scholarly journals What is (un)fair? Political ideology and collective action

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 810-829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gosia Mikołajczak ◽  
Julia C. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
Fairness Principles ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Political Spectrum

The established models predicting collective action have been developed based on liberal ideas of injustice perceptions showing that progressive collective action occurs when people perceive that the equality or need rule of fairness are violated. We argue, however, that these perceptions of injustice cannot explain the occurrence of social protests among Conservatives. The present work addresses one shortcoming in collective action research by exploring the interactive role of political ideology and injustice appraisals in predicting social protest. Specifically, we focused on injustice appraisals as a key predictor of collective action and tested whether the same or different conceptualizations of injustice instigate protest among Liberals versus Conservatives using data from two studies conducted in Germany (Study 1, N = 130) and in the US (Study 2, N = 115). Our findings indicate that injustice appraisals play an equally important role in instigating social protest both among Liberals and Conservatives. As we show, however, predicting collective action among individuals across the political spectrum requires accounting for ideological preferences for different fairness rules. Whereas Liberals are more likely to engage in protest when the equality and need rules are violated, Conservatives are more likely to protest when the merit rule is violated. We recommend that studies on collective action consider not only the strength of injustice appraisals but also their content, to assess which fairness principles guide one’s perceptions of (in)justice.

The marijuana user in US news media: an examination of visual stereotypes of race, culture, criminality and normification

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-255
Author(s):  
Tara Marie Mortensen ◽  
Leigh Moscowitz ◽  
Anan Wan ◽  
Aimei Yang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Marijuana Use ◽  
The Political ◽  
Marijuana User ◽  
The Us ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Visual Framing ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
News Outlet

In the wake of growing legalization efforts, both medicinal and recreational marijuana use in the US is becoming more prevalent and societally acceptable. However, racial, criminal and cultural stereotypes linger in mediated visual portrayals. This study examines the extent to which mediated visual portrayals in mainstream news have been impacted by these recent legalization efforts. Employing a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis of visual images used to represent marijuana use in mainstream news, this study draws upon the power of visual framing and the construction of social reality to examine how visual symbols and iconic signifiers are used to construct both stereotypical and ‘mainstreamed’ or ‘normative’ depictions of marijuana use. Analyzing 458 visuals across 10 different media outlets across the political spectrum, both before and after legalization of marijuana in Colorado, this study shows how news portrayals perpetuated stereotypes about marijuana users, particularly around criminality and pot-culture iconography. Relatively few depictions of marijuana users in the US are visuals of ordinary, ‘normal’ people or families. This study thus interrogates the relationship between representations of race, criminality and ‘pothead’ stereotypes associated with marijuana use, and how these visual representations differ amongst liberal and conservative news sites, finding that the political ideology of the news outlet largely influences the visual stereotyping of marijuana users. The study concludes by considering both the legal and cultural implications of how mainstream news visually represents marijuana use, considering how persistent decades-old representations were largely perpetuated rather than challenged in light of legalization efforts.

Public perceptions of who counts as a scientist for controversial science

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 797-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianne Suldovsky ◽  
Asheley Landrum ◽  
Natalie Jomini Stroud
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Science Media

In an era where expertise is increasingly critiqued, this study draws from the research on expertise and scientist stereotyping to explore who the public considers to be a scientist in the context of media coverage about climate change and genetically modified organisms. Using survey data from the United States, we find that political ideology and science knowledge affect who the US public believes is a scientist in these domains. Our results suggest important differences in the role of science media attention and science media selection in the publics “scientist” labeling. In addition, we replicate previous work and find that compared to other people who work in science, those with PhDs in Biology and Chemistry are most commonly seen as scientists.

scholarly journals The Career Length and Service of Female Policymakers in the US House of Representatives

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Praino ◽  
Daniel Stockemer
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Careers ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Career Length ◽  
The Us ◽  
Using Data

