Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1735255
Katharina Natter, M. Czaika, H. Haas
ABSTRACT What drives the restrictiveness of immigration reforms? To what extent does the political ideology of parties in government and parliament matter? Drawing on immigration policy data offering unprecedented historical and geographical coverage, we analyse the drivers of immigration reforms in 21 Western immigration countries between 1970 and 2012. Our results show that there is no robust effect of the political ideology of governments and parliaments on the overall restrictiveness of immigration reforms. Partisan effects are limited to certain migration policy areas, primarily to integration policies, and to certain migrant groups, particularly asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. In contrast, political party ideology does not fundamentally shape decisions on the core of immigration regimes, such as entry policies or policies towards labour and family migrants. Our findings also showcase the importance of international policy diffusion and of trade-offs between reforms in different policy areas. Overall, the analysis highlights that although immigration is subject to heated debates in the public sphere and extensive political bargaining, the actual policies enacted seem primarily driven by factors such as economic growth, social welfare protection and the structure of political systems that are largely independent of the political ideology of parties in power.
{"title":"Political party ideology and immigration policy reform: an empirical enquiry","authors":"Katharina Natter, M. Czaika, H. Haas","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1735255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1735255","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT What drives the restrictiveness of immigration reforms? To what extent does the political ideology of parties in government and parliament matter? Drawing on immigration policy data offering unprecedented historical and geographical coverage, we analyse the drivers of immigration reforms in 21 Western immigration countries between 1970 and 2012. Our results show that there is no robust effect of the political ideology of governments and parliaments on the overall restrictiveness of immigration reforms. Partisan effects are limited to certain migration policy areas, primarily to integration policies, and to certain migrant groups, particularly asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. In contrast, political party ideology does not fundamentally shape decisions on the core of immigration regimes, such as entry policies or policies towards labour and family migrants. Our findings also showcase the importance of international policy diffusion and of trade-offs between reforms in different policy areas. Overall, the analysis highlights that although immigration is subject to heated debates in the public sphere and extensive political bargaining, the actual policies enacted seem primarily driven by factors such as economic growth, social welfare protection and the structure of political systems that are largely independent of the political ideology of parties in power.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1735255","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44475214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2019.1707697
Alessandro Nai, Emre Toros
ABSTRACT The personality of political leaders matters for their electoral success and performance once in office. Yet, we still know too little about the personality profiles of leaders worldwide. In this article, we focus on the profile of a particular type of leader, central to contemporary warnings about ‘democratic backsliding’: strongmen. Who are they? Much has been written about their behaviour and policies, but little attention has been granted to their personality profile. As we argue in this article, looking at their personality is a potentially important new avenue to understand the rise and success of strongmen worldwide. We compare the profile of 157 leaders having competed in 81 elections worldwide between June 2016 and July 2019 – including 14 leaders with autocratic tendencies (Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Orbán, Duterte, Netanyahu and several others). Using the ratings provided by 1800+ scholars we show that autocrats score significantly lower on agreeableness and emotional stability, and (marginally) higher on extraversion. Autocrats also score significantly higher than non-autocrats on the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism), even when compared to right-wing non-autocrats. These results have important implications for the study of democratic deconsolidation, authoritarianism, and the personality of elected officials.
