What is the relationship between the electoral success of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) and public attitudes toward immigration? Previous research suggests that PRRP success can lead to more negative attitudes due to the breaking down of antiprejudice norms and more prominent anti-immigration party cues. However, we argue that greater PRRP success could have a positive relationship with immigration attitudes, reflecting negative partisanship, polarization, and a desire to reemphasize antiprejudice norms, which we call a “reverse backlash effect.” Using the best available electoral and public opinion data across the last thirty years in twenty-four European countries, our TSCS analyses show the predominance of such “reverse backlash effects” across several operationalizations of PRRP success. Our argument has important consequences for the understanding of possible PRRP effects on public opinion, as well as attitudinal formation via party cueing and social norms more generally.
{"title":"The Reverse Backlash: How the Success of Populist Radical Right Parties Relates to More Positive Immigration Attitudes","authors":"James Dennison, Alexander Kustov","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad052","url":null,"abstract":"What is the relationship between the electoral success of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) and public attitudes toward immigration? Previous research suggests that PRRP success can lead to more negative attitudes due to the breaking down of antiprejudice norms and more prominent anti-immigration party cues. However, we argue that greater PRRP success could have a positive relationship with immigration attitudes, reflecting negative partisanship, polarization, and a desire to reemphasize antiprejudice norms, which we call a “reverse backlash effect.” Using the best available electoral and public opinion data across the last thirty years in twenty-four European countries, our TSCS analyses show the predominance of such “reverse backlash effects” across several operationalizations of PRRP success. Our argument has important consequences for the understanding of possible PRRP effects on public opinion, as well as attitudinal formation via party cueing and social norms more generally.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138580642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Authoritarian regimes regularly turn to the law to justify repression. This article examines whether invoking legal institutions has a persuasive effect on public perceptions of repression, and whether that effect is shaped by partisanship. The article uses the case of Cameroon’s Special Criminal Tribunal, created in 2011 to prosecute high-profile corruption cases. A survey experiment was designed that describes the arrest and trial of a suspected corrupt oppositional minister and reminds a treatment group about the Special Criminal Tribunal. The results show that neither regime nor opposition partisans are swayed by legal justifications for repression. By contrast, nonpartisans respond negatively to autocratic legalism, particularly those with low levels of regime trust. The article clarifies when autocratic legalism might be used for public legitimation, suggests that partisanship is a useful lens for understanding public opinion in an autocracy, and elaborates upon the meaning of nonpartisanship in electoral authoritarian regimes.
{"title":"Autocratic Legalism, Partisanship, and Popular Legitimation in Authoritarian Cameroon","authors":"Natalie Wenzell Letsa, Yonatan L Morse","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad051","url":null,"abstract":"Authoritarian regimes regularly turn to the law to justify repression. This article examines whether invoking legal institutions has a persuasive effect on public perceptions of repression, and whether that effect is shaped by partisanship. The article uses the case of Cameroon’s Special Criminal Tribunal, created in 2011 to prosecute high-profile corruption cases. A survey experiment was designed that describes the arrest and trial of a suspected corrupt oppositional minister and reminds a treatment group about the Special Criminal Tribunal. The results show that neither regime nor opposition partisans are swayed by legal justifications for repression. By contrast, nonpartisans respond negatively to autocratic legalism, particularly those with low levels of regime trust. The article clarifies when autocratic legalism might be used for public legitimation, suggests that partisanship is a useful lens for understanding public opinion in an autocracy, and elaborates upon the meaning of nonpartisanship in electoral authoritarian regimes.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138580593","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines how an Asian candidate’s national origin background affects their perceived ability to represent different constituents. Would Asian voters prefer any Asian candidate over someone who is non-Asian? Using a series of survey experiments that randomly emphasize the national origin backgrounds of two real politicians and a hypothetical politician, I find that politicians who are East or Southeast Asian are viewed as more representative of Asian American interests than those who are South Asian. Nonetheless, respondents agree that Asian politicians, regardless of national origin, will represent Asian Americans more than a non-Asian politician. While national origin background matters, there is still potential for an electoral advantage based on shared Asian panethnicity. These results contribute to our understanding of the salience of panethnic identities in electoral contexts.
