{"title":"Messaging Apps: A Rising Tool for Informational Autocrats","authors":"Inga K. Trauthig, Zelly C. Martin, S. Woolley","doi":"10.1177/10659129231190932","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231190932","url":null,"abstract":"Social media have caused adaptations to existing conceptualizations of democratization, democratic backsliding, and authoritarian hardening. One attempt to capture how social media may solidify authoritarian tendencies while maintaining the government’s popularity is the concept of informational autocracies: rule primarily through the manipulation of information. In this paper, we contribute to Guriev and Treisman’s conceptualizations, who coined the term “informational autocrats” and relied on case studies from around the world. Overall, we expand on existing literature on social media and informational autocracies via a discussion of encrypted messaging apps (e.g., WhatsApp or Telegram) in such contexts. Using a qualitative comparative approach consisting of 68 interviews across 11 country case studies, our analyses demonstrate that the relative secrecy offered by encryption messaging apps can benefit state propagandists and authoritarian tendencies.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44223246","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":"Descriptive Representation and Innovation in American Legislatures","authors":"Jack W. Nickelson, Joshua M. Jansa","doi":"10.1177/10659129231186624","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231186624","url":null,"abstract":"Previous scholarship has linked increased representation of women, racial/ethnic minorities, the LGB community, and the working class to more representative legislative agendas and roll call voting. But it is unclear if descriptive representation of historically excluded groups also affects policy innovativeness. Borrowing from interdisciplinary research, we argue that diverse legislatures are more innovative, so long as legislators operate in a quality deliberative environment. We measure the descriptive representation of seven different underrepresented groups in state legislatures from 1984 to 2016. We find that representation of women is a key predictor of innovation, operationalized as the tendency for states to adopt new policies early. We also find the effect of women is not dependent on critical mass, is undermined by high levels of polarization, and helps boost the capacity of legislatures to produce unique policy language. Some models are suggestive of a relationship between racial/ethnic minority (Black, Latinx, Native American) representation and innovation, but the results are inconsistent. The study provides insights into how representation of women can enhance legislative capacity to innovate in public policy.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45632764","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":"International Conflict Involvement, Domestic Repression, and the Escalation of Civil Conflict","authors":"Heather M. Kopp, B. W. Reeder, Thorin M. Wright","doi":"10.1177/10659129231188716","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231188716","url":null,"abstract":"Does participation in conflicts abroad lead to a great risk of conflict escalation at home? We contend that involvement in interstate conflict can impact the likelihood of civil conflict escalation via international conflict’s effects on domestic repression. During international conflict, states employ their military abroad to cope with an external threat, so they may have fewer resources with which to repress. Insurgencies may thus seize the opportunity to target the state. We predict that states that maintain high levels of repression during international conflict will be less likely to experience civil conflict escalation, but that states whose repressive output weakens increase their risk of such escalation. Utilizing mediation analysis, we find evidence that involvement in international conflict shifts repressive patterns, influencing internal conflict intensity. Specifically, governments that increase repression in the shadow of international conflict are less likely to witness civil conflict escalation while states that maintain or decrease repression are more likely.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44255459","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}
Stephanie L. DeMora, Christian Lindke, Sean Long, Jennifer L. Merolla, Maricruz A. Osorio
{"title":"The Effect of the Political Environment on White Women’s Political Ambition","authors":"Stephanie L. DeMora, Christian Lindke, Sean Long, Jennifer L. Merolla, Maricruz A. Osorio","doi":"10.1177/10659129231186572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231186572","url":null,"abstract":"The year 2018 has been dubbed the Year of the Woman because of the increased number of women who ran for office. What helps explain the dramatic increase in the number of women running for office? This paper examines how the political environment shapes white women’s emotional reactions to politics and in turn their political ambition. We focus on major aspects of the 2016 election: Trump’s treatment of women, Clinton’s historic run for office, the Women’s March, and the #MeToo movement. We argue that each of these factors leads to distinct emotional reactions, and that some of these reactions can increase political ambition. We explore support for these arguments with an experiment conducted with a sample of highly educated white women, an experiment fielded on the 2019 CCES, and with in-depth interviews conducted with first-time women candidates in 2018. We find that Trump’s treatment of women and Clinton’s historic run for office inspired political ambition, but through different emotional pathways. Trump’s treatment of women increased anger and in turn political ambition, while Clinton’s historic run increased ambition through enthusiasm. We find more muted effects for the Women’s Marches and the #MeToo movement.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41313108","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":"Ask and You Shall Receive: The Effects of Negativity and Fundraising Appeals on Facebook","authors":"Amanda Wintersieck, Alex Keena","doi":"10.1177/10659129231186414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231186414","url":null,"abstract":"Social media has transformed electoral politics and allows campaigns to micro-target supporters. However, little is known about the effectiveness of political ads on social media, particularly those that appeal for money. We study the fundraising effects of ad campaigns sponsored by a well-funded Super PAC, The Lincoln Project. Our model includes 100s of millions of ad impressions targeting Facebook users in the 50 states, plus D.C., over 308 days in 2020. We coded ads for tone and fundraising appeals and find that the most effective ads are those that directly appeal for money, while ads that use negativity are associated with a small, positive effect. Ads that include both negativity and fundraising appeals are associated with the most money: each impression yields an additional $0.52 in itemized donations (campaign contributions). The results confirm what previous research on campaign giving has found— people tend to give money to campaigns when they are asked to—and show how digital advertising influences political behavior.