{"title":"The peculiar personality of strongmen: comparing the Big Five and Dark Triad traits of autocrats and non-autocrats","authors":"Alessandro Nai, Emre Toros","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2019.1707697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2019.1707697","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The personality of political leaders matters for their electoral success and performance once in office. Yet, we still know too little about the personality profiles of leaders worldwide. In this article, we focus on the profile of a particular type of leader, central to contemporary warnings about ‘democratic backsliding’: strongmen. Who are they? Much has been written about their behaviour and policies, but little attention has been granted to their personality profile. As we argue in this article, looking at their personality is a potentially important new avenue to understand the rise and success of strongmen worldwide. We compare the profile of 157 leaders having competed in 81 elections worldwide between June 2016 and July 2019 – including 14 leaders with autocratic tendencies (Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Orbán, Duterte, Netanyahu and several others). Using the ratings provided by 1800+ scholars we show that autocrats score significantly lower on agreeableness and emotional stability, and (marginally) higher on extraversion. Autocrats also score significantly higher than non-autocrats on the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism), even when compared to right-wing non-autocrats. These results have important implications for the study of democratic deconsolidation, authoritarianism, and the personality of elected officials.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2019.1707697","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46524004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1716630
P. Gries, Andrew Fox, Yiming Jing, M. Mader, T. Scotto, Jason Reifler
ABSTRACT While the existence of a ‘Democratic Peace’ (DP) is widely accepted, the various DP theories that seek to explain why democracies rarely fight one another are highly contested. A ‘commercial/capitalist peace’ counterargument maintains that the relationship between democratic politics and peace is spurious: the actual driver is greater trade among democracies. Meanwhile, Realists counter that it is alliances among democratic states, not their democratic nature, that causes peace among them. This research note utilizes novel country feeling thermometer data to explore the debate’s micro-foundations: the underlying drivers of international amity and enmity among democratic citizens in the US, UK, France, and Germany. Utilizing Freedom House and other quantitative measures of freedom, trade, military strength, and racial and cultural difference, it pits the micro-foundations of the DP against its rivals to explain attitude formation among a group of Western democratic publics. Given the resurgence of authoritarianism around the world today, a better understanding of the role of regime type in shaping public opinion – and subsequently war and peace – is urgently needed.
{"title":"A new measure of the ‘democratic peace’: what country feeling thermometer data can teach us about the drivers of American and Western European foreign policy","authors":"P. Gries, Andrew Fox, Yiming Jing, M. Mader, T. Scotto, Jason Reifler","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1716630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1716630","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While the existence of a ‘Democratic Peace’ (DP) is widely accepted, the various DP theories that seek to explain why democracies rarely fight one another are highly contested. A ‘commercial/capitalist peace’ counterargument maintains that the relationship between democratic politics and peace is spurious: the actual driver is greater trade among democracies. Meanwhile, Realists counter that it is alliances among democratic states, not their democratic nature, that causes peace among them. This research note utilizes novel country feeling thermometer data to explore the debate’s micro-foundations: the underlying drivers of international amity and enmity among democratic citizens in the US, UK, France, and Germany. Utilizing Freedom House and other quantitative measures of freedom, trade, military strength, and racial and cultural difference, it pits the micro-foundations of the DP against its rivals to explain attitude formation among a group of Western democratic publics. Given the resurgence of authoritarianism around the world today, a better understanding of the role of regime type in shaping public opinion – and subsequently war and peace – is urgently needed.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1716630","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46405726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1753084
F. Bakker
ABSTRACT Democratic peace theory is built on the assumption that liberal-democracy has a pacifying effect on people, a socialization process that is assumed to lack within autocracies. This paper uses an experimental approach to investigate the microfoundations of democratic peace theory among decision-makers of the US, Russia and China. It builds on and extents previous experimental studies by conceptualizing and measuring the presence and influence of liberal norms, by controlling for the perception of threat as induced by the conflict, and by testing the influence of hawkishness. The results show that the microfoundations of democratic peace theories do not find support. Neither regime-type, nor liberal norms are of influence on the willingness to attack the opponent, and also the assumed difference in liberal norms between individuals of different regime types is unsupported. Moreover, hawkish decision-makers are more likely to go to war. The results show that democratic peace theory, which aims to explain why democracies do not fight with each other, cannot be used as has been done till today and should be revised. The paper concludes with suggestions for new research avenues.