{"title":"National Origin Identity and Descriptive Representativeness: Understanding Preferences for Asian Candidates and Representation","authors":"Jennifer D Wu","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad054","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines how an Asian candidate’s national origin background affects their perceived ability to represent different constituents. Would Asian voters prefer any Asian candidate over someone who is non-Asian? Using a series of survey experiments that randomly emphasize the national origin backgrounds of two real politicians and a hypothetical politician, I find that politicians who are East or Southeast Asian are viewed as more representative of Asian American interests than those who are South Asian. Nonetheless, respondents agree that Asian politicians, regardless of national origin, will represent Asian Americans more than a non-Asian politician. While national origin background matters, there is still potential for an electoral advantage based on shared Asian panethnicity. These results contribute to our understanding of the salience of panethnic identities in electoral contexts.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138580646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Highlighting the local impacts of climate change has the potential to increase the public’s awareness of and engagement with climate change. However, information about local impacts is only effective when delivered by trusted sources such as copartisan political leaders. Is information about climate change conveyed by local media sources similarly beneficial? We argue that local media are well positioned to communicate the local implications of climate change, thereby enhancing the public’s risk perceptions of climate change and willingness to take climate action. We further hypothesize that climate coverage by local media, the media type that is more trusted across party lines, will have a significant influence on Republicans’ climate attitudes. Using the case of Louisiana, we first demonstrate that local and national newspapers cover climate change in substantially different ways, with local media more consistently focused on local impacts. Our survey experiment of Louisiana residents reveals that Republicans viewed the coverage of a hurricane in the region more positively when it came from a local newspaper rather than a national newspaper. Furthermore, local newspapers’ climate coverage increased Republicans’ willingness to take action to mitigate climate change. These results provide insights into the effective communication of climate change to the public and the role of local media in mitigating partisan polarization.
{"title":"News from Home: How Local Media Shapes Climate Change Attitudes","authors":"Talbot M Andrews, Cana Kim, Jeong Hyun Kim","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad049","url":null,"abstract":"Highlighting the local impacts of climate change has the potential to increase the public’s awareness of and engagement with climate change. However, information about local impacts is only effective when delivered by trusted sources such as copartisan political leaders. Is information about climate change conveyed by local media sources similarly beneficial? We argue that local media are well positioned to communicate the local implications of climate change, thereby enhancing the public’s risk perceptions of climate change and willingness to take climate action. We further hypothesize that climate coverage by local media, the media type that is more trusted across party lines, will have a significant influence on Republicans’ climate attitudes. Using the case of Louisiana, we first demonstrate that local and national newspapers cover climate change in substantially different ways, with local media more consistently focused on local impacts. Our survey experiment of Louisiana residents reveals that Republicans viewed the coverage of a hurricane in the region more positively when it came from a local newspaper rather than a national newspaper. Furthermore, local newspapers’ climate coverage increased Republicans’ willingness to take action to mitigate climate change. These results provide insights into the effective communication of climate change to the public and the role of local media in mitigating partisan polarization.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138493657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peter Selb, Sina Chen, John Körtner, Philipp Bosch
Recent polling failures highlight that election polls are prone to biases that the margin of error customarily reported with polls does not capture. However, such systematic errors are difficult to assess against the background noise of sampling variance. Shirani-Mehr et al. (2018) developed a hierarchical Bayesian model to disentangle random and systematic errors in poll estimates of two-party vote shares at the election level. The method can inform realistic assessments of poll accuracy. We adapt the model to multiparty elections and improve its temporal flexibility. We then estimate bias and variance in 5,240 German national election polls, 1994–2021. Our analysis suggests that the average absolute election-day bias per party was about 1.5 percentage points, ranging from 0.9 for the Greens to 3.2 for the Christian Democrats. The estimated variance is, on average, about twice as large as that implied by usual margins of error. We find little evidence of house or mode effects. Common biases indicate industry effects due to similar methodological problems. The Supplementary Material provides additional results for 1,751 regional election polls.
