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

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.

A Review of the Research on Mongolia’s Perception of China

Mutual perception is an important indicator of the degree of closeness between countries, and it can more intuitively reflect the degree of mutual favorability between the two peoples and the perception of each other's national image. Mongolia's perception of China is an important fundamental aspect in the bilateral relations. This article reviews and examines the current research status of the given topic in academic circles. In general, (1) The public opinion surveys of some research institutes on Mongolia’s perception of China are relatively objective and neutral, so their survey results have higher reference value and application value. (2) Regarding the specific studies of Mongolia’s perception of China, some studies are relatively neutral, objective and of keen insights, and some are difficult to divorce from the perspective of the ‘self’ or the western interpretation mode, often presuppose their positions and tend to place too much emphasis on historical and cultural factors. Mongolia's perception of China is the result of the interaction of various factors mainly including history, emotion/psychology, realistic issues, and external factor. Хятадын талаарх монголчуудын ойлголтын тухай судалгааны тойм Хураангуй: Монголчуудын Хятадын талаарх ойлголтын тухай асуудал бол хоёр улсын харилцааны чухал сэдвийн нэг байдаг. Энэхүү өгүүлэл нь академик судалгааны хүрээнд уг сэдвийн судалгааны өнөөгийн байдлыг ангилан дүгнэж харуулах юм. Ерөнхийдөө: (1) судалгааны байгууллагуудын монголчуудын Хятадыг танин мэдэх ойлголттой холбоотой тоо баримт санал асуулга харьцангуй бодитой, тийм учраас судалгааны үр дүн хэрэглээний ач холбогдол өндөр гэж үзэж болно. (2) Хятадын талаарх монголчуудын ойлголтын тухай нарийвчилсан судалгаанаас харахад, зарим судалгаа харьцангуй бодитой төвийг сахисан, гүнзгийрүүлж судалсан байдаг ч зарим судалгаа нь нэг талыг барьсан, соёл хоорондын мөргөлдөөний онолоор тайлбарлаж, анхнаасаа байр суурь дүгнэлт нь тодорхой, хэт түүх соёлын хүчин зүйлийг дөвийлгөсөн шинжтэй байдаг. Монголчуудын Хятадыг танин мэдэх ойлголт нь түүх, сэтгэл зүй, бодит нөхцөл байдал, гадаад хүчин зүйлс зэргийн харилцан үйлчлэлийн үр дүнд бүрэлдсэн юм. Түлхүүр үгс: Монгол, Хятадыг танин мэдэх ойлголт, судалгаа, онцлог

Organisational and economic aspects of the archives digitalisation of the State Film Fund of the Russian Federation

The object of the study is the State Film Fund of the Russian Federation; the subject is the project for the global digitisation of the State Film Fund’s film archives, launched at the end of 2018 and currently underway. The aim of the study is to analyse the State Film Fund’s digitisation project and to identify possible problems that may arise during its implementation. Research objectives are staff shortages problem analysis and the project’s socio-cultural and economic efficiency analysis. The study used the following methods: historical and genetic analysis, descriptive analysis of literature and media materials, qualitative content analysis of documents, reports and other materials, comparative analysis, secondary analysis of public opinion surveys and statistical data. The developed project of an educational portal can be practically implemented on the basis of the State Film Fund.

Religious Peace building, the Problems, and Potentials Now and in the Foreseeable Federal Republic of Nepal

Introduction: There is debate whether most Nepali people still want Nepal to be a Hindu state. A significant number of opinions wish to see the country as secular, where people are respected with dignity without any discrimination where people can profess, practice, and protect their religions, whichever religion it may be. Methods: This paper is based on public opinion surveys through interviews and discussions with100 individuals, including key informant interviews with 25 religious leaders from different religions conducted between September 20019 and February 2020 and secondary data from various literature reviews. Results: The paper's finding reveals that the public's preference toward the Hindu state is not accepted in all sub-national levels; a secular state preference is evident in some of the sub-national levels, which cannot be undervalued. The mindsets of most of the elder populations interviewed still want Nepal to be the only Hindu state in the world, whereas the active young-age (youth) population is more inclusive and is happy with the secular nation. Conclusion: Understanding and implementing inclusive secular policies and practicing the preexistence principles of religious freedom by the political parties and incorporating the same in all government, semi-government and private sectors will ensure a secular and peaceful Nepal. Government authorities and other bureaucrats becoming more sensitive towards religious issues will create space for promoting peace.

Can we trust measures of trust? a comparison of results from open and closed questions

Many public opinion surveys compare trust in a number of different information and (mediated) knowledge sources, typically using closed questions with a set of answer categories that are imposed by researchers. We aim to validate these categories by quantitatively comparing survey responses about trustworthy sources using open and closed questions, and by qualitatively analyzing the open answers. The results show that answer options typically used for closed questions in academic research are generally valid and closely match categories that respondents come up with unprimed. In some cases, answers to open questions can be non-exhaustive, particularly when sources are considered trustworthy but are not salient for respondents. Open questions, however, may still be useful for exploratory research or more detailed investigations of media diets on the outlet-level. Qualitative approaches to open questions can also give more insight into motivations for distrust, e.g. perceptions of inconsistency or a fundamental rejection of the shared factual basis of an issue. In addition, our results indicate that respondents’ interpretation of answer categories may change reported levels of trust: those that think of more specific outlets tend to report higher general media trust. This study provides new insights into how question design, and particularly the choice of answer options, may influence reported levels and sources of trust, and how qualitative and quantitative approaches to trust measurement can be combined.

