Defining the “Tribal Advantage” in Kuwaiti Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Courtney Freer ◽  
Andrew Leber
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Government Services ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Elite Interviews

Abstract Contemporary electoral discourses in Kuwait stress a “tribal advantage” that boosts the representation of tribe-affiliated Kuwaitis in the National Assembly and undermines the character of Kuwaiti democracy. We draw on survey data, elite interviews, and election returns to assess the validity of these claims. Kuwaiti responses in a survey of political attitudes cast doubt on the hypothesis that members of tribes are likelier to view voting as a quid-pro-quo exchange for government services. Election returns suggest a slight over-representation of tribe-affiliated Kuwaitis writ large, but as a result of the interaction of larger post-2006 electoral districts with tribal electoral coordination rather than as a result of government design. Additionally, electoral returns offer evidence of growing tribal coordination intended to ensure representation within the National Assembly, albeit one disrupted by changes in electoral laws. We conclude by highlighting the possibility of electoral appeals that build on, rather than restrict themselves to, ascriptive identities.

Partisanship and Autocratization: Polarization, Power Asymmetry, and Partisan Social Identities in Turkey

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melis G. Laebens ◽  
Aykut Öztürk
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Asymmetry ◽  
Partisan Identity ◽  
Political Divide ◽  
Ruling Party

Although theories of partisanship were developed for the democratic context, partisanship can be important in electoral autocracies as well. We use survey data to analyze partisanship in an electoral autocracy, Turkey, and find that partisanship is pervasive, strong, and consequential. Using the Partisan Identity Scale to measure partisanship, we show that, like in democracies, partisanship strength is associated with political attitudes and action. Unlike in democracies, however, the ruling party’s superior ability to mobilize supporters through clientelistic linkages makes the association between partisanship and political action weaker for ruling party partisans. We find that partisan identities are tightly connected to the perception that other parties may threaten one’s well-being, and that such fears are widespread on both sides of the political divide. We interpret our findings in light of the autocratization process Turkey went through. Our contribution highlights the potential of integrating regime dynamics in studies of partisanship.

How Voters Respond to Currency Crises: Evidence From Turkey

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110602
Author(s):  
David A. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Currency Crises ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Financial Shocks ◽  
The Government ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
And Migration

A burgeoning literature shows that international trade and migration shocks influence individuals’ political attitudes, but relatively little is known about how international financial shocks impact public opinion. This study examines how one prevalent type of international financial shock—currency crises—shapes mass political attitudes. I argue that currency crises reduce average citizens’ support for incumbent governments. I also expect voters’ concerns about their own pocketbooks to influence their response to currency crises. Original survey data from Turkey support these arguments. Exploiting exogenous variation in the currency’s value during the survey window, I show that currency depreciations strongly reduce support for the government. This effect is stronger among individuals that are more negatively affected by depreciation, and it is moderated by individuals’ perceptions of their personal economic situation. This evidence suggests that international financial shocks can strongly influence the opinions of average voters, and it provides further support for pocketbook theories.

Political attitudes and trade union membership in the Nordic countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten Strøby Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Impact

Do political attitudes influence the likelihood of employees being members of a trade union, and to what extent is this the case in the Nordic countries with their high aggregate levels of membership? In this article, I address these questions using European Social Survey data from 2012. The results show that left-wing political attitudes have the most impact on the likelihood of trade union membership in Sweden and to a lesser extent in Denmark. In Norway and Finland, there is no statistically significant impact. I argue that the impact of left-wing political attitudes on unionization in Sweden and Denmark reflects a conception among employees that trade unions are normative organizations.

The Effects of Compulsory Voting on Individuals

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-132
Author(s):  
Shane P. Singh
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Multilevel Models ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
The Comparative Study

This chapter empirically tests the expectation that compulsory voting moderates the effects of orientations toward democracy on political attitudes, behavior, and sophistication. It first employs cross-national survey data from the AmericasBarometer and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems to estimate multilevel models. It also uses cross-cantonal data from the Swiss Election Study, and novel survey data from Argentina collected for this book. The analyses of the Swiss and Argentine data leverage age-based thresholds in the application of compulsory voting with discontinuity models. Results suggest that, in line with the predictions of the theory advanced in Chapter 3, compulsory voting polarizes behavior and attitudes, and broadens gaps in political sophistication levels, among those with negative and positive orientations toward democracy.

