scholarly journals The Authoritarian Predisposition and American Public Support for Social Security

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110351
Author(s):  
David Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
Cultural Conservatism ◽  
Election Studies

Authoritarianism, an individual-level predisposition that favors security, conformity, and certainty, has been powerfully linked with cultural conservatism and support for “strongman” politicians but weakly and inconsistently linked with public opinion toward economic issues. In examining this latter relationship, past work has tended to pose a dichotomous question, is authoritarianism associated with economic liberalism/conservatism or not? Here, I diverge from this approach and argue that authoritarianism is associated with support for one specific program—Social Security. I argue that the unique framing of this program, which emphasizes rule-following, certainty, and deservingness, should resonate with authoritarian-minded individuals. I test this with survey data, primarily from the American National Election Studies (ANES). Overall, I find a positive and substantively significant relationship between authoritarianism and support for Social Security but not for other types of domestic social welfare spending. These findings help us better understand the correlates of mass support for Social Security as well as the policy consequences of authoritarianism. These findings also suggest that Social Security will likely remain popular in an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party.

The Electoral Allure of Direct Democracy: The Effect of Initiative Salience on Voting, 1990-96

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Lacey
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Election Studies

Do salient ballot initiatives stimulate voting? Recent studies have shown that initiatives increase voter turnout, but some methodological concerns still linger. These studies have either relied solely on aggregate data to make inferences about individual-level behavior or used a flawed measure of initiative salience. Using individual-level data from the National Election Studies, I find that ballot question salience indeed stimulated voting in the midterm elections of 1990 and 1994. In an election with moderately salient ballot questions, a person's likelihood of voting can increase by as much as 30 percent in a midterm election. On the other hand, consistent with most prior research, I find no statistically significant relationship between ballot question salience and voting in presidential elections.

Trends in Public Support for Welfare Spending: How the Economy Matters

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Christopher Wlezien ◽  
Stuart Soroka
Keyword(s):  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Time Pattern ◽  
Welfare Spending ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Preference Evolution ◽  
Underlying Trend ◽  
Over Time

AbstractAs spending on welfare in the United States has increased over time, preferences for more spending have remained fairly stationary. Given that previous research shows that the public adjusts its welfare spending preference thermostatically in response to welfare spending, the over-time pattern of preferences implies that something must be producing an increase in public support, but what? We address this question, focusing on individuals' demographics and a set of aggregate economic variables, both macroeconomic and distributional. Results reveal that individual-level factors matter little to the temporal variation and aggregate economics matter a lot: there are pro-cyclical and counter-cyclical elements in spending preferences and a dampening effect of income inequality over time. The combination of these variables accounts for the underlying trend in welfare spending preferences in the US, and the method used to reveal these dynamics can be used to analyze preference evolution in other spending domains and countries.

scholarly journals Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Debus ◽  
Jale Tosun
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Short Time Period ◽  
Successful Development ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Short Time

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to impose major restrictions on individual freedom in order to stop the spread of the virus. With the successful development of a vaccine, these restrictions are likely to become obsolete—on the condition that people get vaccinated. However, parts of the population have reservations against vaccination. While this is not a recent phenomenon, it might prove a critical one in the context of current attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the task of designing policies suitable for attaining high levels of vaccination deserves enhanced attention. In this study, we use data from the Eurobarometer survey fielded in March 2019. They show that 39% of Europeans consider vaccines to cause the diseases which they should protect against, that 50% believe vaccines have serious side effects, that 32% think that vaccines weaken the immune system, and that 10% do not believe vaccines are tested rigorously before authorization. We find that—even when controlling for important individual-level factors—ideological extremism on both ends of the spectrum explains skepticism of vaccination. We conclude that policymakers must either politicize the issue or form broad alliances among parties and societal groups in order to increase trust in and public support for the vaccines in general and for vaccines against COVID-19 in particular, since the latter were developed in a very short time period and resulted—in particular in case of the AstraZeneca vaccine—in reservations because of the effectiveness and side effects of the new vaccines.