Are Populists Sore Losers? Explaining Populist Citizens' Preferences for and Reactions to Referendums

Can referendums help increase perceived legitimacy among citizens with populist attitudes? Indeed, public opinion surveys show that populist citizens are especially in favour of referendums. However, we do not know whether this support reflects a principled desire for different decision-making procedures or an instrumental one (that is, because they expect referendums to yield favourable outcomes). We study this question on a real-life case: the Dutch 2018 referendum on the Intelligence and Security Services Act 2017. Using high-quality survey data from both before and after the referendum, we find that, counter to conventional wisdom and our hypotheses, populists' support for referendums is less driven by instrumental motives compared to that of non-populists, and that populists are more likely than non-populists to accept the outcome of a referendum, even when this outcome is unfavourable.

The Correlates of Support for Compulsory Voting

Chapter 4 empirically probes the relationship between attitudes toward democracy and support for compulsory voting. In doing so, it makes use of a range of public opinion surveys which ask questions about attitudes toward compulsory voting. Results demonstrate variation in the average level of support for compulsory voting across countries. They are also indicative of a systematic, negative effect of dissatisfaction with democracy, which is used to capture orientations toward democracy, on support for compulsory voting. This effect can be discerned even with controls for political interest, ideology, and a slate of demographic variables. This supports the uncomplicated but foundational expectation of the theory in Chapter 3: that those who are democratically disenchanted are also unsupportive of mandatory voting.

Current surveys may underestimate climate change skepticism evidence from list experiments in Germany and the USA

Strong public support is a prerequisite for ambitious and thus costly climate change mitigation policy, and strong public concern over climate change is a prerequisite for policy support. Why, then, do most public opinion surveys indicate rather high levels of concern and rather strong policy support, while de facto mitigation efforts in most countries remain far from ambitious? One possibility is that survey measures for public concern fail to fully reveal the true attitudes of citizens due to social desirability bias. In this paper, we implemented list-experiments in representative surveys in Germany and the United States (N = 3620 and 3640 respectively) to assess such potential bias. We find evidence that people systematically misreport, that is, understate their disbelief in human caused climate change. This misreporting is particularly strong amongst politically relevant subgroups. Individuals in the top 20% of the income distribution in the United States and supporters of conservative parties in Germany exhibit significantly higher climate change skepticism according to the list experiment, relative to conventional measures. While this does not definitively mean that climate skepticism is a widespread phenomenon in these countries, it does suggest that future research should reconsider how climate change concern is measured, and what subgroups of the population are more susceptible to misreporting and why. Our findings imply that public support for ambitious climate policy may be weaker than existing survey research suggests.

Świadomość ekologiczna społeczeństwa polskiego w zakresie zasobów naturalnych i ich ochrony (przegląd badań)

<p>The article comprises an analysis of public opinion surveys concerning the environmental awareness in Polish society concerning natural resources and their protection, which issue has not been presented to date comprehensively in the literature on the subject. To this end, i.e. to present the degree of this awareness, the results of opinion surveys on the following topics have been presented and analysed: environmental protection as a social problem and the sources of knowledge on this subject, climate change, natural resources as sources of energy, attitude to the nuclear power plant construction, and air quality. The study has been based on representative surveys carried out by public opinion polling centres. The above-mentioned analysis has been preceded by terminological findings on such terms as “environmental security”, “natural resources”, “environmental awareness” and “public opinion”, with a proposal for a new definition of environmental awareness, referring to elements of legal awareness. It has been assumed that the knowledge of the degree of public awareness is useful in designing legal solutions conducive to environmentally sound behaviour and in taking decisions on a gradual increase in the extent to which public participation in natural resource management is allowed. The research hypothesis that awareness of natural resources among the Polish population is not optimal but is gradually increasing was confirmed. It has been pointed out that legal measures to promote environmental measures need to be complemented and strengthened by instructional and educational measures.</p>

A Comparison of the Level of Acceptance and Hesitancy towards the Influenza Vaccine and the Forthcoming COVID-19 Vaccine in the Medical Community

Despite research conducted worldwide, there is no treatment specifically targeting SARS-CoV-2 infection with efficacy proven by randomized controlled trials. A chance for a breakthrough is vaccinating most of the global population. Public opinion surveys on vaccine hesitancy prompted our team to investigate Polish healthcare workers’ (HCWs) attitudes towards the SARS-CoV-2 and influenza vaccinations. In-person and online surveys of HCWs: doctors, nurses, medical students, and other allied health professionals (n = 419) were conducted between 14 September 2020 and 5 November 2020. In our study, 68.7% of respondents would like to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations would persuade 86.3% of hesitant and those who would refuse to be vaccinated. 3.1% of all respondents claimed that no argument would convince them to get vaccinated. 61.6% of respondents declared a willingness to receive an influenza vaccination, of which 83.3% were also inclined to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. Although most respondents—62.5% (262/419) indicated they trusted in the influenza vaccine more, more respondents intended to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the 2020/2021 season. The study is limited by its nonrandom sample of HCWs but provides a preliminary description of attitudes towards SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.