Various studies have outlined the institutional (e.g. the existence of quota laws and the electoral system type of a country) and non-institutional factors (e.g. the political culture of a country) that account for variation in women’s representation, in general, and, in more detail, the low representation of women in the US Congress. However, no study has, so far, compared the Congressional career paths of men and women in order to understand whether this gender gap in representation stems from a difference in terms of the duration and importance of the careers of male and female policymakers. Using data on all US House elections between 1972 and 2012, we provide such an analysis, evaluating whether or not the political careers of women in the US House of Representatives are different from the political careers of their male counterparts. Our findings indicate that the congressional careers of men and women are alike and, if anything, women may even have a small edge over their male colleagues.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Teo Ballvé
Keyword(s):  
Political Influence ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
Do So

This introductory chapter briefly explores the ways in which imaginaries of statelessness have structured the political life of Urabá, Colombia. It argues that Colombia's violent conflicts have produced surprisingly coherent and resilient regimes of accumulation and rule—yet this is not to say they are benevolent. In order to do so, this chapter approaches the state as a dynamic ensemble of relations that is both an effect and an instrument of competing political strategies and relations of power. In Urabá, groups from across the political spectrum, armed and otherwise, all end up trying to give concrete coherence to the inherently unwieldy abstraction of the state in a space where it supposedly does not exist. The way this absence exerts a generative political influence is what this chapter establishes as the “frontier effect.” The frontier effect describes how the imaginary of statelessness in these spaces compels all kinds of actors to get into the business of state formation; it thrusts groups into the role of would-be state builders.

The Violence of Inequality: Race and Lobbying in the Politics of Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 68-93
Author(s):  
Sappho Xenakis ◽  
Leonidas K. Cheliotis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Us

There is no shortage of scholarly and other research on the reciprocal relationship that inequality bears to crime, victimisation and contact with the criminal justice system, both in the specific United States context and beyond. Often, however, inequality has been studied in conjunction with only one of the three phenomena at issue, despite the intersections that arguably obtain between them–and, indeed, between their respective connections with inequality itself. There are, moreover, forms of inequality that have received far less attention in pertinent research than their prevalence and broader significance would appear to merit. The purpose of this chapter is dual: first, to identify ways in which inequality’s linkages to crime, victimisation and criminal justice may relate to one another; and second, to highlight the need for a greater focus than has been placed heretofore on the role of institutionalised inequality of access to the political process, particularly as this works to bias criminal justice policy-making towards the preferences of financially motivated state lobbying groups at the expense of disadvantaged racial minorities. In so doing, the chapter singles out for analysis the US case and, more specifically, engages with key extant explanations of the staggering rise in the use of imprisonment in the country since the 1970s.

Bringing The Outsiders In: Opponents' Claims and The Construction of Animal Rights Activists' Identity

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Einwohner
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Movement Dynamics ◽  
Sense Of Identity ◽  
Using Data

Most research on the role of identity in social movements treats identity as something that is constructed solely by movement participants themselves. However, participants are not the only actors involved in this identity construction. This article uses basic insights from symbolic interactionism to argue that external claims, or claims made about movement participants by those outside the movement, also shape activists' sense of identity. Using data collected during three years of fieldwork with members of a non-violent animal rights organization, I show how the activists made use of their opponents' depictions of them—in particular, charges that the activists were "overly emotional" and "irrational"—when describing themselves. Specifically, I illustrate two processes by which these external claims left their mark on the activists' identity: identity disconfirmation and identity recasting. More broadly, I suggest that "bringing the outsiders in" to examinations of identity and collective action provides a more complete picture not simply of identity construction but of movement dynamics as a whole.

Political Embeddedness and the Management of Emotions

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Blocq ◽  
Bert Klandermans ◽  
Jacquelien van Stekelenburg
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Using Data

This article explores how variation in political embeddedness of social movement organi-zations (SMOs) influences the management of emotions. By variation in the political embed-dedness of SMOs, we mean variation in the strength and the number of ties between SMOs and the political establishment. By management of emotions, we mean the efforts of SMO leaders to evoke particular emotions among SMO members. Using data from protest surveys conducted at demonstrations regarding climate change in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2009, we find that protestors who are members of more politically embedded SMOs are generally less angry than protestors who are members of less politically embedded SMOs. The finding that this pattern is especially strong among SMO members who heard about the dem-onstration through an SMO confirms the assumed role of SMO leaders in the management of emotions.