When Marriage Gets Hard: Intra-Coalition Conflict and Electoral Accountability

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110243
Author(s):  
Carolina Plescia ◽  
Sylvia Kritzinger
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Level Data ◽  
European Election ◽  
Election Studies

Combining individual-level with event-level data across 25 European countries and three sets of European Election Studies, this study examines the effect of conflict between parties in coalition government on electoral accountability and responsibility attribution. We find that conflict increases punishment for poor economic performance precisely because it helps clarify to voters parties’ actions and responsibilities while in office. The results indicate that under conditions of conflict, the punishment is equal for all coalition partners when they share responsibility for poor economic performance. When there is no conflict within a government, the effect of poor economic evaluations on vote choice is rather low, with slightly more punishment targeted to the prime minister’s party. These findings have important implications for our understanding of electoral accountability and political representation in coalition governments.

Fear of crime and the police

2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin N Crowl ◽  
Joshua R Battin
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Living Arrangement ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Lifestyle Choices ◽  
Police Visibility ◽  
Lifestyle Exposure Theory

Using lifestyle exposure theory as a guide, this study examines the complex relationship between fear of crime and select lifestyle and individual-level constructs. Participants included undergraduate students at two state-funded universities located in Pennsylvania. Student fear of crime at both universities was examined to ascertain what factors influence this emotion-laden phenomenon. Results revealed support for several key fear of crime correlates. Notably, a significant relationship emerged between police visibility and fear of crime in the estimated partial and full models. Results also indicated that student lifestyle choices can impact fear of crime; this relationship can vary across samples, as evidenced in this study. It was also found that multiple individual characteristics, namely gender, race and living arrangement, were positively related to student fear of crime. A discussion and implications are offered to conclude.

Firepower

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Lacombe
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Mass Shootings ◽  
National Rifle Association ◽  
Powerful Interest ◽  
Active Base

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is one of the most powerful interest groups in America, and has consistently managed to defeat or weaken proposed gun regulations — even despite widespread public support for stricter laws and the prevalence of mass shootings and gun-related deaths. This book provides an unprecedented look at how this controversial organization built its political power and deploys it on behalf of its pro-gun agenda. Taking readers from the 1930s to the age of Donald Trump, the book traces how the NRA's immense influence on national politics arises from its ability to shape the political outlooks and actions of its followers. The book draws on nearly a century of archival records and surveys to show how the organization has fashioned a distinct worldview around gun ownership and has used it to mobilize its supporters. It reveals how the NRA's cultivation of a large, unified, and active base has enabled it to build a resilient alliance with the Republican Party, and examines why the NRA and its members formed an important constituency that helped fuel Trump's unlikely political rise. The book sheds vital new light on how the NRA has grown powerful by mobilizing average Americans, and how it uses its GOP alliance to advance its objectives and shape the national agenda.

Party Polarization, Ideological Sorting and the Emergence of the US Partisan Gender Gap

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1217-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Q. Gillion ◽  
Jonathan M. Ladd ◽  
Marc Meredith
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Party Polarization ◽  
College Degrees ◽  
The Us ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
Mass Level

This article argues that the modern American partisan gender gap – the tendency of men to identify more as Republicans and less as Democrats than women – emerged largely because of mass-level ideological party sorting. As the two major US political parties ideologically polarized at the elite level, the public gradually perceived this polarization and better sorted themselves into the parties that matched their policy preferences. Stable pre-existing policy differences between men and women caused this sorting to generate the modern US partisan gender gap. Because education is positively associated with awareness of elite party polarization, the partisan gender gap developed earlier and is consistently larger among those with college degrees. The study finds support for this argument from decades of American National Election Studies data and a new large dataset of decades of pooled individual-level Gallup survey responses.

scholarly journals MIgrations in the modern world and their implications for security policy of the Transatlantic community.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarosław Gryz
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Security Management ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Formula One ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
The One

The purpose of submitted Article is to indicate the character of the challenges related to migrations, their selected forms and influence on Transatlantic community states security . Thesis stipulates that the phenomenon of migrations in the first half of the 21st century more and more strongly defines the context of social security of states implying Transatlantic bonds and international actions taken or not undertaken in their formula. One can assume that migrations, in addition to political and military as well as economic issues, will be the one of domains of NATO security management. The above-mentioned factors will lead to a change in the character of the relations within the Transatlantic Community. <br>

Reducing Social Security PRA Risk at the Individual Level

2013 ◽  
pp. 255-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Poterba ◽  
Joshua Rauh ◽  
Steven F. Venti ◽  
David A. Wise
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual
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