{"title":"Disinformation and Regime Survival.","authors":"Yuko Sato, Felix Wiebrecht","doi":"10.1177/10659129241252811","DOIUrl":"10.1177/10659129241252811","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Disinformation has transformed into a global issue and while it is seen as a growing concern to democracy today, autocrats have long used it as a part of their propaganda repertoire. Yet, no study has tested the effect of disinformation on regime stability and breakdown beyond country-specific studies. Drawing on novel measures from the Digital Society Project (DSP) estimating the levels of disinformation disseminated by governments across 148 countries between 2000-2022 and from the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we provide the first global comparative study of disinformation and survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes, respectively. The results show that in authoritarian regimes, disinformation helps rulers to stay in power as regimes with higher levels of disinformation are less likely to experience democratization episodes. In democracies, on the other hand, disinformation increases the probability of autocratization onsets. As such, this study is the first to provide comparative evidence on the negative effects of disinformation on democracy as well as on the prospects of democratization.</p>","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"77 3","pages":"1010-1025"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11305955/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141918051","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Deepening/Widening Tradeoff? Evidence from the GATT and WTO","authors":"David H. Bearce, Cody D. Eldredge","doi":"10.1177/10659129231223163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231223163","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO), experienced a deepening/widening tradeoff: as their membership increased (greater width), their effectiveness in promoting trade between members/participants declined (lesser de facto depth). This proposition is tested using gravity models of bilateral trade, first separating the GATT and WTO, which are usually combined into a single variable, and then adding a width variable corresponding to each institution. The results show that (1) both regimes were the deepest, or the most trade effective, when they had the fewest member-states and (2) their trade effectiveness declined, eventually becoming statistically insignificant, as more countries joined. As a quantitative case study, this paper provides some of the first evidence consistent with a tradeoff between depth and width within international institutions.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"130 32","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139453542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethnicity and Response to Internal Environmental Migrants in the United States","authors":"K. Ash, Puck Winchester","doi":"10.1177/10659129231225669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231225669","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how responses to individuals displaced by environmental shocks vary based on the ethnicity of the migrants, the locals, and their ethnic groups’ political status. We embed an experiment into a stratified sample of 2,188 white, Black, and Latinx Americans surveyed through Qualtrics Panels. The experiment shows respondents a photo of a flooded road, randomly assigning whether there are white, Black, Latinx, or no persons wading through the water. Results show no outward change in approval for migrants settling in respondents’ neighborhoods based on their ethnicity. However, emotional responses to migrants, perceptions of migrants’ economic backgrounds, and levels of tolerance and ethnocentrism among locals vary based on migrants’ ethnicity. While there may not be outward xenophobia and conflict in the face of internal climate-related migration, the underlying attitudes of members of receiving communities suggest internal migrants from politically excluded groups lack local acceptance and may face more subtle prejudice.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139140140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gregory H. Winger, Alex Oliver, Jelena Vićić, Adam Schaeffer
{"title":"Countering “Fake News” Through Public Education and Advertisements: An Experimental Analysis","authors":"Gregory H. Winger, Alex Oliver, Jelena Vićić, Adam Schaeffer","doi":"10.1177/10659129231224084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231224084","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines whether proactive efforts to educate people about disinformation through advertisements can successfully increase skepticism towards false headlines or if such efforts do more harm than good by inadvertently increasing belief in false information. We analyze a survey experiment that employed three different advertisements that directly addressed “fake news.” We find that all advertisements were effective at increasing skepticism towards “fake news” headlines. We also find no evidence of backfire effects occurring. However, subsequent analysis using Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) finds significant heterogeneity within these treatment effects. While all advertisements were effective, each ad was effective in different ways despite common themes and content. This suggests a more complicated understanding of the counter-disinformation process and highlights BART’s utility in public opinion research.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"78 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139151878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Melissa Deckman, Laurel Elder, S. Greene, M. Lizotte
{"title":"Deceptively Stable? How the Stability of Aggregate Abortion Attitudes Conceals Partisan Induced Shifts","authors":"Melissa Deckman, Laurel Elder, S. Greene, M. Lizotte","doi":"10.1177/10659129231222883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231222883","url":null,"abstract":"The 2022 Dobbs decision, striking down constitutional protection for abortion, sent shockwaves through the American political system. For the 50 years prior, however, public opinion on abortion was distinctive for its stability, with almost the same percent of Americans supporting legal abortion in the twenty-first century as in the 1970s. This stasis persisted during a period of dramatic change in the political landscape. We employ General Social Survey (GSS) data to explore the ways that partisanship, as well as demographic and attitude changes among key groups, have contributed to underlying shifts in abortion attitudes and, on an aggregate level, the appearance of stability. We show that demographic changes combined with meaningful attitude change balance each other out leading to deceptive stability. We also show the growing power of partisanship as a predictor of abortion attitudes for both Democrats and Republicans, especially Republican women, who have become more opposed to legal abortion than Republican men. Our findings provide a baseline for understanding abortion attitudes in post-Roe America and insights as to where continuity and change can be expected.