Political judgments,perceptions of facts,and partisan effects

We test two competing hypotheses about the impact of partisanship and information on people's political judgments and perceptions of facts using Canadians' reactions to a major scandal. Our findings with respect to subjective political judgments confirm the argument that partisan predispositions are crucial. But there is no evidence to support the argument that the polarizing effect of partisanship is most evident among the most informed. When it comes to perceptions of “objective” facts, the results are consistent with Zaller's reception axiom: the more informed people are, the more likely they are to correctly perceive objective facts. Partisanship does not appear to affect these perceptions.     

Who Will Be the “Principled‐Principals”? Perceptions of Corruption and Willingness to Engage in Anticorruption Activism

Many anticorruption campaigns aim to encourage citizens to demand better control over corruption. Recent literature suggests that perceived high levels of corruption and government effectiveness in controlling corruption will limit citizens' willingness to actively oppose corruption. Using Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, we test these ideas across a 71‐country sample. We find that perceived government effectiveness tends to encourage anticorruption civic action, while perceptions of corruption being widespread tend to have the opposite impact in non‐OECD countries. Our analyses also suggest that the interaction between these perceptions is important; we find that, especially among those who perceive that the level of corruption is high, when confidence in the government's efforts grows, so does their willingness fight corruption.     

Who protests? An exploration of the class dimensions of anticorruption mobilization

This article examines the role of economic class in mobilizing against corruption. Across several countries, recent anticorruption movements have been attributed to the growing urban middle class. Yet, existing studies have not examined how citizens view their own agency and how their views may be affected by their class position. We use Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer survey and a case study of India to critically examine the class dimensions of anticorruption mobilization. We find that citizens in middle‐income countries are most concerned with corruption. At the same time, those who identify as middle class are only slightly more likely than low‐income individuals to indicate a willingness to mobilize. In contrast, people who identify as high income are much less willing to engage with the issue. Our findings suggest that successful and sustained mobilization against corruption might require a coalition of middle‐and lower‐income groups.     

Can public information programs affect risk perceptions?

This article provides the first controlled evaluation of how different information materials explaining the risks from radon influenced people's perceptions of these risks. Using a panel study, it was possible to observe how stated risk perceptions responded to information about indoor radon concentrations and brochures explaining the radon readings. The findings indicate that risk communication policies can be effective in modifying risk perceptions. Moreover, they have three specific implications for radon policy: (1) Public officials should not adopt strategies that provide minimal risk information to the public as a means of avoiding undue alarm, for this can have the reverse effect; (2) measures of the effectiveness of risk communication will depend on how education and behavior change are defined; (3) categorical guidelines about risk without quantitative information can lead people to treat the levels as thresholds, creating an artificial discontinuity in their responses to small changes in risk perceptions.     

How campaigns promote the legitimacy of elections

Why do people see elections as fair or unfair? In prior accounts, evaluations of the election depend on people's candidate preferences, where supporters of the winning candidate tend to call the election fair while those on the losing side feel it was unfair. I argue that perceptions of election fairness reflect not just the election outcome, but also the campaign process. Using a set of multilevel models and data from the 1996–2004 American National Election Studies, I explore the consequences of campaign experiences in shaping people's evaluations of the fairness of a presidential election. I find that as campaign competition increases, people are less likely to translate their feelings about the candidates into their evaluations of the election. Rather than alienating citizens, competitive campaigns mitigate the effects of prior preferences in a way that promotes the legitimacy of elections.     

Rallying in fear? Estimating the effect of the UK COVID-19 lockdown with a natural experiment

We use a natural experiment to study how the announcement of the UK COVID-19 lockdown affected citizens' attitudes towards the pandemic and the government's response to it. On the day of the lockdown announcement, YouGov ran a survey that captured responses before and after the announcement. Comparison of these responses suggests that the lockdown announcement made people more supportive of the government's response to the crisis but also (perhaps surprisingly) more concerned about the pandemic. Analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects suggests that the announcement narrowed gaps in perceptions of the crisis, increasing support for the government's response especially among those who had been least supportive and increasing concern about the pandemic especially among those who had been least concerned. Overall, the findings highlight a tension inherent in governing during times of crisis: actions that increase people's confidence in government and induce compliance with government directives may also tend to increase anxiety among the population.     

