scholarly journals Framing the Narrative: Female Fighters, External Audience Attitudes, and Transnational Support for Armed Rebellions

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 1638-1665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devorah Manekin ◽  
Reed M. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
National Data ◽  
State Support ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Rebel Groups ◽  
Female Fighters ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

Female combatants play a central role in rebel efforts to cultivate and disseminate positive narratives regarding the movement and its political goals. Yet, the effectiveness of such strategies in shaping audience attitudes or generating tangible benefits for the group remains unclear. We propose and test a theory regarding the channels through which female fighters advance rebel goals. We argue that female fighters positively influence audience attitudes toward rebel groups by strengthening observers’ beliefs about their legitimacy and their decision to use armed tactics. We further contend that these effects directly help them secure support from transnational nonstate actors and indirectly promote state support. We assess our arguments by combining a novel survey experiment in two countries with analyses of new cross-national data on female combatants and information about transnational support for rebels. The empirical results support our arguments and demonstrate the impact of gender framing on rebel efforts to secure support.

Beyond Turnout

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane P. Singh
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Political Sophistication ◽  
National Data ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

Compulsory voting is widely used in the democratic world, and it is well established that it increases electoral participation. This book assesses the effects of compulsory voting beyond turnout. The author first summarizes the normative arguments for and against compulsory voting, provides information on its contemporary use, reviews recent events pertaining to its (proposed) adoption and abolition, and provides an extensive account of extant research on its consequences. The author then advances a theory that compulsory voting polarizes behavior and attitudes, and broadens gaps in political sophistication levels, among those with negative and positive orientations toward democracy. Recognizing the impact of mandatory voting on the electorate, political parties then alter the ways in which they seek votes, with mainstream parties moderating their platforms and smaller parties taking more extreme positions. The author uses survey data from countries with compulsory voting to show that support for the requirement to vote is driven by individuals’ orientations toward democracy. The theory is then comprehensively tested using: cross-national data, cross-cantonal data from Switzerland, and survey data from Argentina. Empirical results are largely indicative of the theorized process whereby compulsory voting has divergent effects on citizens and political parties. The book concludes with a discussion of future directions for academic research, implications for those who craft electoral policy, and alternative ways of boosting turnout.

scholarly journals Lockdown Lives: A longitudinal study of inter-relationships amongst feelings of loneliness, social contacts and solidarity during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolien van Breen ◽  
Maja Kutlaca ◽  
Yasin Koc ◽  
Bertus F. Jeronimus ◽  
Anne Margit Reitsema ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
National Data ◽  
Social Contacts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Points ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

In this work, we study how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. We draw on cross-national data, collected across four time points between mid-March until early May 2020. We situate our work within the public debate on these issues and discuss to what extent the public understanding of the impact of lockdown is borne out in the data. Results show, first, that although online contacts are beneficial in combating feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to make use of this strategy. Second, online contacts do not function as a substitute to face-to-face contacts - in fact, more frequent online contacts in earlier weeks predicted an increase in face-to-face contacts in later weeks. Finally, solidarity played only a small role in shaping people’s feelings of loneliness during lockdown. In sum, our findings suggest that we must look beyond the current focus on online contact and solidarity, if we want to help people address their feelings of loneliness. We hope that this work will be instrumental not only in understanding the impact of the lockdown in early 2020, but also in preparing for possible future lockdown periods.

Introducing xSub: A new portal for cross-national data on subnational violence

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 604-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri M Zhukov ◽  
Christian Davenport ◽  
Nadiya Kostyuk
Keyword(s):  
Grid Cell ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
National Data ◽  
Units Of Analysis ◽  
Disaggregated Data ◽  
Data Collections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

Researchers today have access to an unprecedented amount of geo-referenced, disaggregated data on political conflict. Because these new data sources use disparate event typologies and units of analysis, findings are rarely comparable across studies. As a result, we are unable to answer basic questions like ‘what does conflict A tell us about conflict B?’ This article introduces xSub – a ‘database of databases’ for disaggregated research on political conflict ( www.x-sub.org ). xSub reduces barriers to comparative subnational research, by empowering researchers to quickly construct custom, analysis-ready datasets. xSub currently features subnational data on conflict in 156 countries, from 21 sources, including large data collections and data from individual scholars. To facilitate comparisons across countries and sources, xSub organizes these data into consistent event categories, actors, spatial units (country, province, district, grid cell, electoral constituency), and time units (year, month, week, and day). This article introduces xSub and illustrates its potential, by investigating the impact of repression on dissent across thousands of subnational datasets.

scholarly journals The populist politics of Euroscepticism in times of crisis: Comparative conclusions

Politics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea LP Pirro ◽  
Paul Taggart ◽  
Stijn van Kessel
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
National Data ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Face ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

This article offers comparative findings of the nature of populist Euroscepticism in political parties in contemporary Europe in the face of the Great Recession, migrant crisis, and Brexit. Drawing on case studies included in the Special Issue on France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the article presents summary cross-national data on the positions of parties, the relative importance of the crisis, the framing of Euroscepticism, and the impact of Euroscepticism in different country cases. We use this data to conclude that there are important differences between left- and right-wing variants of populist Euroscepticism, and that although there is diversity across the cases, there is an overall picture of resilience against populist Euroscepticism.

