scholarly journals The Dynamics and Political Implications of Anti-Intellectualism in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Motta
Keyword(s):  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Verbal Intelligence ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Implications

Recently, Americans have become increasingly likely to hold anti-intellectual attitudes (i.e., negative affect toward scientists and other experts). However, few have investigated the political implications of anti-intellectualism, and much empirical uncertainty surrounds whether or not these attitudes can be mitigated. Drawing on cross-sectional General Social Survey (GSS) data and a national election panel in 2016, I find that anti-intellectualism is associated with not only the rejection of policy-relevant matters of scientific consensus but support for political movements (e.g., “Brexit”) and politicians (e.g., George Wallace, Donald Trump) who are skeptical of experts. Critically, though, I show that these effects can be mitigated. Verbal intelligence plays a strong role in mitigating anti-intellectual sympathies, compared with previously studied potential mitigators. I conclude by discussing how scholars might build on this research to study the political consequences of anti-intellectualism in the future.

scholarly journals Increasing American Political Tolerance: A Framework Excluding Hate Speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802312090395
Author(s):  
Anna Boch
Keyword(s):  
Hate Speech ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
College Educated ◽  
New Framework

According to prior research, political tolerance has either stagnated since the 1970s (if to be tolerant one must be tolerant of every group in all circumstances) or steadily increased (if tolerance is measured using an index, averaging across groups). Using General Social Survey cross-sectional and panel data on civil liberties, this article proposes a new framework: separating out the groups that use hate speech from those that may be only controversial. The United States is unique among Western liberal democracies in not having a prohibition against hate speech. By applying a dichotomous hate speech framework to measuring political tolerance, this article finds that the proportion of Americans who are always tolerant has increased by 8 percentage points from 1996 to 2018. Meanwhile, tolerance of groups that use hate speech has remained flat and even decreased among groups that historically were more tolerant of such groups, including the college educated.

scholarly journals Using Social Media to Motivate Anti-migration Sentiments. Political Implications in the United States and Beyond

Tripodos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Blanca Nicasio Varea ◽  
Marta Pérez Gabaldón ◽  
Manuel Chavez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
First Year ◽  
Personal Account ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Political Implications

The proliferation of nationalist and nativist movements all over the world has capitalized on the broad impact of social media, especially on Twitter. In the case of the United States, as candidate and then as President, Donald Trump initiated an active use of Twitter to disseminate his views on migration and migrants. This paper analyzes the themes and the political implications of his tweets from Trump’s electoral win to the end of the first year of his presidency. The authors’ assumptions are that Trump’s rhetoric untapped a collective sentiment against migration as well as one which supported views to protect migrant communities. The findings show that some topics were retweeted massively fueling the perceptions that most Americans were against migrant communities and their protectors. We conducted content analysis of the tweets sent by President Trump during his first year in the White House. We used the personal account of Trump in Twitter @realDonaldTrump. Trump has used his personal account as a policy and political media instrument to convey his messages rather than to use the official account that all Presidents have traditionally used @POTUS. Since Trump ran on a nativist platform with strong negative sentiments against migrants and immigration in general, we examined the tweets that relate to these topics.

scholarly journals Who Wears the MAGA Hat? Racial Beliefs and Faith in Trump

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312199260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Graham ◽  
Francis T. Cullen ◽  
Leah C. Butler ◽  
Alexander L. Burton ◽  
Velmer S. Burton
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Mechanical Turk ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
The Impact

On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents ( n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism—a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally—was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism increased willingness to wear a MAGA hat. Future research on the political consequences of racial beliefs should focus on what whites think not only of blacks but also of themselves.

