How Predictive Appeals Affect Policy Opinions

When political actors debate the merits of a public policy, they often focus on the consequences of a bill or legislative proposal, with supporters and opponents making stark but contradictory predictions about the future. Building upon the framing literature, I examine how rhetoric about a policy's consequences influences public opinion. I show that predictive appeals work largely by altering people's beliefs about the impact of a policy. Following in the tradition of recent framing research, this article also examines how opinions are influenced when people are exposed to opposing predictions. The analysis focuses on two strategies that are common in real-world debates—the direct rebuttal (in which an initial appeal is challenged by a statement making the opposite prediction) and the alternate frame (which counters an initial appeal by shifting the focus to some other consequence). There are important differences in the effectiveness of these two strategies—a finding that has implications for the study of competitive framing and the policymaking process more generally.     

Playing with Emotions: The Effect of Moral Appeals in Elite Rhetoric

This study argues that moral appeals in political advertising—and political rhetoric in general—are a form of emotional appeal that political elites use strategically. In particular, the study shows that moral appeals in political ads elicit a strong emotional response from voters and that it is precisely through an adjustment in their use of moral appeals that candidates signal their moderation as they pivot from the primary to the general election. To make these arguments, the study uses a content analysis of 3462 unique political advertisements from the 2008 Presidential, Senate, House, and gubernatorial primary and general elections, as well as individual-level survey data from the 2012 YouGov/Vanderbilt Ad Rating Project.     

The business case for sustainability in retrospect: A Scandinavian institutionalism perspective on the role of expert conferences in shaping the emerging “CSR and corporate sustainability space”

This paper is concerned with the rise and, in retrospect, successful “positioning” of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability as a management idea. It answers to calls that more research is required into the “business case for sustainability,” especially the link between rhetoric and reality. We allow for a narrative-driven and dynamic perspective to frame the analysis of the discourse, rhetoric, and arguments in use during the emergence of “modern CSR” in Europe in the early 2000s. On the one hand, it shows that the European Union/Commission acted as an “enabler” of business case rhetoric. On the other hand, empirical evidence from two expert conferences series in Germany 2004–2008 leads to the conclusion that a wide coalition of interested parties continuously and progressively filled, shaped, and energized the early “CSR and corporate sustainability space” with presenting CSR as a rationale and progressive (management) idea.     

Framing and Deliberation: How Citizens' Conversations Limit Elite Influence

Public opinion research demonstrates that citizens' opinions depend on elite rhetoric and interpersonal conversations. Yet, we continue to have little idea about how these two forces interact with one another. In this article, we address this issue by experimentally examining how interpersonal conversations affect (prior) elite framing effects. We find that conversations that include only common perspectives have no effect on elite framing, but conversations that include conflicting perspectives eliminate elite framing effects. We also introduce a new individual level moderator of framing effects—called "need to evaluate"—and we show that framing effects, in general, tend to be short-lived phenomena. In the end, we clarify when elites can and cannot use framing to influence public opinion and how interpersonal conversations affect this process .     

How policies become contested: a spiral of imagination and evidence in a large infrastructure project

This article investigates how framing processes lead to polarization in the public debate on a large infrastructure project. Drawing on an analysis of newspaper articles about the “Oosterweel connection” in Antwerp (Belgium), it concludes that imaginative framing (appeals to emotions via symbolic language) and framing through evidence (appeals to rationality via factual language) mutually reinforce each other. Because of the mutual reinforcement, we talk of a spiralling motion. When evidence backs up appeals to the imagination, such as when facts back up metaphors, these appeals are endowed with authority and hence legitimacy. While this strengthens appeals that have been “proven” to be true, it also makes actors backing these appeals increasingly frustrated with other parties that still refuse to accept them. Because of their frustration, the former are spurred to launch new imaginative appeals conveying their anger and to seek new evidence to substantiate these new appeals. Going back and forth between imaginative appeals and appeals to evidence, all parties in a conflict develop their own vision of the contested issue and their own evidence base for the policy position. Over time, their tolerance for ambiguity decreases and the debate polarizes.     