{"title":"Bias and Variance in Multiparty Election Polls","authors":"Peter Selb, Sina Chen, John Körtner, Philipp Bosch","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad046","url":null,"abstract":"Recent polling failures highlight that election polls are prone to biases that the margin of error customarily reported with polls does not capture. However, such systematic errors are difficult to assess against the background noise of sampling variance. Shirani-Mehr et al. (2018) developed a hierarchical Bayesian model to disentangle random and systematic errors in poll estimates of two-party vote shares at the election level. The method can inform realistic assessments of poll accuracy. We adapt the model to multiparty elections and improve its temporal flexibility. We then estimate bias and variance in 5,240 German national election polls, 1994–2021. Our analysis suggests that the average absolute election-day bias per party was about 1.5 percentage points, ranging from 0.9 for the Greens to 3.2 for the Christian Democrats. The estimated variance is, on average, about twice as large as that implied by usual margins of error. We find little evidence of house or mode effects. Common biases indicate industry effects due to similar methodological problems. The Supplementary Material provides additional results for 1,751 regional election polls.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2023-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138504590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Opposition to LGBT rights remains a contemporary fixture within the United States in spite of increasingly liberalizing attitudes toward LGBT individuals. In this paper, I argue that a potentially overlooked factor driving this opposition is rural identity—or an individual’s psychological attachment to a rural area. Using data from the 2020 ANES, I find that rural identity predicts less favorable estimations of LGBT individuals. Rural identifiers are also less likely to support pro-LGBT policy measures than nonrural identifiers. Nevertheless, I find the magnitude of the effects of rural identity on anti-LGBT views to be surprisingly small. It is also the case that, on average, rural identifiers exhibit net-positive estimations of LGBT individuals and are broadly supportive of LGBT rights, suggesting that elected officials enacting anti-LGBT legislation in rural areas of the United States are potentially out of step with the preferences of their electorate. These findings also have implications for what it means to hold a rural identity beyond a generalized animosity toward urban areas, and for understanding urban-rural divergences in US public opinion on issues such as LGBT rights.
{"title":"Rural Identity and LGBT Public Opinion in the United States","authors":"Jack Thompson","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad045","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Opposition to LGBT rights remains a contemporary fixture within the United States in spite of increasingly liberalizing attitudes toward LGBT individuals. In this paper, I argue that a potentially overlooked factor driving this opposition is rural identity—or an individual’s psychological attachment to a rural area. Using data from the 2020 ANES, I find that rural identity predicts less favorable estimations of LGBT individuals. Rural identifiers are also less likely to support pro-LGBT policy measures than nonrural identifiers. Nevertheless, I find the magnitude of the effects of rural identity on anti-LGBT views to be surprisingly small. It is also the case that, on average, rural identifiers exhibit net-positive estimations of LGBT individuals and are broadly supportive of LGBT rights, suggesting that elected officials enacting anti-LGBT legislation in rural areas of the United States are potentially out of step with the preferences of their electorate. These findings also have implications for what it means to hold a rural identity beyond a generalized animosity toward urban areas, and for understanding urban-rural divergences in US public opinion on issues such as LGBT rights.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135874707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reclaiming the Narrative and Charting Our Course through the New Normal of Public Opinion Research","authors":"Paul C Beatty","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad044","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135976283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Tichelbaecker, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, James Adams
Abstract Measures of affective polarization—that is, dislike and hostility across party lines—have been developed and validated in the context of America’s two-party system. Yet increasingly, affective polarization is examined comparatively. We address this issue by introducing a novel dataset that measures aspects of partisan affect in 10 countries with diverse party systems. We detect associations between partisan affect toward out-parties versus affect toward out-parties’ supporters, but their strength varies across countries. We discuss measurement reasons for this variation and consider the implications of our findings for the emerging comparative affective polarization literature.
