Public opinion, international reputation, and audience costs in an authoritarian regime

2020 ◽  
pp. 073889422090637
Author(s):  
Xiaojun Li ◽  
Dingding Chen
Keyword(s):  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Chinese Adults ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
Potential Damage

Does the public in authoritarian regimes disapprove of their leaders’ backing down from public threats and commitments? Answers to this question provide a critical micro-foundation for the emerging scholarship on authoritarian audience costs. We investigate this question by implementing a series of survey experiments in China, a single-party authoritarian state. Findings based on responses from 5375 Chinese adults show that empty threats and commitments expose the Chinese government to substantial disapproval from citizens concerned about potential damage to China’s international reputation. Additional qualitative evidence reveals that Chinese citizens are willing to express their discontent of leaders’ foreign policy blunders through various channels. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate over whether and how domestic audiences can make commitments credible in authoritarian states.

Trust in the Police: Cross-country Comparisons

2012 ◽  
pp. 24-47
Author(s):  
V. Gimpelson ◽  
G. Monusova
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Police Activity

Using different cross-country data sets and simple econometric techniques we study public attitudes towards the police. More positive attitudes are more likely to emerge in the countries that have better functioning democratic institutions, less prone to corruption but enjoy more transparent and accountable police activity. This has a stronger impact on the public opinion (trust and attitudes) than objective crime rates or density of policemen. Citizens tend to trust more in those (policemen) with whom they share common values and can have some control over. The latter is a function of democracy. In authoritarian countries — “police states” — this tendency may not work directly. When we move from semi-authoritarian countries to openly authoritarian ones the trust in the police measured by surveys can also rise. As a result, the trust appears to be U-shaped along the quality of government axis. This phenomenon can be explained with two simple facts. First, publicly spread information concerning police activity in authoritarian countries is strongly controlled; second, the police itself is better controlled by authoritarian regimes which are afraid of dangerous (for them) erosion of this institution.

How to Tell the Truth without Outraging the Press?

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Chinese News Media

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 

Bürgerliche und ästhetische Öffentlichkeit bei Wieland, Schiller und Goethe: Eine Vorgeschichte der Leitkulturdebatte

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-102
Author(s):  
May Mergenthaler
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Long Period ◽  
National Tradition ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This essay explores the concepts and practices of culture and the public sphere that Wieland, Goethe, and Schiller outline and realize in their journals, letters, and other writings. The background of this investigation is the ongoing debate in Germany about the function of a majority culture, based on a national tradition, in a multi-cultural, democratic society. The investigation of the three authors’ concepts and practices of both the public sphere and publishing demonstrates that majority cultures can be conceived in a variety of ways that can be more or less compatible with a liberal society. In their journals, Die Horen and Propyläen, Schiller and Goethe, respectively, are speaking to an ideal public, with the support of a select number of like-minded authors, aiming at the establishment of a national, symbolically structured culture and education (Bildung) that shows affinities to absolutist political structures. By contrast, Wieland opens his Der Teutsche Merkur up to a variety of contributors and readers, which are conceived and accepted as fallible, though teachable, with the goal of furthering the development, over a long period of time, of a national culture that is, at the same time, universal and timeless, thereby questioning the concept of nationhood.

An analysis of media discourse on genetically modified rice in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 175048132098209
Author(s):  
Quan Zheng ◽  
Zengyi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Reports ◽  
Gm Rice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
Specific Meaning

Current problems and controversies involving GM issues are not limited to scientific fields but spill over into the social context. When disagreements enter society via media outlets, social factors such as interests, resources, and values can contribute to complicating discourse about a controversial subject. Using the framework for the analysis of media discourse proposed by Carvalho, this paper examines news reports on Chinese GM rice from the dimensions of both text and context, covering the period of 2001–2015. This study shows that media may not only construct basic concepts, theme, and discursive strategies but also generate an ideological stance. This ideology constituted an influential dimension of the GM rice controversy. By following ideology consistent with the dominant position of the Chinese government, the media selectively constructed and endowed GM rice with a specific meaning in the Chinese social context, making possible the reproduction and communication of GM rice knowledge and risks to the public.

