{"title":"Machine-learning applications to authoritarian selections: The case of China","authors":"Jonghyuk Lee","doi":"10.1177/20531680231211640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231211640","url":null,"abstract":"Elite selection in China has drawn significant attention given the importance of the country. Instead of relying on qualitative assessments from historical and personal insights, this study utilized machine-learning techniques to evaluate the promotion prospects of Chinese elites. By incorporating over 251 individual features of 18,179 officials from 1982 to 2020, I built up an ensemble model to calculate the promotion probabilities of the previous Politburo members of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Methodologically, this study finds that the machine-learning predictions yielded approximately 20% higher accuracy compared to the classical model, which employed the generalized linear model with theoretically identified variables. Moreover, this paper offers valuable insights into Chinese politics by highlighting that Xi Jinping’s selection of central officials has diverged from historical patterns, while his decisions on provincial promotions do not exhibit notable differences from those made by his predecessors.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136129178","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}
{"title":"Legitimate questions: Public perceptions of the legitimacy of US presidential election outcomes","authors":"Michael W. Sances","doi":"10.1177/20531680231206987","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231206987","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous polls show most Republicans view the 2020 election as illegitimate, but we know relatively little about legitimacy perceptions among losing candidates’ supporters in past elections. I analyze 76 polls asking about the legitimacy of the 2000, 2016, and 2020 presidential elections. Even before 2020, the losing candidate’s supporters are much less likely to view the outcome as legitimate. Losers are about 60 percentage points less likely to accept the election in 2000, about 40 points less likely in 2016, and about 70 points less likely in 2020. Perceptions of legitimacy are typically higher than confidence in election results, and many voters express doubts about the vote count while still accepting the legitimacy of the result.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135707368","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}
Joost Berkhout, Michele Crepaz, Marcel Hanegraaff, Wiebke Marie Junk
{"title":"Online focus groups as a tool to study policy professionals","authors":"Joost Berkhout, Michele Crepaz, Marcel Hanegraaff, Wiebke Marie Junk","doi":"10.1177/20531680231211398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231211398","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars interested in political elites and policy professionals only sporadically rely on focus group methods. In this article, we argue why this is a missed opportunity. Based on our own recent research experience, we suggest three innovations to the focus group method that should make it appealing for political scientists who study professionals active in the policy process. First, focus groups allow for the study of the interactions between political elites in ways other methods cannot. Second, the method can be used for hypothesis testing when focus groups are designed accordingly. Third, the option to conduct focus groups online has major advantages in terms of participant costs, ease of recruitment, and, potentially, research equity. We hope that our suggestions are useful for researchers wanting to build on any one—or all—of these innovations.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136168876","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}
{"title":"Replicating the effects of Facebook deactivation in an ethnically polarized setting","authors":"Nejla Asimovic, Jonathan Nagler, Joshua A. Tucker","doi":"10.1177/20531680231205157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231205157","url":null,"abstract":"The question of how social media usage impacts societal polarization continues to generate great interest among both the research community and broader public. Nevertheless, there are still very few rigorous empirical studies of the causal impact of social media usage on polarization. To explore this question, we replicate the only published study to date that tests the effects of social media cessation on interethnic attitudes (Asimovic et al., 2021). In a study situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the authors found that deactivating from Facebook for a week around genocide commemoration in Bosnia and Herzegovina had a negative effect on users’ attitudes toward ethnic outgroups, with the negative effect driven by users with more ethnically homogenous offline networks. Does this finding extend to other settings? In a pre-registered replication study, we implement the same research design in a different ethnically polarized setting: Cyprus. We are not able to replicate the main effect found in Asimovic et al. (2021): in Cyprus, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no effect. We do, however, find a significant interaction between the heterogeneity of users’ offline networks and the deactivation treatment within our 2021 subsample, consistent with the pattern from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We also find support for recent findings (Allcott et al., 2020; Asimovic et al., 2021) that Facebook deactivation leads to a reduction in anxiety levels and suggestive evidence of a reduction in knowledge of current news, though the latter is again limited to our 2021 subsample.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"121 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135849635","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}
{"title":"Understanding public attitudes toward restrictive voting laws in the United States","authors":"Katherine Clayton","doi":"10.1177/20531680231206611","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231206611","url":null,"abstract":"Existing research on voting legislation argues that Republican lawmakers enact strict voting laws as part of a racialized, partisan electoral strategy—they believe that the laws will reduce minority turnout and benefit Republicans electorally. Yet, the empirical effects of strict voting laws on turnout are mixed, with some studies finding that restrictive legislation can actually increase minority turnout due to counter-mobilization effects. I leverage this empirical finding to study the foundations of public attitudes toward voting laws, specifically testing whether exposure to information that restrictive voting laws can boost minority turnout impacts Republicans’ or Democrats’ attitudes. My results show that Republican support for restrictive voting laws generally does not change in response to information about the consequences of the laws, but Democrats are significantly less opposed when they become aware of the laws’ potential impact on minority turnout. These results pose challenges for building majorities that will defend the franchise in the United States.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136129304","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}