Responding to Catastrophe

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (8) ◽  
pp. 1446-1472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reed M. Wood ◽  
Thorin M. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
State Control ◽  
National Data ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Windows Of Opportunity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Post Disaster ◽  
Cross National

Natural disasters often cause significant human suffering. They may also provide incentives for states to escalate repression against their citizens. We argue that state authorities escalate repression in the wake of natural disasters because the combination of increased grievances and declining state control produced by disasters creates windows of opportunity for dissident mobilization and challenges to state authority. We also investigate the impact of the post-disaster humanitarian aid on this relationship. Specifically, we argue that inflows of aid in the immediate aftermath of disasters are likely to dampen the impact of disasters on repression. However, we expect that this effect is greater when aid flows to more democratic states. We examine these interrelated hypotheses using cross-national data on immediate-onset natural disasters and state violations of physical integrity rights between 1977 and 2009 as well as newly collected foreign aid data disaggregated by sector. The results provide support for both our general argument and the corollary hypotheses.

Schooling, Development, and Inequality: Old Myths and New Realities

1981 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Fry
Keyword(s):  
Economic Inequality ◽  
National Data ◽  
Economic Dependency ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

Drawing on several alternative theoretical perspectives and using cross-national data,Gerald Fry assesses empirically the impact of both schooling and key developmental variables on levels of economic inequality. He reports that the expansion of schooling shows little relationship with inequality, while economic dependency is found to have the strongest association.

scholarly journals The Luck of the Draw: How Attributions for Poverty Shape Support for Economic Inequality

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Wiwad
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
National Data ◽  
Dispositional Attributions ◽  
Status Interaction ◽  
Average Status ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cross National

Despite growing economic inequality the American population remains relatively un-motivatedto tackle this issue–why? In six studies (n = 34,198), I aimed to answer this question byexploring the link between both dispositional and situational attributions for poverty andsupport for economic inequality. In Study 1 I used cross-national data from 34 countriesto examine the relationship between attributions for poverty and support for economic inequality.I found that people demonstrated less support for economic inequality in countrieswhere the majority of respondents provided situational (as opposed to dispositional) attributionsfor poverty. In Study 2a I had participants complete an immersive online povertysimulation or play Monopoly. I found that relative to Monopoly, the poverty simulationled to an increase in situational attributions for poverty and turn diminished support foreconomic inequality and increased support for redistribution. In Study 2b I conducted ahigh-powered pre-registered replication and extension of these results. In Study 3a, I presentedparticipants with evidence counter to the stereotype that the poor are lazy by havingthem interact with a low-status (versus average-status) status confederate. I found that thecross-status interaction led to a decrease in dispositional attributions for poverty which inturn decreased support for economic inequality. In Study 3b I conducted a high-poweredpre-registered replication which strengthened the design of the previous study and largelyreplicated these results. Lastly, in Study 4, in order to determine the specificity of relationshipbetween causal attributions and support for economic inequality I conducted a fieldquasi-experiment in undergraduates enrolled in various introductory psychology classes. Icompared attributions for poverty and support for economic inequality over the course of asemester in students who were taking a class that explicitly highlights the situational causesof behaviour versus a series of classes without this explicit framing. I found that taking acourse centred around demonstrating the impact situational factors have in influencing behaviourdid not shift support for economic inequality relative to students in various controlclasses. Overall, this dissertation presents the first experiments showing how attributions forpoverty can shape broader economic attitudes, such as support for economic inequality andhow various simple and low-cost interventions can be leveraged to promote greater socialequality.

Disparities in access to clean water and sanitation: institutional causes

Water Policy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (S1) ◽  
pp. 155-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew B. Whitford ◽  
Helen Smith ◽  
Anant Mandawat
Keyword(s):  
National Data ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Institutional Variables ◽  
Development Path ◽  
Quality Regulation ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

This paper uses cross-national data from 2002 and 2004 to assess the effects of key institutional variables on the improvement of access to safe water and sanitation. Two key variables of specific interest are a country's commitment to ‘quality regulation’ and the country's long-term development path. The evidence for the impact of those factors on expanding or contracting access to water and sanitation is mixed.

Interculturalism and the Acceptance of Minority Groups

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maykel Verkuyten ◽  
Kumar Yogeeswaran
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Social Psychological Research ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Situational Effect

Abstract. Multiculturalism has been criticized and rejected by an increasing number of politicians, and social psychological research has shown that it can lead to outgroup stereotyping, essentialist thinking, and negative attitudes. Interculturalism has been proposed as an alternative diversity ideology, but there is almost no systematic empirical evidence about the impact of interculturalism on the acceptance of migrants and minority groups. Using data from a survey experiment conducted in the Netherlands, we examined the situational effect of promoting interculturalism on acceptance. The results show that for liberals, but not for conservatives, interculturalism leads to more positive attitudes toward immigrant-origin groups and increased willingness to engage in contact, relative to multiculturalism.

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