Remembering hope: mediated queer futurity and counterpublics in Turkey’s authoritarian times

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Yener Bayramoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
The Public ◽  
Textual Material ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Tabloid Press ◽  
Looking Back

Abstract This article explores how hope and visions of the future have left their mark on media discourse in Turkey. Looking back at some of the events that took place in the 1980s, a decade that was shaped by the aftermath of the 1980 coup d’état, and considering them alongside what has happened since the ban of Istanbul’s Pride march in 2015, it examines traces of hope in two periods of recent Turkish history characterized by authoritarianism. Drawing on an array of visual and textual material drawn from the tabloid press, magazines, newspapers, and digital platforms, it inquires into how queer hope manages to infiltrate mediated publics even in times of pessimism and hopelessness. Based upon analysis of an archive of discourses on resistance, solidarity, and future, it argues that queer hope not only helps to map out possible future routes for queer lives in (and beyond) Turkey, but also operates as a driving political force that sustains queers’ determination to maintain their presence in the public sphere despite repressive nationalist, militarist, Islamist, and authoritarian regimes.

scholarly journals The Public Authority of the Modern State: The Phenomenon of Corruption

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Yuliy A. Nisnevich
Keyword(s):  
Human Factor ◽  
Institutional Quality ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Public Authority ◽  
Modern State ◽  
The Public

<em>The article is devoted to the analysis of the influence of the human factor on the corruption in the public authority. The corruption depends on the institutional quality of the public authority, its ability to withstand the negative manifestations of the human factor, and on the officials’ qualities. The motivation of “going to power” has a big significance. Under the authoritarian regimes, the corruption system is generated by the deformations in the election institution. The managerial lustration expediency for the power purification after the regimes’ changes is substantiated. The institutional measures to combat the corruption have been identified.</em>

scholarly journals Ewolucja cywilnych postępowań nakazowych i upominawczych w kierunku respektowania wymogów demokratycznego państwa prawnego

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-307
Author(s):  
Łukasz Goździaszek
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Judicial Control ◽  
The Public ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Civil Process ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Civil Proceedings ◽  
Court Proceedings ◽  
Simplified Procedures ◽  
Procedural Rights

Although writ proceedings in the Polish civil proceedings have been in operation since the beginning of the modern Polish civil process, there are still controversies in the aspect of fairly structured court proceedings. The defendant may be convinced that their procedural rights have been violated. It is a consequence of considering the case without prior notification of the defendant about the initiation of the proceedings. In such an approach, the judiciary may be perceived as not respecting the standards of a democratic state ruled by law. At the same time, to be closer to the notions of a totalitarian or authoritarian state, because it is not the procedural rights of an individual that are primary, but the effectiveness of the authorities’ actions. However, the concerns about the order for payment mechanism are unfounded as long as the model in which the order for payment is applied complies with the necessary requirements. First, the public authority deciding the case should have the attribute of impartiality. It is not necessary that payment orders are issued by a court. However, if the case is not heard by the court, the judicial control of such decisions is necessary. Second, the evidence should not be assessed. The presentation of specific evidence may, however, be a necessary condition for issuing an order for payment. The issue of the public body examining cases is related to the issue of evidentiary proceedings. These two elements define the nature of the order for payment by defining a procedure model. Finally, it should be pointed out that the order mechanism in a democratic state ruled by law should only supplement the examination of cases in ordinary proceedings (or separate proceedings distinguished by the party types). If the number of cases examined in separate proceedings is significant, and even more so if this way of dealing with cases prevails, ordinary proceedings may be merely an illusion. If in a significant number of cases simplified procedures leading to issuing an order for payment are applied, procedural guarantees related only to ordinary proceedings are irrelevant in such cases.

Untying Hands: De-escalation, Reputation, and Dynamic Audience Costs

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Kai Quek
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
Audience Costs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Costs

Abstract Two states in a dispute refuse to back down. One ties its own hands to strengthen its stand and gain advantage; the other tries to untie the tied hands to preempt disadvantage. Tying hands is a well-studied strategy, but it tells only part of the story, and the response strategy of untying hands remains unexplored. Can a state untie the tied hands of its opponent to give freedom back to its opponent—the freedom to concede? I identify three strategies of untying hands: counterthreat, reassurance, and normative framing. I show experimentally that these strategies can reduce the public costs of backing down and the perceived reputational damage from backing down. Tied hands and audience costs are not static and immutable, but dynamic and malleable by the other side.

Who is Setting Emotions? A Comparative Study on Emotion Diffusion in Social Media among Public, Government and Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Time Point

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.

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