China's Western Horizon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Markey
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Politics ◽  
National Wealth ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Belt And Road ◽  
Infrastructure Investments

This book explains how China’s new foreign policies like the vaunted “Belt and Road” Initiative are being shaped by local and regional politics outside China and assesses the political implications of these developments for Eurasia and the United States. It depicts the ways that President Xi Jinping’s China is zealously transforming its national wealth and economic power into tools of global political influence and details these developments in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing from extensive interviews, travels, and historical research, it describes how perceptions of China vary widely within states like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Eurasia’s powerful and privileged groups often expect to profit from their connections to China, while others fear commercial and political losses. Similarly, statesmen across Eurasia are scrambling to harness China’s energy purchases, arms sales, and infrastructure investments as a means to outdo their strategic competitors, like India and Saudi Arabia, while negotiating relations with Russia and America. The book finds that, on balance, China’s deepening involvement will play to the advantage of regional strongmen and exacerbate the political tensions within and among Eurasian states. To make the most of America’s limited influence along China’s western horizon (and elsewhere), it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy to serve America’s aims in Eurasia and to better compete with China over the long run.

The Politics of Part-Time Work: Gender, Employment Status, and Preferences for Redistribution

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
David S. Pedulla ◽  
Michael J. Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Employment Status ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Preferences For Redistribution ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Part Time Work

Abstract The social and economic forces that shape attitudes toward the welfare state are of central concern to social scientists. Scholarship in this area has paid limited attention to how working part-time, the employment status of nearly 20% of the U.S. workforce, affects redistribution preferences. In this article, we theoretically develop and empirically test an argument about the ways that part-time work, and its relationship to gender, shape redistribution preferences. We articulate two gender-differentiated pathways—one material and one about threats to social status—through which part-time work and gender may jointly shape individuals’ preferences for redistribution. We test our argument using cross-sectional and panel data from the General Social Survey in the United States. We find that the positive relationship between part-time employment, compared to full-time employment, and redistribution preferences is stronger for men than for women. Indeed, we do not detect a relationship between part-time work and redistribution preferences among women. Our results provide support for a gendered relationship between part-time employment and redistribution preferences and demonstrate that both material and status-based mechanisms shape this association.

The Arts as a Polarized Issue and the Role of Political Trust in Promoting the Arts: Evidence From the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97
Author(s):  
Lim Jae Young ◽  
Woo Harin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Moderating Role

The arts in the United States, for a long time received strong support from both sides of the political aisle. However, in recent years, the arts have been transformed into a partisan issue that pits conservatives against liberals. The article points to the importance of political trust as a means of helping conservatives overcome their ideological inclinations and support the arts. Scholars argue that political trust influences more strongly individuals who perceive a given policy to be one that imposes ideological risks for them compared with those without such risks. Focusing on the moderating role of political trust, the article examines whether political trust can help alleviate the conservatives’ hostility to the arts. Relying on the 2016 General Social Survey, the article finds that conservatives have no direct relationship with arts spending, but they will be more likely to support arts spending when this is contingent upon political trust.

scholarly journals Gendered Religiosity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Gender Expression ◽  
The Feminine

This study uses measures of cognitive and expressive aspects of gender as a social identity from the General Social Survey to examine whether and how they relate to religiosity. I find that religiosity is clearly gendered, but in different ways for women and men. Consistent with the feminine-typing of religion in the Christian-majority context of the United States, gender expression is linked with more religiousness among women but not men. Consistent with religion being a sometimes patriarchal institution, those with more pride in being men are more religious. I conclude that religiosity is gendered, that degendering and secularization processes could go hand-in-hand, and that future research on gender differences in religiosity should further examine variation among women and among men.

scholarly journals President Trump’s Declarations on Official Development Assistance: A Change of Policy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Michał Zaremba
Keyword(s):  
Development Assistance ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Official Development Assistance ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Donald Trump

For years official development assistance (ODA) has been one of the most important forms of financial assistance provided to developing countries by highly developed countries. Despite the controversy over the effectiveness of assistance, it has become a permanent element of the international aid system. With the election of Donald Trump and one of the key slogans of his campaign – America first – the political climate around official development assistance is changing. The aim of the article is to analyze the role of official development assistance in political declarations of the current president of the United States.

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