Reconsidering the Linkage between Public Assistance and Public Opinion in the American Welfare State

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAUNDRA K. SCHNEIDER ◽  
WILLIAM G. JACOBY
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Public Assistance ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Welfare Participation ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Mass Attitudes ◽  
Reciprocal Influences

In an article published in this Journal, we have examined whether American welfare recipients possess beliefs and attitudes that differ from mainstream public opinion. Although our findings cast doubt on the existence of a widespread ‘culture of dependence’, we do show that programme beneficiaries exhibit self-interested support for government policies that provide assistance to needy segments of the population. However, our analysis – like most others on this topic – assumes that welfare participation affects opinions and not vice versa. This is problematic because there are theoretical reasons to believe that influences flow in the opposite direction, as well. Therefore, some important questions remain to be answered: is it really the case that welfare participation, itself, shapes the outlook of programme beneficiaries? Or do political attitudes affect reliance on public assistance in the first place?In this Research Note, we examine the underlying structure of the relationship between welfare participation and attitudes towards government activity. Our analysis uses the 1992 Center for Political Studies (CPS) National Election Study, the same dataset employed in the earlier article. But, we test a statistical model that allows for reciprocal influences between welfare and public opinion. The empirical results reinforce the earlier conclusion that welfare participation has an impact on mass attitudes. Conversely, political attitudes have no effect on whether citizens use public aid. Mirroring our earlier work, we find that people who rely on governmental assistance take rational, self-interested positions on the public policy issues which operate to their own direct benefit.

The Youth and the Arab Spring: Cohort Differences and Similarities

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hoffman ◽  
Amaney Jamal
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Cohort Differences ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Attitudes And Behavior ◽  
The Arab Spring

The Arab Spring has been described as a youth rebellion driven by grievances about unemployment and dissatisfaction with existing regimes. In this article, we assess these claims by examining the characteristics of the current youth generation in the Arab world in comparison with earlier cohorts. We find that some of the conventional assumptions about this generation—that they are less religious, more likely to be unemployed, and more likely to protest—are true, but others—that they are more supportive of secularization, more interested in politics, and more dissatisfied with their regimes—should be reconsidered. Using the first wave of the Arab Barometer survey, we discuss how patterns of political attitudes and behavior vary across cohorts, and cast doubt upon the claim that the Arab Spring was the result of an angry youth cohort that was especially opposed to the old regimes.

Making Democratic Citizens

2011 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 875-902 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romana Careja ◽  
Patrick Emmenegger
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Domestic Institutions ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
Migration Experience ◽  
Eastern European Countries

This article examines the effects of migration experience on political attitudes in Central and Eastern European countries. The rationale for this quest is the hypothesis that contact with democratic contexts translates into democratic political attitudes, for which evidence is so far inconclusive. In this article, we are interested to see whether migrants returning from Western countries display different political attitudes than their fellow nonmigrant citizens. The analysis of survey data shows that migration experience diversifies the array of political attitudes: Although migrants are more likely to trust EU institutions and to try to convince friends in political discussions, they do not differ from nonmigrants in their attitudes toward domestic institutions. Based on earlier works on determinants of political attitudes, the authors argue that migration experience has a significant effect only when these attitudes are related to objects that are associated with improvements in the migrants’ material and cognitive status.

Political Cynicism, Public Interest Blackballing and Voter Turnout: The Case of South Korea's 2000 National Assembly Elections

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUNWOONG KIM ◽  
KISUK CHO
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Negative Information ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
The South ◽  
Aggregated Data ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Political Cynicism

In the South Korea's 16th National Assembly (NA) elections held on 13 April 2000, there was widespread speculation that the Citizens Alliance's (CA's) public interest blackballing campaign against ‘unfit’ candidates increased voter cynicism and decreased voter turnout, as it was the lowest ever for NA elections. We empirically evaluate this speculation by conducting logit analyses of individual voter survey data as well as regression analyses on district-wide aggregated data on turnout. Although we find that cynical voters are likely to be more sympathetic to CA's blackballing campaign, we do not find any evidence that the campaign decreases voter turnout. These findings are consistent with Kahn and Kenny (1999) who argue that voters respond well to the negative information if it is presented in an appropriate manner.

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