scholarly journals Solidarities, Fairness, and Economic Governance in Advanced Capitalism: The Cases of COVID-19 Responses in Germany and the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achim Goerres ◽  
Mark I. Vail
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Economic Relationships ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Theoretical Question

This paper addresses the theoretical question of how competing models of social and economic solidarity shape patterns of economic governance in periods of economic crisis. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a signal case, we seek to understand how changes in public opinion in response to similar social and economic shocks are informed by deeper ideational structures among citizens relating to their capacity for empathy, mutual support, and willingness to support and trust public policy interventions. Drawing on scholarly literatures related to moral economies and the social embeddedness of economic relationships, we undertake an empirical study of how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped patterns of support for social and economic policies. We focus on Germany and the United States, countries with widely divergent modes of integration of capitalist markets and, therefore, potentially different levels of support for particular kinds of policy responses. We trace American and German policy responses since March 2020 across a number of domains, complemented by a systematic analysis of public opinion in the two countries, drawing from fifteen different sources of public-opinion data, in order to assess the pandemic’s effects on public support for individualized and collectively-oriented policy responses.

The Impact of Economic Coercion on Public Opinion: The Case of US–China Currency Relations

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 1555-1583
Author(s):  
Dimitar Gueorguiev ◽  
Daniel McDowell ◽  
David A. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Economic Coercion ◽  
The Impact

In recent years, the United States has increasingly tried to change other governments’ economic policies by threatening to punish those countries if they do not change course. To better understand the political consequences of these tactics, this paper examines how external threats influence public support for policy change in targeted states. We consider three mechanisms through which economic coercion might alter public opinion: by changing individuals’ interests, by activating their national identities, and by providing them with new information about a policy’s distributive effects. To test these rival explanations, we focus on the case of China–US currency relations. Using data from a survey experiment of Chinese internet users, we find strong support for the informational updating theory. Our evidence suggests that economic coercion can reduce support for policy change because it leads individuals to update their beliefs about who wins and loses from economic policy changes.

What the US Should Learn from China for a More Balanced and Peaceful World

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Massimo Parenti
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
International Monetary System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
The Us ◽  
The U.S

The growing importance of China in the global economy affects the reconfiguration of the international geography of power. In this scenario, the geopolitical order will be significantly redefined by the evolution of relations between China and the U.S. Based on the outcome of previous studies, and on the extensive efforts made by some social scientists, this paper provides a systematic analysis of the complexity and strategic implications of China–US relations. To make sense of these multivalent relations, after an initial introduction the paper is organized in three sections. The first section explores the structurally asymmetrical nature of relations between China and the US, focusing on economic policy decisions made by national elites. The second section focuses on the deepening U.S. debt, also underscoring the latest transformation trends experienced by an international monetary system that is still dollar–centred, and which several parties deem to be unsustainable. Lastly, the third section tries to provide evidence that growing instability in the global geopolitical order is intimately related to the economic and financial unbalances between China and the U.S. Hence, promoting more effective cooperation between China and the United States seems to be a priority. As substantiated in this paper, cooperation should, however, make the most of the Chinese developmental path, compared to that adopted by the United States – in terms of economic governance and geopolitical developmental path.

Audience Beliefs and International Organization Legitimacy

2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terrence L. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Presidential Approval ◽  
Strategic Information ◽  
Un Security Council

AbstractRecent work suggests that multilateral security institutions, such as the UN Security Council, can influence foreign policy through public opinion. According to this view, authorization can increase public support for foreign policy, freeing domestic constraints. Governments that feel constrained by public opinion may thus alter their foreign policies to garner external authorization. These claims challenge traditional realist views about the role of international organizations in security affairs, which tend to focus on direct enforcement mechanisms and neglect indirect channels of influence. To examine these claims, this article investigates the first link in this causal chain—the effect of institutional statements on public opinion. Strategic information arguments, as opposed to arguments about the symbolic legitimacy of specific organizations or the procedural importance of consultation, posit that the effect of institutional statements on public opinion is conditional on public perceptions of member states' interests. This article tests this conditional relationship in the context of changes in presidential approval surrounding military disputes, using a measure of preference distance between the United States and veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council. Findings indicate that short-term changes in presidential approval surrounding the onset of military disputes in the United States between 1946 and 2001 have been significantly larger when accompanied by a positive resolution for a Security Council that is more distant in terms of foreign policy preferences. The article also discusses polling data during the 1990s and 2000s that support the strategic information perspective.

scholarly journals The January 6 Insurrection and America's Standing Abroad: Natural Experimental Evidence from Five Unexpectedly Interrupted Public Opinion Surveys

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam van Noort
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Experimental Test ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Random Digit Dialing ◽  
Random Digit ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nationally Representative