Can Corruption Be Measured? Comparing Global Versus Local Perceptions of Corruption in East and Southeast Asia

Abstract

Since Transparency International first released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 1995, the CPI has quickly become the best known corruption indicator worldwide. The CPI has been widely credited with making comparative and large-N studies of corruption possible, as well as putting the issue of corruption squarely in the international policy agenda. Despite its enormous influence on both academic and policy fronts, the CPI is not without critics. One often noted critique is that the CPI relies solely on surveys of foreign business people and the expert assessments of cross-national analysts; as such, the CPI mainly reflects international experts’ perceptions, not the perceptions of each country's citizens. This study examines the above critique in closer detail. Data from the Asian Barometer Survey is employed to analyze whether international experts’ corruption perceptions were similar to those of domestic citizens. The Asian Barometer Survey is a public opinion survey on issues related to political values, democracy, and public reform in 13 different areas around East and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam). Data analysis indicates that global and local perspectives are only moderately aligned in the 13 areas studied. International experts and domestic citizens differ, to varying degrees, in their evaluation of the extent of public sector corruption in several areas, suggesting the presence of a corruption perception gap. Four implications about the existence of this gap can be drawn for future corruption measurement.     

Restoring trust in the police: Why female officers reduce suspicions of corruption

Recent studies show a clear link between women in government and reduced concerns about corruption. Until now, it remains unclear which underlying attitudes about women explain the perception that they will reduce corruption. Using a survey question about adding women to a police force, with an embedded experimental treatment, we examine three distinct stereotypes that might explain the power of women to reduce concerns about corruption: gender stereotypes of women as more ethical and honest, the perception of women as political outsiders, and beliefs that women are generally more risk averse. We find that people do perceive women as more effective at combating corruption, and these perceptions are greatly enhanced when information about women's outsider status and risk aversion is provided.     

‘Left behind’ people,or places? The role of local economies in perceived community representation

Modern economics attributes importance to spatial inequality: yet in studying discontent with politics, existing research has mostly neglected local contexts and attitudes people hold about them. I use British Election Study data to investigate the factors leading people to believe their community is ignored by the political process. Firstly, real economic contexts play a role, since residents of low-income communities tend to take more negative views about how well their community is represented. Secondly, negative perceptions of the local economy are associated with more negative views of community representation, whereas equivalent ‘egotropic’ measures of people's personal economic situation have no such effect. Thirdly, I observe a ‘grievance’ effect wherein people are particularly negative about community representation when they believe that the national economy is more successful than that of one's local community.     

The Relevance of Political Trust in Postwar Lebanon

Political trust in Lebanon is perceived to be drastically low. Instead of being regarded as agents of citizens' well-being, public officials are deemed as corrupting forces in the society. This attitude reflects people's discontent as a result of official policy. However, findings indicate that people's dissatisfaction with the government reduces political trust. This situation creates an environment in which it is difficult for those in government to succeed. The consequences of loss of trust could be detrimental to the legitimacy of the regime in question. The study derives its importance from the return to power of billionaire Rafik Hariri, a three time former premier, on the 22nd of October 2000, two years after being forced out of office and accused of corruption. Hariri hopes to reinvigorate his post-civil war reconstruction program that stalled while he was out of power. With many former ministers from Hariri's former 1992-1998 tenure reappointed and in light of Hariri's pledge to proceed with his previous policy, the survey findings indicate the low levels of political confidence that constrain the new government program to prevail over the country's bitter political situation.     

Is the U.S. Supreme Court's Legitimacy Grounded in Performance Satisfaction and Ideology?