The Exaggerated Life of Death Panels? The Limited but Real Influence of Elite Rhetoric in the 2009–2010 Health Care Debate

Experiments demonstrate that elites can influence public opinion through framing. Yet outside laboratories or surveys, real-world constraints are likely to limit elites’ ability to reshape public opinion. Additionally, it is difficult to distinguish framing from related processes empirically. This paper uses the 2009–2010 health care debate, coupled with automated content analyses of elite- and mass-level language, to study real-world framing effects. Multiple empirical tests uncover limited but real evidence of elite influence. The language Americans use to explain their opinions proves generally stable, although there is also evidence that the public adopts the language of both parties’ elites symmetrically. Elite rhetoric does not appear to have strong effects on Americans’ overall evaluations of health care reform, but it can influence the reasons they provide for their evaluations. Methodologically, the automated analysis of elite rhetoric and open-ended questions shows promise in distinguishing framing from other communication effects and illuminating elite-mass interactions.     

Men and manners: Kantian humanism,rhetoric and the history of ethics

Modern humanist ethics (more Kantian than is sometimes thought) is driven by a will-to-perfection in the form of ideals of self-transcendence. This perfectionism entails a (would-be) exclusion or marginalisation of certain elements of ‘pre-Enlightenment’ ethical cultures bearing on rhetoric, manners and self-empowerment. This essay provides a set of conceptual-historical arguments preliminary to reinserting these disparaged elements into the forefront of a progressive ethos which, it is claimed, cannot afford to be exclusively dependent on an amalgam of Enlightenment and Romantic ideals. Ethics is irreducible to the realm of ideal and values, and there are other sorts.     

Framing Contests and Policy Conflicts over Gas Pipelines

This paper compares and contrasts high‐conflict policy debates over the siting of three natural gas pipeline projects at different decision stages of the siting process. This paper draws on over 600 newspaper articles spanning 3 years, analyzed through Discourse Network Analysis. Drawing from the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Conflict framework, this paper finds that actor framing of opposing policy beliefs involves more indirect than direct confrontations, with statements in the media waxing and waning over time. Opponents of the pipelines more often explicitly argue against pipelines, while also using a broad range of conceptual arguments, whereas proponents more often couch their arguments around the economic benefits of pipelines and use fewer conceptual frames overall. We also find evidence that opposing coalitions use similar framing across different decision contexts. This paper concludes with a commentary on the status and contributions of this paper to the study of policy conflicts and next steps in advancing similar research agendas.     

The Mobilizing Effect of Parties' Moral Rhetoric

How does parties' use of moral rhetoric affect voter behavior? Prior comparative party research has studied party positions without much attention to how parties explain and justify their positions. Drawing insights from political and moral psychology, I argue that moral rhetoric mobilizes copartisan voters by activating positive emotions about their partisan preference. I expect this to hold among copartisans who are exposed to party rhetoric. To test my argument, I measure moral rhetoric by text-analyzing party manifestos from six English-speaking democracies and measure mobilization using copartisan turnout in survey data. The results support my argument. Furthermore, I find evidence in support of the theoretical mechanism using survey experiments and panel survey data from Britain. The article shows that moral rhetoric is a party campaign frame that has important consequences for voter behavior.     

Supreme Court Litigants and Strategic Framing

Although litigants invest a huge amount of resources in crafting legal briefs for submission to the Supreme Court, few studies examine whether and how briefs influence Court decisions. This article asks whether legal participants are strategic when deciding how to frame a case brief and whether such frames influence the likelihood of receiving a favorable outcome. To explore these questions, a theory of strategic framing is developed and litigants' basic framing strategies are hypothesized based on Riker's theory of rhetoric and heresthetic as well as the strategic approach to judicial politics. Using 110 salient cases from the 1979–89 terms, I propose and develop a measure of a typology of issue frames and provide empirical evidence that supports a strategic account of how parties frame cases.     