American geopolitical power partly relies on foreign public support for its leadership. Pundits worry that this support is evaporating now that the United States—which claims to be the world’s beacon of democracy—has itself experienced democratic back- sliding. I provide the first natural experimental test of this hypothesis by exploiting that the January 6 insurrection of the US Capitol unexpectedly occurred while Gallup was conducting nationally-representative surveys in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Romania, and Vietnam. Because Gallup uses random digit dialing I can identify the effect by comparing US leadership approval among respondents that were interviewed just before, and just after, January 6, 2021. I find that the insurrection had no effect on US approval. If even a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election does not affect US approval abroad it is unlikely that any other domestic anti-democratic event will.

scholarly journals The President Is in: Public Opinion and the Presidential Use of Twitter

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511985514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paromita Pain ◽  
Gina Masullo Chen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Deliberative Discourse ◽  
Private Citizen ◽  
Sexist Language

Analyzing President Trump’s Tweets ( N = 30,386) with the first tweet starting from 4 May 2009, this article looks at the nature of his conversations with the public and the building of public support for his candidacy, till he assumed office on January 2017. Drawing theoretically on deliberative democracy and technological populism as performance, this study, among the earliest to use interpretative qualitative analysis, reveals the different themes in his discourse, rather than only highlight specific attributes of his tweets. Our analysis shows that Trump tweets frequently and casts himself as a political outsider who can alone save America. His racist and sexist language with his confrontational style leaves no room for deliberative discourse. His messages may be populist in character, but they are aversive and uncivil and lack normative attributes of deliberation that one would expect in the leader of a powerful nation, such as the United States. These characteristics have been present in his tweets even as a private citizen. This research makes a new contribution to our understanding of how Trump uses Twitter, starting from before he emerged as a contender for the presidential office, and the discourses that emanate from his use of Twitter to make broader inferences about the messages the public is receiving from Trump.

Violence on Many Sides: Framing Effects on Protest and Support for Repression

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Pearce Edwards ◽  
Daniel Arnon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Nonviolent Resistance ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Positive Effect

Abstract The success of protests depends on whether they favorably affect public opinion: nonviolent resistance can win public support for a movement, but regimes counter by framing protest as violent and instigated by outsiders. The authors argue that public perceptions of whether a protest is violent shift based on the framing of the types of action and the identities of participants in those actions. The article distinguishes between three dimensions: (1) threat of harm, (2) bearing of arms and (3) identity of protesters. Using survey experiments in Israel and the United States, the study finds support for framing effects. Threat of harm has the largest positive effect on perceptions of violence and support for repression. Surprisingly, social out-groups are not perceived as more violent, but respondents favor repressing them anyway. Support for repressing a nonthreatening out-group is at least as large as support for repressing a threatening in-group. The findings link contentious action and public opinion, and demonstrate the susceptibility of this link to framing.

Questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The U.S

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.

scholarly journals Firm Size and Employment during the Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312199260
Author(s):  
Ken-Hou Lin ◽  
Carolina Aragão ◽  
Guillermo Dominguez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Firm Size ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Job Security ◽  
Wage Premium ◽  
Small Enterprises ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Industrial Context

Previous studies have established that firm size is associated with a wage premium, but the wage premium has declined in recent decades. The authors examine the risk for unemployment by firm size during the initial outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 in the United States. Using both yearly and state-month variation, the authors find greater excess unemployment among workers in small enterprises than among those in larger firms. The gaps cannot be entirely attributed to the sorting of workers or to industrial context. The firm size advantage is most pronounced in sectors with high remotability but reverses in the sectors most affected by the pandemic. Overall, these findings suggest that firm size is linked to greater job security and that the pandemic may have accelerated prior trends regarding product and labor market concentration. They also point out that the initial policy responses did not provide sufficient protection for workers in small and medium-sized businesses.

Trust in Government and the American Public’s Responsiveness to Rising Inequality

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 790-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
State Level ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trust In Government ◽  
Combine Data ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The Relationship

The United States has become increasingly unequal. Income inequality has risen dramatically since the 1970s, yet public opinion toward redistribution has remained largely unchanged. This is puzzling, given Americans’ professed concern regarding, and knowledge of, rising inequality. I argue that trust in government can help to reconcile this. I combine data on state-level income inequality with survey data from the Cumulative American National Election Studies (CANES) from 1984 to 2016. I find that trust in government conditions the relationship between inequality and redistribution, with higher inequality prompting demand for government redistribution, but only among politically trustful individuals. This holds among conservatives and non-conservatives and among the affluent and non-affluent. These findings underscore the relevance of political trust in shaping attitudes toward inequality and economic redistribution and contribute to our understanding of why American public opinion has not turned in favor of redistribution during an era of rising income inequality.

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