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48830943","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":"Influencing Enforcement: The Application of International Law in Independent Judiciaries—The Case of the Alien Tort Statute","authors":"A. B. Bayram, Banks Miller","doi":"10.1177/10659129231185596","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231185596","url":null,"abstract":"What explains the variation in the interpretation and enforcement of international law by domestic judges? Can independent judiciaries control the enforcement of countries’ commitments to international law? In this paper, we leverage a unique source of data—cases related to the Alien Tort Statute—to investigate how independent judges might be able to enforce international commitments to human rights without concern for whether the state (here the United States) has opted into the commitments in the first place. We show that behavioral factors in judicial decision making, and particularly those related to judicial ideological preferences, are potent predictors of judicial enforcement of international law. This implies that states with highly independent judiciaries are right to be worried about their abilities to control enforcement domestically, although we also find evidence that the U.S. government get a special degree of deference in these cases.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45662035","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":"The American Dreamers: The Effects of Media Coverage of Immigrants’ Age-at-Arrival","authors":"Guadalupe Madrigal","doi":"10.1177/10659129231185151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231185151","url":null,"abstract":"The Dreamers have become a driving force of policy and politics in the last two decades. Public opinion polls suggest that most Americans hold favorable attitudes towards Dreamers—more favorable than their attitudes about immigrants more broadly. This study suggests that age-at-arrival is a significant driving characteristic of this support. In 2019, I ran a 2-wave survey experiment in which respondents read a news story about an undocumented immigrant that either migrated at eleven or 21 years old. Respondents in the lower age-at-arrival condition reported more support for the immigrant; and this effect was most pronounced among those who were more opposed to immigration in general. A second 2-wave survey conducted in 2021 explored two possible mechanisms behind the impact of age-at-arrival: attitudes towards (a) assimilation and (b) attribution of responsibility. Results are considered as they relate to ongoing debates about Dreamers, media coverage, and attitudes about immigration.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47436611","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":"Do Scandals Matter?","authors":"Brandon Rottinghaus","doi":"10.1177/10659129231185532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231185532","url":null,"abstract":"Political science research is conflicted about the impact of political scandals on survival in office. Scholars have found strong negative impacts to some scandals but others have found minimal or no effects. The literature has explored several consequences but no one work examines them collectively. This article examines presidential, gubernatorial, and Congressional scandals from 1972 to 2021 to assess the impact of scandal in a polarizing America. We find the negative consequences from scandals vary across time and institutions. Scandals in the Watergate era led to more resignations in Congress but fewer resignations of White House officials in the 1990s. During the Trump administration, White House officials did not survive in office at rates greater than past eras, demonstrating little support for the “Trump Effect.” However, politicians generally survived scandal more in the polarized era, hinting at the changing role of political scandals.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47133747","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":"Newsroom Ideological Diversity and the Ideological Sorting of Journalists","authors":"H. Hassell, Matthew R. Miles, B. Morecraft","doi":"10.1177/10659129231182145","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231182145","url":null,"abstract":"In efforts to curb ideological bias in the news, citizens, academics, and journalists have highlighted the importance of newsroom ideological diversity. Using a large-scale survey of newspaper political journalists in the United States, we examine the diversity of ideological perspectives of political journalists across newspapers and communities and how ideological misalignments with the newsroom and the local community relate to those journalists’ employment decisions. We find political newspaper reporters regularly work for newspapers and in communities that do not mirror their own ideological perspectives. However, by following newspaper political journalists’ employment decisions over a three-year period, we also find that the ideological differences between those journalists and the newsroom where they work (but not ideological difference with the local community) are related to an increase in journalists’ desire to change jobs and in the likelihood they will actually seek other employment, either within journalism or outside of the profession.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65357364","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}
Katelyn E. Stauffer, Susan M. Miller, Lael R. Keiser
{"title":"Compliance with Public Health Orders: The Role of Trust, Representation, and Expertise","authors":"Katelyn E. Stauffer, Susan M. Miller, Lael R. Keiser","doi":"10.1177/10659129231182375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231182375","url":null,"abstract":"Governments rely on citizen compliance to implement policies. Yet, in the current climate where citizens express low levels of trust in government, gaining compliance can prove challenging. Scholarship suggests other factors that might promote compliance even in the absence of trust. We examine two: expertise and descriptive representation across race, gender, and partisanship. We experimentally activate general (dis)trust in government and use a conjoint experiment to examine multiple factors that might shape citizens’ willingness to comply with and trust government guidance related to COVID-19. We find that shared partisanship and consultation with experts have the largest effects. We also see an effect of shared racial identity on compliance for Black Americans, at least when trust is relatively low. As we consider the role of trust, expertise, and descriptive representation across race, gender, and partisanship simultaneously, the results offer important insights into factors that underpin citizens’ willingness to comply with government mandates. Our results have important real-world implications, highlighting the importance of bipartisan responses to crises as well as ensuring racial representation in government. They also demonstrate that explicitly involving experts in decision-making processes increases citizens’ willingness to comply with policy.","PeriodicalId":51366,"journal":{"name":"Political Research Quarterly","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47425330","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}