{"title":"The microfoundations of normative democratic peace theory. Experiments in the US, Russia and China","authors":"F. Bakker","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1753084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1753084","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Democratic peace theory is built on the assumption that liberal-democracy has a pacifying effect on people, a socialization process that is assumed to lack within autocracies. This paper uses an experimental approach to investigate the microfoundations of democratic peace theory among decision-makers of the US, Russia and China. It builds on and extents previous experimental studies by conceptualizing and measuring the presence and influence of liberal norms, by controlling for the perception of threat as induced by the conflict, and by testing the influence of hawkishness. The results show that the microfoundations of democratic peace theories do not find support. Neither regime-type, nor liberal norms are of influence on the willingness to attack the opponent, and also the assumed difference in liberal norms between individuals of different regime types is unsupported. Moreover, hawkish decision-makers are more likely to go to war. The results show that democratic peace theory, which aims to explain why democracies do not fight with each other, cannot be used as has been done till today and should be revised. The paper concludes with suggestions for new research avenues.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1753084","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45409682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1770103
P. Rosa, S. Benati, Paolo Foradori, G. Longoni
ABSTRACT This article carries out a quantitative analysis of the military behaviour of Italy from 1946 to 2010 using neoclassical realism as the theoretical framework. By overcoming the limits of traditional explanations of Italian security and defence policies, neoclassical realism provides new insight into Italy’s involvement in militarized interstate disputes by taking into account both systemic and domestic variables. The method used is a combination of dyad analysis introduced by Stuart Bremer in 1992 and the analysis of unit-level variables, which is distinctive of neoclassical realism. An analytical model is developed, and bivariate and multivariate analyses are performed to explain the impact of the variables. By empirically testing a set of hypotheses, the study argues that Italian military behaviour is a function of the country’s relative power as well as the levels of elite instability and regime vulnerability, the extraction capacity of the state, and the degree of elite consensus. The study contributes to the existing scientific debate on the determinants of Italian international behaviour and to the literature on neoclassical realism by demonstrating that its main propositions apply to a case of middle power and that these propositions can be tested on a large scale through quantitative approaches.
{"title":"Neoclassical realism and Italy’s military behaviour, 1946–2010: a combined dyad/nation analysis","authors":"P. Rosa, S. Benati, Paolo Foradori, G. Longoni","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1770103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1770103","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article carries out a quantitative analysis of the military behaviour of Italy from 1946 to 2010 using neoclassical realism as the theoretical framework. By overcoming the limits of traditional explanations of Italian security and defence policies, neoclassical realism provides new insight into Italy’s involvement in militarized interstate disputes by taking into account both systemic and domestic variables. The method used is a combination of dyad analysis introduced by Stuart Bremer in 1992 and the analysis of unit-level variables, which is distinctive of neoclassical realism. An analytical model is developed, and bivariate and multivariate analyses are performed to explain the impact of the variables. By empirically testing a set of hypotheses, the study argues that Italian military behaviour is a function of the country’s relative power as well as the levels of elite instability and regime vulnerability, the extraction capacity of the state, and the degree of elite consensus. The study contributes to the existing scientific debate on the determinants of Italian international behaviour and to the literature on neoclassical realism by demonstrating that its main propositions apply to a case of middle power and that these propositions can be tested on a large scale through quantitative approaches.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1770103","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45618545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1765693
Kai Arzheimer
ABSTRACT Germany has lifted its total ban on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD, a form of genetic testing), but the new rules are still much stricter than those in other European countries. Results from a large-scale survey experiment show that the general population holds more permissive views on this bio-ethical question than lawmakers. In a country seen as a paradigm for the ‘religious world’ of morality politics, many citizens even support further liberalization along the lines of legislation in Belgium and the UK. Induced reflection on the arguments raised in parliament does not change this: arguments in favour of PGD are widely accepted by respondents, whereas many citizens reject the arguments against PGD. Citzens’ and MPs’ respective evaluations are affected strongly by religiosity, whose levels in the population are much lower than in parliament. Widespread secular views are not adequately represented in politics. This does not only concern the regulation of PGD but also other current and future bioethical issues. It is unlikely that this tension can be resolved through electoral politics. These findings have important ramifications not just for practical morality politics in Germany and other ‘religious world’ countries but also for the two worlds framework itself.
{"title":"Secular citizens, pious MPs: why German attitudes about genetic testing are much more permissive than German laws","authors":"Kai Arzheimer","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1765693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1765693","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Germany has lifted its total ban on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD, a form of genetic testing), but the new rules are still much stricter than those in other European countries. Results from a large-scale survey experiment show that the general population holds more permissive views on this bio-ethical question than lawmakers. In a country seen as a paradigm for the ‘religious world’ of morality politics, many citizens even support further liberalization along the lines of legislation in Belgium and the UK. Induced reflection on the arguments raised in parliament does not change this: arguments in favour of PGD are widely accepted by respondents, whereas many citizens reject the arguments against PGD. Citzens’ and MPs’ respective evaluations are affected strongly by religiosity, whose levels in the population are much lower than in parliament. Widespread secular views are not adequately represented in politics. This does not only concern the regulation of PGD but also other current and future bioethical issues. It is unlikely that this tension can be resolved through electoral politics. These findings have important ramifications not just for practical morality politics in Germany and other ‘religious world’ countries but also for the two worlds framework itself.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1765693","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49326775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1781543
S. J. Turnbull-Dugarte, José Rama, Andrés G Santana
ABSTRACT The electoral success of the new populist radical right-wing party, VOX, which achieved an unprecedent electoral result in the Spanish general elections of April 2019, brought an end to Spain's exceptional status as a country free of the radical right. This article asks: who votes for VOX? Empirically, we present the first assessment of electoral support for VOX at the national level. Relying on national post-electoral survey data, our results show that the electoral profile of VOX's supporters differs from that of populist radical right-wing parties from the rest of Europe. Support for VOX, much like the voters of their European contemporaries, tends to be markedly higher amongst males; economic status, however, has the reverse effect than that observed elsewhere on the continent, with individuals on the higher end of the income distribution more likely to have voted for VOX in the April 2019 general elections. Importantly, we establish that national identity plays a large role in explaining support for the new radical right-wing challenger and that the effect of identity is conditioned by negative evaluations of the political situation in Spain.