Bartels and Johnston have recently presented evidence suggesting that the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court is grounded in the ideological preferences and perceptions of the American people. In addition, they offer experimental data purporting to show that dissatisfaction with a single Court decision substantially diminishes the institution's legitimacy. These findings strongly break with earlier research on the Court's institutional support, as the authors recognize. The theoretical implications of their findings are profound. If the authors are correct that legitimacy is strongly dependent upon satisfying the policy preferences and ideological predilections of the American people, the essence of legitimacy is fundamentally transformed. Consequently, we reinvestigate the relationships among ideology, performance satisfaction, and Court legitimacy, unearthing empirical findings that diverge markedly from theirs. We conclude with some thoughts about how the Court's “countermajoritarian dilemma” can be reconceptualized and recalculated, once more drawing conclusions sharply at odds with those of Bartels and Johnston.     

The Eroding Effect of Corruption on System Support in Sweden

Sweden is consistently found at the top in international indices of corruption. In recent years, however, several instances of corruption have been exposed, and surveys show that large shares of Swedish citizens harbor perceptions that public corruption is widespread. Drawing on recent surveys, two questions are asked. First, to what extent do Swedish citizens believe that corruption constitutes a serious problem? Second, how do citizens' evaluations of the extent of public corruption affect support for the democratic system? Approaching the issue from a comparative Nordic perspective, the data indicate that Swedes are considerably more prone to believe that politicians and public officials are corrupt than their Nordic counterparts. The analysis also suggests that such perceptions constitute an important determinant of support for the democratic system. Thus, even in a least likely case of corruption, such as Sweden, growing concerns about corruption has a potential to affect democratic legitimacy negatively.     

Facing the future: young people's awareness of the 2001 British general election advertising campaigns

This paper presents findings from a national survey of ‘potential’ first time voters at the 2001 British general election. It investigates these young people's awareness of the advertising used by the main political parties during this election. Overall what emerges is a young electorate aware of the advertising, who were interested in the election itself and nearly half of whom say they voted in it. Consequently the findings reject the notion that young people are generically unaware of and disinterested in party political messages. In addition the findings indicate that the political parties' print advertisements—to some degree—are penetrating the first layer of young people's message processing, suggesting they are a useful aid in capturing the youth vote. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

John Dewey on experience: a critical resource for the theory and practice of youth civic engagement

Research on youth civic engagement often sees the everyday lives of young people as barriers to civic engagement. Recent qualitative approaches have drawn attention to the civic and political dimensions of young people's everyday lives. This is a crucial insight, but cannot – by itself – answer a key question: just how is it that everyday experience can be transformed into civic engagement? I argue that John Dewey's theory of experience makes two key contributions toward answering this question. First, Dewey's situational understanding of experience directs us to the concrete conditions of everyday life as the necessary groundwork and starting point for civic engagement. Second, his concept of reflective experience helps us understand how taken for granted assumptions about political and social life can be transformed into more active forms of engagement. I illustrate this argument by drawing on selected findings from a qualitative study of young people's experience in Public Achievement, a civic engagement initiative.     

Nurturing regulatory compliance: Is procedural justice effective when people question the legitimacy of the law?

Procedural justice generally enhances an authority's legitimacy and encourages people to comply with an authority's decisions and rules. We argue, however, that previous research on procedural justice and legitimacy has examined legitimacy in a limited way by focusing solely on the perceived legitimacy of authorities and ignoring how people may perceive the legitimacy of the laws and rules they enforce. In addition, no research to date has examined how such perceptions of legitimacy may moderate the effect of procedural justice on compliance behavior. Using survey data collected across three different regulatory contexts – taxation (Study 1), social security (Study 2), and law enforcement (Study 3) – the findings suggest that one's perceptions of the legitimacy of the law moderates the effect of procedural justice on compliance behaviors; procedural justice is more important for shaping compliance behaviors when people question the legitimacy of the laws than when they accept them as legitimate. An explanation of these findings using a social distancing framework is offered, along with a discussion of the implications the findings have on enforcement.     

Political participation,political action and political identities: young d/deaf people's perspectives

This paper critically examines the dominant, and predominantly negative, discourses around young people's political participation, or supposed lack of it. Drawing upon contemporary debates about young people within geography, political science and sociology, it considers the ways in which a redefinition of what constitutes ‘the political’ is required if young people's engagement in political participation is to be understood fully. The paper reports on research conducted with young D/deaf people that did not intentionally set out to research their political participation, action or identi ties, but which uncovered a range of political aspects in their lives and experiences. It explores the ways in which volunteering can be defined as political action and, after de Certeau and Scott, how the use of British Sign Language can be a resistive act, a tactic or weapon of the weak. Threaded throughout the paper is a consideration of the ways in which there are complex geographies of activism at play.     