{"title":"What Do We Measure When We Measure Affective Polarization across Countries?","authors":"Thomas Tichelbaecker, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, James Adams","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad033","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Measures of affective polarization—that is, dislike and hostility across party lines—have been developed and validated in the context of America’s two-party system. Yet increasingly, affective polarization is examined comparatively. We address this issue by introducing a novel dataset that measures aspects of partisan affect in 10 countries with diverse party systems. We detect associations between partisan affect toward out-parties versus affect toward out-parties’ supporters, but their strength varies across countries. We discuss measurement reasons for this variation and consider the implications of our findings for the emerging comparative affective polarization literature.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135060240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Individuals seeking news content face a variety of options in the current media landscape, yet scholarly research provides little evidence regarding the conditions under which they might become more or less open to different partisan news outlets. Drawing on the case of Donald Trump’s critiques of Fox News, I argue that elite rhetoric plays an important role in this process for members of both parties. I first conduct an original content analysis of Trump’s tweets from 2017 to 2020 and find that he increasingly attacked Fox News on this platform. Notably, Trump’s increasingly critical rhetoric about Fox correlates significantly with decreases in both Fox’s daytime and prime-time ratings. Two survey experiments shed light on how individuals respond to this intraparty conflict, and I find that Trump’s rhetoric affects both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans view Fox as less conservative and more critical of Trump when exposed to his critiques of the outlet. However, Republicans do not change their viewing habits until Trump promotes an alternative to Fox like OANN. Democrats respond to Trump’s rhetoric by updating their perceptions of Fox’s coverage and ideology as well as increasing their willingness to watch the channel, both in isolation and relative to an alternative like OANN. The results suggest that elite rhetoric is instrumental in shaping views of and demand for partisan outlets among members of both parties and can elevate more ideologically extreme sources among followers. Thus, elite rhetoric serves as a meaningful cue for individuals navigating an increasingly fragmented partisan media landscape.
{"title":"The Effects of Elite Attacks on Copartisan Media: Evidence from Trump and Fox News","authors":"Allison M N Archer","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad042","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Individuals seeking news content face a variety of options in the current media landscape, yet scholarly research provides little evidence regarding the conditions under which they might become more or less open to different partisan news outlets. Drawing on the case of Donald Trump’s critiques of Fox News, I argue that elite rhetoric plays an important role in this process for members of both parties. I first conduct an original content analysis of Trump’s tweets from 2017 to 2020 and find that he increasingly attacked Fox News on this platform. Notably, Trump’s increasingly critical rhetoric about Fox correlates significantly with decreases in both Fox’s daytime and prime-time ratings. Two survey experiments shed light on how individuals respond to this intraparty conflict, and I find that Trump’s rhetoric affects both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans view Fox as less conservative and more critical of Trump when exposed to his critiques of the outlet. However, Republicans do not change their viewing habits until Trump promotes an alternative to Fox like OANN. Democrats respond to Trump’s rhetoric by updating their perceptions of Fox’s coverage and ideology as well as increasing their willingness to watch the channel, both in isolation and relative to an alternative like OANN. The results suggest that elite rhetoric is instrumental in shaping views of and demand for partisan outlets among members of both parties and can elevate more ideologically extreme sources among followers. Thus, elite rhetoric serves as a meaningful cue for individuals navigating an increasingly fragmented partisan media landscape.","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135257271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article Belinda Robnett and Katherine Tate. 2023. Gendered Pluralism Get access Belinda Robnett Katherine Tate. Gendered Pluralism. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 2023. 200 pp. $65.00 (cloth). $49.95 (ebook). Hanna K Brant Hanna K Brant SUNY Geneseo hbrant@geneseo.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, nfad040, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad040 Published: 17 September 2023
{"title":"Belinda Robnett and Katherine Tate. 2023. <i>Gendered Pluralism</i>","authors":"Hanna K Brant","doi":"10.1093/poq/nfad040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad040","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article Belinda Robnett and Katherine Tate. 2023. Gendered Pluralism Get access Belinda Robnett Katherine Tate. Gendered Pluralism. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 2023. 200 pp. $65.00 (cloth). $49.95 (ebook). Hanna K Brant Hanna K Brant SUNY Geneseo hbrant@geneseo.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, nfad040, https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfad040 Published: 17 September 2023","PeriodicalId":51359,"journal":{"name":"Public Opinion Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135258096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}