{"title":"The Baskerville's dog suddenly started barking: voting for VOX in the 2019 Spanish general elections","authors":"S. J. Turnbull-Dugarte, José Rama, Andrés G Santana","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1781543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1781543","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The electoral success of the new populist radical right-wing party, VOX, which achieved an unprecedent electoral result in the Spanish general elections of April 2019, brought an end to Spain's exceptional status as a country free of the radical right. This article asks: who votes for VOX? Empirically, we present the first assessment of electoral support for VOX at the national level. Relying on national post-electoral survey data, our results show that the electoral profile of VOX's supporters differs from that of populist radical right-wing parties from the rest of Europe. Support for VOX, much like the voters of their European contemporaries, tends to be markedly higher amongst males; economic status, however, has the reverse effect than that observed elsewhere on the continent, with individuals on the higher end of the income distribution more likely to have voted for VOX in the April 2019 general elections. Importantly, we establish that national identity plays a large role in explaining support for the new radical right-wing challenger and that the effect of identity is conditioned by negative evaluations of the political situation in Spain.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1781543","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47198677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1738898
Igor Tkalec
ABSTRACT This paper depicts the relationship between the EU and pensions by demonstrating the EU’s indirect pressure on pensions – spill-over from the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) – reflected through economic and fiscal policy coordination mechanism. Concretely, the paper examines how compliance with the fiscal and economic policy guidelines deriving from the European Semester shape prospects for pension adequacy in the euro area countries. Pension adequacy is understood as the ratio of available income in retirement relative to available income during employment. The results point to three empirically relevant economic-fiscal policy models/configurations under which adequate pensions are observed. The models are not universally based on compliance with the policy guidelines under the Semester and they differ in terms of the type of policy which is potentially conducive for adequate pensions. Diversity of the models thus implies that compliance with the guidelines works for some euro area countries whilst for others it does not. Consequently, the shaping prospects or the safeguarding capacity of the Semester’s policy guidelines in terms of adequate pensions are modest. The main method used in the paper is fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).
{"title":"Shaping the prospects for adequate pensions: the effect of policy guidelines under the European Semester","authors":"Igor Tkalec","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1738898","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1738898","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper depicts the relationship between the EU and pensions by demonstrating the EU’s indirect pressure on pensions – spill-over from the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) – reflected through economic and fiscal policy coordination mechanism. Concretely, the paper examines how compliance with the fiscal and economic policy guidelines deriving from the European Semester shape prospects for pension adequacy in the euro area countries. Pension adequacy is understood as the ratio of available income in retirement relative to available income during employment. The results point to three empirically relevant economic-fiscal policy models/configurations under which adequate pensions are observed. The models are not universally based on compliance with the policy guidelines under the Semester and they differ in terms of the type of policy which is potentially conducive for adequate pensions. Diversity of the models thus implies that compliance with the guidelines works for some euro area countries whilst for others it does not. Consequently, the shaping prospects or the safeguarding capacity of the Semester’s policy guidelines in terms of adequate pensions are modest. The main method used in the paper is fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1738898","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46684916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736x.2020.1788955
Christoph Hönnige, Dominic Nyhuis, Philip N. Meyer, P. Köker, Susumu Shikano
ABSTRACT Brexit has been the most important issue in British politics in recent years. Whereas extra-parliamentary actors dominated the run-up to the 2016 referendum, the issue moved back to Parliament after the vote. This paper analyses newspaper reporting on Brexit in major British outlets during the post-referendum phase from July 2017 to March 2019. We study the visibility of Members of Parliament to assess whether the debate was balanced between parties and individual MPs relative to their vote and seat share. We conduct an automated text analysis of 58,247 online and offline newspaper articles covering the ideological spectrum from left to right, and from pro-Brexit to anti-Brexit. Our main findings are: (1) Conservative politicians dominated the debate, and (2) organized pro-Brexit MP pressure groups such as ‘Leave Means Leave’ were disproportionally more visible. This means that reporting was biased towards Conservative MPs and within the Conservative Party towards supporters of a hard Brexit. These findings are remarkably stable across different types of newspapers. The results challenge previous analyses that found a higher degree of balance in reporting but corroborate recent studies on the tonality of Brexit reporting that found a pro-Brexit bias.