Does personalization of officeholders undermine the legitimacy of the office? On perceptions of objectivity in legal decisionmaking

Public legitimation of legal decisionmaking can be promoted through various strategies. We examine strategies of legitimation that are premised on personalizing the public image of legal agents. A personalized public administration emphasizes individual decisionmakers and seeks legitimacy through familiarity with the character, identity, and virtues of individual agents, whereas a non-personalized public administration projects an ethos of technocratic decisionmaking, seeking legitimacy through institutional objectivity and impartiality. We conducted an experiment to examine the efficacy of personalization strategies in the context of a politically charged legal affair: the criminal cases involving the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. We focus on people's perceived objectivity of the office of the Israeli attorney general (AG), given exposure (vs. no exposure) to different types of personal information about the AG, and while manipulating the salience of contrasting decisions concerning Netanyahu (indicting him on several counts of corruption versus exculpating him in others). We find that exposure to personal information about the AG decreased the perceived objectivity of his office, compared to no exposure to personal information, regardless of the type of information, decision salience, and respondents' political leanings. Our findings, therefore, support the legitimating potential of the non-personalization of decisionmakers, and show that it pertains to people positioned as both “losers” and “winners” with regard the political impact of the decision. The study further reflects the capacity of nonabstract real-world, real-time, analyses to shed light on the drivers of public trust in legal decisionmaking in politically polarized contexts—an issue of pertinence in many contemporary democracies.     

政府评价层级差异与差序政府信任--基于2011年全国调查数据的实证研究

在2011年全国调查数据的基础上,尝试以民众对不同层级政府的评价差异解释差序政府信任产生和维系的原因。研究发现民众在对中央和地方政府在绩效、动机以及腐败程度等问题进行评价时显著青睐于中央政府,这种评价上的差异导致民众对中央政府的信任显著高于对地方政府的信任,从而产生了差序政府信任。     

State‐Building and the European Union's Fight against Corruption in the Southern Caucasus: Why Legitimacy Matters

This article asks under which conditions the state‐building efforts of external actors in areas of limited statehood are likely to be effective. We argue that the legitimacy of the specific norms promoted by external actors among local actors is crucial for their success in strengthening state capacities. International efforts need to resonate with prevalent social norms. To substantiate this argument, we focus on the European Union's (EU) anticorruption programs and their implementation in one of the most corrupt regions in the world, the Southern Caucasus. We show that legitimacy can explain why the EU's fight against corruption helped reduce corruption in Georgia but not in Armenia. In both countries, political elites could selectively use anticorruption programs as an instrument against political opponents, using enhanced state capacities to stabilize the incumbent regime. Only in Georgia, however, was the fight against corruption facilitated by sustained domestic mobilization for anticorruption policies that added pressure on political elites “from below.”     

Hungry minds: Investigating the food insecurity of minority community college students

Research on food insecurity has investigated urban environments at the neighborhood and city level but neglected the importance of college institutions. Community colleges, which serve a larger population of low‐income, food insecure, and minority students than 4‐year institutions, have been especially neglected. In this mixed methods study, we examined how 50 low‐income minority students in an urban community college access food on campus and how the features of their college foodscape shape their food insecurity. We also investigated how students' ability to access food on campus shaped their perceptions of the college institution and their academic endeavors. Our survey findings reveal high levels of food insecurity among our participants. Students' written narratives demonstrate their desire for more appealing and affordable food on campus and reveal their distrust of the college institution. Furthermore, students connect their food insecurity to their ability to concentrate on academic tasks. Thus, the accessibility of food on campus appears to affect students' perceptions of their community college institution and has implications for their emotional and academic development. Our work suggests that both researchers and college institutions must examine the inadvertent signals that institutions send to food insecure students through their food policies.