The Implications of Framing Effects for Citizen Competence

Social scientists have documented framing effects in a wide range of contexts, including surveys, experiments, and actual political campaigns. Many view work on framing effects as evidence of citizen incompetence—that is, evidence that citizens base their preferences on arbitrary information and/or are subject to extensive elite manipulation. Yet, we continue to lack a consensus on what a framing effect is as well as an understanding of how and when framing effects occur. In this article, I examine (1) the different ways that scholars have employed the concepts of framing and framing effects, (2) how framing effects may violate some basic criteria of citizen competence, and (3) what we know about how and when framing effects work. I conclude that while the evidence to date suggests some isolated cases of incompetence, the more general message is that citizens use frames in a competent and well-reasoned manner.     

Do parties respond strategically to opinion polls? Evidence from campaign statements

This article investigates how parties respond to polling results on the campaign trail. I argue that parties use pre-election polls as mobilization and fine-tuning devices. Opinion surveys that exceed expectations can be exploited to mobilize the party base. Disappointing polls, in turn, are publicly downplayed and criticized. However, this information can be used to refine campaign strategies. Parties underperforming in the polls have incentives to emphasize their own policy positions and to attack other parties. These arguments are supported by evidence from 2140 campaign statements by Portuguese party leaders over two elections, combined with polling results. The findings suggest that parties carefully adjust their campaign rhetoric in response to public opinion signals. The study contributes to research on elite behavior and political representation. Moreover, it shows how research on campaign effects can benefit from a closer attention to the supply-side of campaigns.     

Contractarianism, Liberal Neutrality, and Epistemology

This paper examines three arguments that attempt to justify liberal neutrality. Firstly the type of neutrality between conceptions of the good that is sought by the arguments is explained. Then the contractarian procedure that is one of the premises of each of the arguments is presented. The remaining sections then examine the arguments, which are Thomas Nagel's appeal to epistemic restraint, Brian Barry's appeal to the uncertainty thesis, and John Rawls's appeal to the burdens of judgement. The arguments attempt to show how the contractarian procedure results in liberal neutrality. They do so by trying to show how no conception of the good can be acceptable to everyone due to the epistemological status of conceptions of the good. It is concluded that none of the arguments succeeds.     

What Happened to Educational Equality? Tracing the Demise of Presidential Rhetoric on Racial Inequality in Higher Education

This article asks why discussion of racial inequality in higher education is absent from presidential speeches, which helps us understand why it is absent from the public agenda. I find a decrease in presidential speech about race and education after the 1980 and 1984 elections. By analyzing Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan's rhetoric during those elections, we can see that Carter struggled to promote affirmative action and, instead, supported historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Reagan adopted Carter's arguments about HBCUs and used them to support his strategy to appeal to whites' and white ethnics' racial resentments. This dynamic led to a political stalemate: Democrats could not address educational inequality, distance themselves from Republicans, and appeal to majority whites. Therefore, presidents had no incentive to address inequality in higher education. While educational inequality still exists, it remains absent from presidential speeches.     

Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to Emotions

Politicians routinely appeal to the emotions of voters, a practice critics claim subverts the rational decision making on which democratic processes properly rest. But we know little about how emotional appeals actually influence voting behavior. This study demonstrates, for the first time, that political ads can change the way citizens get involved and make choices simply by using images and music to evoke emotions. Prior research suggests voters behave differently in different emotional states but has not established whether politicians can use campaigns to manipulate emotions and thereby cause changes in political behavior. This article uses two experiments conducted during an actual election to show that: (1) cueing enthusiasm motivates participation and activates existing loyalties; and (2) cueing fear stimulates vigilance, increases reliance on contemporary evaluations, and facilitates persuasion. These results suggest campaigns achieve their goals in part by appealing to emotions, and emotional appeals can promote democratically desirable behavior .     