{"title":"Dominating the debate: visibility bias and mentions of British MPs in newspaper reporting on Brexit","authors":"Christoph Hönnige, Dominic Nyhuis, Philip N. Meyer, P. Köker, Susumu Shikano","doi":"10.1080/2474736x.2020.1788955","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1788955","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Brexit has been the most important issue in British politics in recent years. Whereas extra-parliamentary actors dominated the run-up to the 2016 referendum, the issue moved back to Parliament after the vote. This paper analyses newspaper reporting on Brexit in major British outlets during the post-referendum phase from July 2017 to March 2019. We study the visibility of Members of Parliament to assess whether the debate was balanced between parties and individual MPs relative to their vote and seat share. We conduct an automated text analysis of 58,247 online and offline newspaper articles covering the ideological spectrum from left to right, and from pro-Brexit to anti-Brexit. Our main findings are: (1) Conservative politicians dominated the debate, and (2) organized pro-Brexit MP pressure groups such as ‘Leave Means Leave’ were disproportionally more visible. This means that reporting was biased towards Conservative MPs and within the Conservative Party towards supporters of a hard Brexit. These findings are remarkably stable across different types of newspapers. The results challenge previous analyses that found a higher degree of balance in reporting but corroborate recent studies on the tonality of Brexit reporting that found a pro-Brexit bias.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736x.2020.1788955","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42919464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-01DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2019.1646102
Carsten Schwemmer, Sebastian Jungkunz
ABSTRACT We investigate the representation of women and ethnic groups in TED talks, which reach a large online audience on YouTube with science-related content and topics on societal change. We argue that gaps in representation can create a misleading perception of science and the respective topics discussed in these talks. We validate annotations from an image recognition algorithm for identifying speaker ethnicity and gender to compile a data set of 2333 TED talks and 1.2 million YouTube comments. Findings show that more than half of all talks were given by white male speakers. While the share of women increased over time, it is constantly low for non-white speakers. Topic modelling further shows that the share of talks addressing inequalities which affect both groups is low, but increasing over time. However, talks about inequalities and those given by female speakers receive substantially more negative sentiment on YouTube than others. Our findings highlight the importance of speaker and topic diversity on digital platforms to reduce stereotypes about scientists and science-related content.
{"title":"Whose ideas are worth spreading? The representation of women and ethnic groups in TED talks","authors":"Carsten Schwemmer, Sebastian Jungkunz","doi":"10.1080/2474736X.2019.1646102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1646102","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We investigate the representation of women and ethnic groups in TED talks, which reach a large online audience on YouTube with science-related content and topics on societal change. We argue that gaps in representation can create a misleading perception of science and the respective topics discussed in these talks. We validate annotations from an image recognition algorithm for identifying speaker ethnicity and gender to compile a data set of 2333 TED talks and 1.2 million YouTube comments. Findings show that more than half of all talks were given by white male speakers. While the share of women increased over time, it is constantly low for non-white speakers. Topic modelling further shows that the share of talks addressing inequalities which affect both groups is low, but increasing over time. However, talks about inequalities and those given by female speakers receive substantially more negative sentiment on YouTube than others. Our findings highlight the importance of speaker and topic diversity on digital platforms to reduce stereotypes about scientists and science-related content.","PeriodicalId":20269,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Exchange","volume":"1 1","pages":"1 - 23"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/2474736X.2019.1646102","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45638477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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