1) the consolidation of democracy; 2) the 2007 Kenyan election; and 3) the strategic importance of Kenya to the US’s overall political mission and objective. Lastly, this article makes its contribution to the existing body of literature in International Public Affairs (IPA) by implicitly and rigorously employing Afrocentricity as a new contextual lens to study US-Africa affairs.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

The Influence of Modern Party System on the Development of Parliamentarism in Russia: Institutional, Political and Psychological Aspects

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 266-273
Author(s):  
Ivan S. Palitai
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Party System ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The People ◽  
Voting System ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Opinion Polls

The article is devoted to the modern Russian party system. In the first part of the article, the author shows the historical features of the parties formation in Russia and analyzes the reasons for the low turnout in the elections to the State Duma in 2016. According to the author the institutional reasons consist in the fact that the majority of modern political parties show less and less ability to produce new ideas, and the search for meanings is conducted on the basis of the existing, previously proposed sets of options. Parties reduce the topic of self-identification in party rhetoric, narrowing it down to “branded” ideas or focusing on the image of the leader. In addition, the author shows the decrease in the overall political activity of citizens after the 2011 elections, and points out that the legislation amendments led to the reduction of the election campaigns duration and changes in the voting system itself. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of the psychological aspects of the party system. The author presents the results of the investigation of images of the parties as well as the results of the population opinion polls, held by the centers of public opinion study. On the basis of this data, the author concludes that according to the public opinion the modern party system is ineffective, and the parties don’t have real political weight, which leads to the decrease of the interest in their activities and confidence in them. The author supposes that all this may be the consequence of the people’s fatigue from the same persons in politics, but at the same time the electorate’s desire to see new participants in political processes is formulated rather vaguely, since, according to the people, this might not bring any positive changes.

Bipartisanship as Possible Alternative of Russian Political System Evolution

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 256-265
Author(s):  
Konstantin V. Simonov ◽  
Stanislav P. Mitrakhovich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Practical Advice ◽  
Simultaneous Separation

The article examines the possibility of transfer to bipartisan system in Russia. The authors assess the benefits of the two-party system that include first of all the ensuring of actual political competition and authority alternativeness with simultaneous separation of minute non-system forces that may contribute to the country destabilization. The authors analyze the accompanying risks and show that the concept of the two-party system as the catalyst of elite schism is mostly exaggerated. The authors pay separate attention to the experience of bipartisan system implementation in other countries, including the United States. They offer detailed analysis of the generated concept of the bipartisanship crisis and show that this point of view doesn’t quite agree with the current political practice. The authors also examine the foreign experience of the single-party system. They show that the success of the said system is mostly insubstantial, besides many of such systems have altered into more complex structures, while commentators very often use not the actual information but the established myths about this or that country. The authors also offer practical advice regarding the potential technologies of transition to the bipartisan system in Russia.

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