A Backbencher on Parliamentary Reform, 1831–1832

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-563
Author(s):  
Mark O'Neill ◽  
Ged Martin
Keyword(s):  
John Milton ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Reform ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Sociological Explanation

Historians have in recent years used several approaches to explain the first Reform Act. Michael Brock's elegant account sets the whole Reform crisis in its political context. D. C. Moore has attempted a ‘sociological’ explanation of ministers’ intentions, while John Milton-Smith has offered a more traditional analysis of their private papers. This emphasis on the men who framed and steered the measure through parliament perhaps obscures the role of the ordinary members in whose hands its fate rested. Like the ministers, the backbenchers also suffered intense periods of indecision, soul-searching and calculation based on a confused mixture of pragmatism and principle. This is especially true of the moderates, the men of the parliamentary centre, who provided the vital votes for the government's hair-breadth majority on the second reading in February 1831, but who deserted them to support General Gascoyne's motion a few days later. Only fifteen M.P.s voted both for the Bill and for Gascoyne's motion, thus locating themselves - at least temporarily - at the very centre of the political spectrum.

scholarly journals Beyond prejudice: Are negative evaluations the problem and is getting us to like one another more the solution?

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 411-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dixon ◽  
Mark Levine ◽  
Steve Reicher ◽  
Kevin Durrheim
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Prejudice Reduction ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intergroup Emotions ◽  
Action Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Ironic Effects

AbstractFor most of the history of prejudice research, negativity has been treated as its emotional and cognitive signature, a conception that continues to dominate work on the topic. By this definition, prejudice occurs when we dislike or derogate members of other groups. Recent research, however, has highlighted the need for a more nuanced and “inclusive” (Eagly 2004) perspective on the role of intergroup emotions and beliefs in sustaining discrimination. On the one hand, several independent lines of research have shown that unequal intergroup relations are often marked by attitudinal complexity, with positive responses such as affection and admiration mingling with negative responses such as contempt and resentment. Simple antipathy is the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, there is mounting evidence that nurturing bonds of affection between the advantaged and the disadvantaged sometimes entrenches rather than disrupts wider patterns of discrimination. Notably, prejudice reduction interventions may have ironic effects on the political attitudes of the historically disadvantaged, decreasing their perceptions of injustice and willingness to engage in collective action to transform social inequalities.These developments raise a number of important questions. Has the time come to challenge the assumption that negative evaluations are inevitably the cognitive and affective hallmarks of discrimination? Is the orthodox concept of prejudice in danger of side-tracking, if not obstructing, progress towards social justice in a fuller sense? What are the prospects for reconciling a prejudice reduction model of change, designed to get people to like one another more, with a collective action model of change, designed to ignite struggles to achieve intergroup equality?

Dynamics of Cosponsorship

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Kessler ◽  
Keith Krehbiel
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Politics ◽  
Signaling Games ◽  
Electoral Connection ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Bill Cosponsorship

Electoral-connection theories of legislative politics view bill cosponsorship as low-cost position taking by rational legislators who communicate with target audiences (e.g., constituents) external to the legislature. Legislative signaling games suggest a view of bill cosponsorship in which early cosponsors attempt to communicate to target audiences (e.g., the median voter) within the legislature. Using data from the 103rd U.S. House of Representatives, we show that the timing of legislators' cosponsorship decisions are more supportive of cosponsorship as intralegislative signaling than as extralegislative position taking. First, policy extremists on both sides of the political spectrum are more likely than moderates to be initial endorsers of legislative initiatives. Second, extremist-moderate differences diminish over the course of bill histories.

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