{"title":"Expert opinions and negative externalities do not decrease support for anti-price gouging policies","authors":"Casey Klofstad, Joseph Uscinski","doi":"10.1177/20531680231194805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231194805","url":null,"abstract":"During disasters, citizens call for “anti-price gouging” policies. However, majorities of economists oppose such policies. For democracy to function, citizens should be responsive to policy-relevant information—especially from experts. What impact does exposure to the potential negative externalities have on public support for anti-price gouging policies? We hypothesize that if the public were exposed to such information, they would be less supportive of anti-gouging policies. We employ two survey experiments: one administered in Florida ( n = 2085), a state prone to hurricane activity, and the second in the United States ( n = 2023) at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both show that the public overwhelmingly supports anti-price gouging policies, regardless of exposure to information about negative externalities, even when it comes from experts.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"9 47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135807063","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}
{"title":"Temporal validity as meta-science","authors":"Kevin Munger","doi":"10.1177/20531680231187271","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231187271","url":null,"abstract":"The “credibility revolution” has forced quantitative social scientists to confront the limits of our methods for creating general knowledge. As a result, many practitioners aim to generate valid but local knowledge and then synthesize and apply that knowledge to predict what will happen in a target context. Positivist social science has until recently been hamstrung with other, more immediate threats to validity and inference, but I argue that recent advances in statistical approaches to the problem of external validity reveal limits of the current paradigm. This article and the term “temporal validity” illustrate the intrinsic limits of agnostic (i.e., assumption-free) external validity when the target setting is in the future. These limits, I argue, suggest a re-orientation of social science methodology. We should acknowledge that no research design, no empirical knowledge, is perfectible; instead, we should explicitly aim to increase the amount and quality of knowledge we produce. I believe it is useful to characterize this perspective as part of “Meta-Science,” an emerging paradigm within the social sciences. “Temporal validity” and the implied “knowledge decay” thus represent a meta-scientific intervention aimed at increasing the usefulness of the knowledge we produce. Among other structural reforms, I argue that the binary reality of academic scholarship (a paper is published or not) reifies the perfectibility of empirical knowledge and is thus an impediment to recognizing the continuous nature of all forms of scientific validity.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135807367","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}
{"title":"The (null) effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Europeans’ attitudes toward democracy","authors":"Enrique Hernández, Macarena Ares","doi":"10.1177/20531680231204679","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231204679","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we analyze the short-term impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Europeans’ attitudes toward democracy. For this purpose, we leverage the coincidence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 with the fieldwork of the European Social Survey in 10 countries. By means of an unexpected event during survey design, we analyze the impact of the invasion on 12 different attitudes toward democracy, including overt support for democracy, satisfaction with democracy, as well as the importance attributed to particular democratic principles. The results of this comprehensive analysis reveal that the invasion did not have a substantive impact on individuals’ attitudes toward democracy. The invasion of a neighboring democratic country by an autocratic power did not alter Europeans’ satisfaction with democracy, their support for this political regime, or the importance they attribute to different democratic principles.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135812851","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}
{"title":"Bureaucracy and policymaking: Evidence from a choice-based conjoint analysis","authors":"Mariana Batista","doi":"10.1177/20531680231180980","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231180980","url":null,"abstract":"Bureaucrats are a fundamental part of the functioning of the modern state and democracies. However, there is still much disagreement about the ideal profile of bureaucrats to deliver quality and responsive policies. Bureaucrats can be meritocratically recruited or politically appointed, creating the dilemma between autonomy and accountability. This article explores this dilemma, identifying the profile of bureaucrats perceived as having the best performance in the different policymaking dimensions. The study explored the form of recruitment, the level of experience, and the bureaucrat’s gender as characteristics of interest. Using data from an original survey with high-ranking bureaucrats in Brazil, we implement conjoint analysis to identify the most valued profile. The results indicate that the bureaucrat recruited through the merit system is more valued in the dimensions of “transparency,” “evidence,” “political coordination,” and “general preference of respondents.” This result is independent of the bureaucrat’s experience, so the effect is related to the recruitment form. However, the politically appointed bureaucrat is more valued in the dimension of “effort.” Gender did not generate significant effects. The article brings experimental evidence to increase understanding of how bureaucratic autonomy and accountability connect to deliver better government performance.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135806693","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}
{"title":"How politicians learn about public opinion","authors":"Stefaan Walgrave, Karolin Soontjens","doi":"10.1177/20531680231200692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680231200692","url":null,"abstract":"Politicians learning about public opinion and responding to their resulting perceptions is one key way via which responsive policy-making comes about. Despite the strong normative importance of politicians’ understanding of public opinion, empirical evidence on how politicians learn about these opinions in the first place is scant. Drawing on survey data collected from almost 900 incumbent politicians in five countries, this study presents unique descriptive evidence on which public opinion sources politicians deem most useful. The findings show that politicians deem direct citizen contact and information from traditional news media as the most useful sources of public opinion information, while social media cues and polls are considered much less useful. These findings matter for substantive representation, and for citizens’ feeling of being represented.","PeriodicalId":21062,"journal":{"name":"Research & Politics","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135805367","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}