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"36 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138946049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correcting Myopia: Effect of Information Provision on Support for Preparedness Policy","authors":"Nicholas Weller, Thomas Jamieson","doi":"10.1177/10659129231221486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231221486","url":null,"abstract":"Some scholars argue that the public is generally myopic in their attitudes about disaster preparedness spending, because they prefer to spend money on disaster response rather than preparedness, despite the greater cost effectiveness of the later. Given voters’ general lack of policy information, it is possible that limited support for preparedness comes from lack of information about its efficacy. In this paper, we build on these studies by examining how people respond to new information about the effectiveness of policy initiatives in the context of public health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Through two online survey experiments with over 3400 respondents, we demonstrate that information can lead people to update attitudes about preparedness, illustrating the potential for information campaigns to increase support for preparedness policies. Our results suggest that information about the efficacy of preparedness can increase support for these policies, and the information effect exists even for individuals whose prior beliefs were that public health programs were ineffective. These results suggest that information can make people more supportive of preparedness spending, which could provide electoral incentives for its provision. We conclude by providing some directions for future research to enhance our understanding of public opinion and preparedness spending.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138972965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scott Clifford, D. J. Flynn, Brendan Nyhan, K. Rhee
{"title":"Decider in Chief? Why and How the Public Exaggerates the Power of the Presidency","authors":"Scott Clifford, D. J. Flynn, Brendan Nyhan, K. Rhee","doi":"10.1177/10659129231218676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231218676","url":null,"abstract":"Democratic accountability requires that citizens accurately attribute credit and blame to leaders and institutions. However, citizens tend to simplify politics by personifying the state as its leader and directing credit and blame accordingly. Using an expert survey and a five-wave public panel survey spanning two administrations, we contrast public and expert perceptions of presidential power. We demonstrate that the public exaggerates the president’s powers relative to scholarly experts and that people who exaggerate presidential powers most are more likely to attribute blame to the president. However, a change in partisan control of the presidency shifts perceptions of power among partisans. Finally, we find suggestive evidence of similar shifts in belief after salient policy failures. These results provide the most direct evidence to date that citizens generally exaggerate the president’s influence and control but that these beliefs change over time in response to events.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"43 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139006670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jeremy D. Mayer, Molly W. Andolina, Robert J. McGrath
{"title":"Listen to Me: Quality of Communication and Intergenerational Political Socialization","authors":"Jeremy D. Mayer, Molly W. Andolina, Robert J. McGrath","doi":"10.1177/10659129231220025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231220025","url":null,"abstract":"Intergenerational political socialization is alive and well in the polarized American polity. But, by what mechanism do parental views transmit to children? We develop a theory ( dyadic social learning theory) which posits the importance of dyadic familial communication in facilitating attitudinal concordance between parents and children. Using original survey data of 1,048 dyadic pairs of American parents and middle school-aged children, we develop a novel measure of political perception that combines the perceptive accuracy of parents with the perceptive accuracy of their children. This measure of parent-child alignment, which we argue signals quality communication in families, is a powerful determinant of parent-child congruence on political views and emotions, particularly polarization. When a dyadic pair accurately perceives each other politically, the likelihood of congruent views and shared polarization increases. This research has implications for how we understand political transference of polarized views, and for broader theories of how children are socialized into the political world. It also suggests that solutions to polarization will have to address the role of parents in initiating polarization.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"1149 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138982435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Party Affiliation in the Southern Electorate","authors":"Seth C. McKee","doi":"10.1177/10659129231218734","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231218734","url":null,"abstract":"This article chronicles and analyzes the changing state of party affiliation in the American South from the 1990s to the present. Party identification (PID) is examined with data from three survey sources: the American National Election Study (ANES), Cooperative Election Study (CES), and Exit Polls (national and state-level). Emphasis is placed on the changing PID patterns of white, Black, and Hispanic voters South-wide and in individual states. The findings strongly suggest that the current position of Republican electoral dominance will persist for some time to come, though there are multiple reasons why, in certain parts of the South, Democratic affiliation will likely increase.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139235265","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“You Had Better Mention All of Them:” Race and Gender Effects in Election Loss Narratives","authors":"P. Haines, Seth Masket","doi":"10.1177/10659129231217511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231217511","url":null,"abstract":"A common explanation for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 presidential election was that she catered to minorities at the expense of the broader electorate. How does such a loss narrative influence voters' interpretation of subsequent elections? In a conjoint experiment, white and Black Democratic respondents were randomly exposed to a vignette that ascribed Democrats’ 2016 losses to their focus on identity politics. This narrative had an asymmetric effect on attitudes toward the 2020 election based on both race and gender. While it had no impact on white men’s or Black women’s understanding of why the Democrats lost the last presidential election or their candidate preferences for the next, it had a substantial impact on the electoral attitudes of white women and a moderate impact on those of Black men. Specifically, it shifted their support away from candidates committed to gender and racial equity and toward those emphasizing broad economic policies. The identity politics loss narrative thus may have acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy that advantaged white male candidates in the 2020 election.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"28 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139253976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}