Emotion and the Framing of Risky Choice

One of the most noted phenomena in social and political decision-making is the occurrence of a framing effect. For example, on problems involving risky choices, individuals tend to act risk-averse when the problem is framed in terms of gains (e.g., saving lives, making money) and risk-seeking when the same problem is instead framed in terms of losses (e.g., deaths, losing money). Scholars have begun to identify the processes underlying framing effects as well as the conditions under which framing effects occur. Yet, extant work focuses nearly exclusively on cognitive processes, despite growing recognition of the importance of emotion in general decision-making tasks. In this paper, we explore the impact of emotional states on risk attitudes and framing. We find that emotions significantly influence both individuals’ tendencies to take risks and the impact of a frame on risky choices (e.g., emotions amplify or depress a frame’s impact). The precise role of emotions depends on the problem domain (e.g., a life-death or a financial decision), and the specific type of emotion under study. Moreover, in contrast to much work in political science, we show that emotions need to be distinguished beyond their positive or negative valence, as different negative emotions exert opposite effects. Our results accentuate the importance of integrating emotions into research areas traditionally dominated by more cognitive perspectives.

Self‐interest in new wrapping: “Appeal to the public interest” as a topos in lobbying

This article explores public affairs and lobbying strategies that make public appeals beyond organizational self‐interest and instead focus on appeals to the public interest. While research has highlighted such appeals as a staple for lobbying campaigns, there is scant research exploring the communicative construction of this notion. Thus, this article uses the rhetorical concept of topos to explore how lobbyists attempt to fuse their private interests with a broader appeal to what is best for society. In particular, we discuss how different types of organizations have different rhetorical opportunities to ground their arguments. Finally, we discuss the democratic implications of appeals to the public interest as a standard lobbying strategy.     

Conforming to the Dominant Discourse: Framing Distance and Multiparty Competition

This study introduces a measure of framing distance, capturing the degree of frame overlap among parties. Additionally, it provides a causal mechanism explaining differences between parties in framing distance. Parties within PR systems have to take coalition considerations in their stride, and therefore mainstream opposition parties, which have previously governed, are unlikely to adopt large framing distances. Alternatively, challenger parties, those that have never governed, are likely to frame important issues differently. Nonetheless, challengers are expected to reduce their framing distance when performing well in election polls. Electoral success acts as a trigger for these parties to reconsider their goals (policy, office, or votes) and to become more office-seeking. These theoretical propositions are confirmed on the basis of the European integration issue, using a mixed methods approach. Pooled time-series regressions on party manifestos issued by 21 parties between 1987 and 2006 in three political systems (Germany, Netherlands, and UK) are complemented with case study analysis.     

Of Citizenship, Virtue, and the Administrative Imperative: Deconstructing Aristotelian Civic Republicanism

Over the years, the public administration literature has generated many different strands in the definition and conceptualization of citizenship. In theory and in practice, our understanding of what it means to be a citizen is in danger of being muddled amid the diversity of perspectives and the epistemological confusion generated in the contemporary discourse on the subject. My aim in this article is to clarify and elaborate a common thread that runs through our contemporary understanding of citizenship and to advance the general thesis that our brand of theorizing reflects an earlier tradition that embodies the conservative ethos of Aristotelian republicanism. Can such a tradition survive in modern American society?     

Old Pictures in New Frames: Issue Definition and Federal Arts Policy

Over the past three decades, those advocating for arts funding have shifted their arguments. When the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) was created in 1965, its supporters praised arts and culture for their uplifting qualities, and for their ability to counterbalance trends toward materialism and militarism. By the 1990s, arts advocates were far more likely to use instrumentalist arguments, showing that investment in arts and culture produce other desirable benefits, most notably economic development advances. This article reviews the changing discourse of arts advocacy in several ways: (1) by reviewing and coding Congressional debates on arts funding from 1965–2000, (2) reviewing arts coverage in the New York Times and selected arts periodicals during this same time period. Comparing this case to others in the literature on policy redefinition, the paper argues that cultural advocates have consciously reframed their arguments to broaden their appeal in the face new and more threatening opposition.