In the Era of Polarization Which Voters have Political Preferences Similar to Congressmen? : A Study of Political Elites' Polarization and Voters' Issue Attitude System

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-73
Author(s):  
Hyono Choi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Preferences

scholarly journals Political Preferences, Knowledge, and Misinformation About COVID-19: The Case of Brazil

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wladimir Gramacho ◽  
Mathieu Turgeon ◽  
John Kennedy ◽  
Max Stabile ◽  
Pedro Santos Mundim
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Major Event ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Expert ◽  
Informational Cues

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a vast research agenda focusing on how citizens acquire knowledge about the virus and the health expert guidelines to protect themselves and their close ones against it. While many countries and regions have been accounted for, there still remains a substantial gap with respect to public opinion about the virus in Latin America, most notably in Brazil, which currently has the second highest in number of fatalities in the world. In this article, we employ a national survey of Brazilians (n = 2,771) to measure and explain knowledge and misinformation about the coronavirus and its illness, COVID-19. Our focus concerns the role of political preferences in a context of high elite polarization with a sitting government that has systematically downplayed the risks associated with the coronavirus and its illness. Our findings are clear: political preferences play a substantial role in explaining differences in knowledge about the coronavirus and COVID-19, more than conventional determinants of learning like motivation, ability, and opportunities. Specifically, we find that supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro—an avid science and COVID-19 denier—know significantly less about the coronavirus and its illness and are more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory that claims that the coronavirus was purposefully created in a Chinese laboratory to promote China's economic power, when compared to Brazilians who are less supportive of him and his government. Our findings carry important implications for how Brazilians take informational cues from political elites in that—even in a major event like a global pandemic—supporters of the president are as likely as ever to “follow their leader” and deny expert-backed scientific evidence.

Democracy Under Siege?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Hellwig ◽  
Yesola Kweon ◽  
Jack Vowles
Keyword(s):  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Exogenous Shocks ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
High Degree

For the worlds democracies, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–9 was catalyst for the most precipitous economic downturn in eight decades. This book examines how the GFC and ensuing Great Recession affected the workings of mass politics in the established democracies. The initial wave of research on the crisis concluded it did little to change the established relationships between voters, parties, and elections. Yet, nearly a decade since the initial shock, we are witnessing a wave of political changes, the extent to which has not been fully explained by existing studies. How did the economic malaise bear on the political preferences of citizens? This book pushes against the received wisdom by advancing a framework for understanding citizen attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. We make two main claims. First, while previous studies of the GFC tend to focus on an immediate impact of the crisis, we argue that economic malaise had a long-lasting impact. In addition to economic shock, we emphasize that economic recovery has a significant impact on citizens assessment of political elites. Second, we argue that unanticipated exogenous shocks like the GFC grant party elites an opening for political manoeuvre through public policy and rhetoric. As a result, political elites have a high degree of agency to shape public perceptions and behaviour. Political parties can strategically moderate citizens economic uncertainty, mobilize/demobilize voters, and alter individuals political preferences. By leveraging data from over 150,000 individuals across over 100 nationally representative post-election surveys from the 1990s to 2017, this book tests these research claims across a range of outcomes, including economic perceptions, policy demands, political participation, and the vote.

Election Poster Persuasion

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Schott ◽  
Jule Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Need For Cognition ◽  
Evaluation Study ◽  
Additional Measure ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Policy Statements ◽  
Voting Intentions

Abstract. We examined the effect of presenting unknown policy statements on German parties’ election posters. Study 1 showed that participants inferred the quality of a presented policy from knowledge about the respective political party. Study 2 showed that participants’ own political preferences influenced valence estimates: policy statements presented on campaign posters of liked political parties were rated significantly more positive than those presented on posters of disliked political parties. Study 3 replicated the findings of Study 2 with an additional measure of participants’ need for cognition. Need for cognition scores were unrelated to the valence transfer from political parties to policy evaluation. Study 4 replicated the findings of Studies 2 and 3 with an additional measure of participants’ voting intentions. Voting intentions were a significant predictor for valence transfer. Participants credited both their individually liked and disliked political parties for supporting the two unknown policies. However, the credit attributed to the liked party was significantly higher than to the disliked one. Study 5 replicated the findings of Studies 2, 3, and 4. Additionally, participants evaluated political clubs that were associated with the same policies previously presented on election posters. Here, a second-degree transfer emerged: from party valence to policy evaluation and from policy evaluation to club evaluation. Implications of the presented studies for policy communications and election campaigning are discussed.

Forging the Franchise

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Langan Teele
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Strategic Alliances ◽  
National Level ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Competitive Environments ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Massive Change ◽  
Political Emancipation ◽  
Women’S Preferences ◽  
Do So

In the 1880s, women were barred from voting in all national-level elections, but by 1920 they were going to the polls in nearly thirty countries. What caused this massive change? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it was not because of progressive ideas about women or suffragists' pluck. In most countries, elected politicians fiercely resisted enfranchising women, preferring to extend such rights only when it seemed electorally prudent and necessary to do so. This book demonstrates that the formation of a broad movement across social divides, and strategic alliances with political parties in competitive electoral conditions, provided the leverage that ultimately transformed women into voters. As the book shows, in competitive environments, politicians had incentives to seek out new sources of electoral influence. A broad-based suffrage movement could reinforce those incentives by providing information about women's preferences, and an infrastructure with which to mobilize future female voters. At the same time that politicians wanted to enfranchise women who were likely to support their party, suffragists also wanted to enfranchise women whose political preferences were similar to theirs. In contexts where political rifts were too deep, suffragists who were in favor of the vote in principle mobilized against their own political emancipation. Exploring tensions between elected leaders and suffragists and the uncertainty surrounding women as an electoral group, the book sheds new light on the strategic reasons behind women's enfranchisement.

Political Preferences, Personality Traits, and Environmentalism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Soutter ◽  
René Mõttus
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Party Voting

Although the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change continues to grow, public discourse still reflects a high level of scepticism and political polarisation towards anthropogenic climate change. In this study (N = 499) we attempted to replicate and expand upon an earlier finding that environmental terminology (“climate change” versus “global warming”) could partly explain political polarisation in environmental scepticism (Schuldt, Konrath, & Schwarz, 2011). Participants completed a series of online questionnaires assessing personality traits, political preferences, belief in environmental phenomenon, and various pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. Those with a Conservative political orientation and/or party voting believed less in both climate change and global warming compared to those with a Liberal orientation and/or party voting. Furthermore, there was an interaction between continuously measured political orientation, but not party voting, and question wording on beliefs in environmental phenomena. Personality traits did not confound these effects. Furthermore, continuously measured political orientation was associated with pro-environmental attitudes, after controlling for personality traits, age, gender, area lived in, income, and education. The personality domains of Openness, and Conscientiousness, were consistently associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, whereas Agreeableness was associated with pro-environmental attitudes but not with behaviours. This study highlights the importance of examining personality traits and political preferences together and suggests ways in which policy interventions can best be optimised to account for these individual differences.

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