Conversation,Disagreement and Political Participation

One of the more striking findings in recent work on political discussion among citizens has been that exposure to disagreement in discussion networks demobilises people, making political participation less likely. This runs counter to the expectations of theories of social capital and deliberative democracy, and also to the finding that exposure to cross-cutting views leads to greater tolerance of the opinions of others. This result is of great significance if it proves to be a general finding, holding in a variety of contexts and for a range of forms of political activism. This paper therefore provides a test, analysing a wide range of forms of political activism. The results suggest that it is premature to blame disagreement for demobilisation: in some circumstances, and for some forms of activism, exposure to countervailing views may actually motivate participation.     

The Electoral Relevance of Political Talk: Examining Disagreement and Expertise Effects in Social Networks on Political Participation

Although people with larger, more politicized social networks are more likely to participate in elections, we know very little about what drives this relationship. I argue that the electoral relevance of political talk depends heavily on the political expertise imbedded in discussion networks. Using data gathered during the 1996 presidential election, I demonstrate that the level of political sophistication in a person's social network exerts a positive influence on participation. Importantly, this effect is greater than the impact of political preferences in the network, the factor that is implicitly considered to be the main link between networks and involvement. This evidence makes two contributions to research on networks and participation. First, it provides support for a theoretical model that better accounts for research on the relationship between political talk, political disagreement, and involvement. Second, it changes the normative implications associated with political talk by suggesting that networks can encourage both higher levels of involvement and increased consideration of differing viewpoints.     

Political Disagreement in Context: The Conditional Effect of Neighborhood Context, Disagreement and Political Talk on Electoral Participation

Despite scholarly interest in determining how exposure to disagreeable political ideas influences political participation, existing research supports few firm conclusions. This paper argues that these varied findings stem from an implicit model of contextual influence that fails to account for the indirect effect of aggregate social contexts. A model of contextual influence is outlined which implies that the neighborhood partisan context moderates the effect of political disagreement in social networks on campaign participation. The evidence shows that network disagreement demobilizes people who are the political minority in their neighborhood, but has no influence on people in the majority. When viewed together, these findings indicate that a person’s relationship to the broader political environment sets distinctive network processes in motion.

Disagreement and the Avoidance of Political Discussion: Aggregate Relationships and Differences across Personality Traits

Social networks play a prominent role in the explanation of many political phenomena. Using data from a nationally representative survey of registered voters conducted around the 2008 U.S. presidential election, we document three findings. First, we show that during this period, people discussed politics as frequently as (or more frequently than) other topics such as family, work, sports, and entertainment with frequent discussion partners. Second, the frequency with which a topic is discussed is strongly and positively associated with reported agreement on that topic among these same discussion partners. Supplementary experimental evidence suggests this correlation arises because people avoid discussing politics when they anticipate disagreement. Third, we show that Big Five personality traits affect how frequently people discuss a variety of topics, including politics. Some of these traits also alter the relationship between agreement and frequency of discussion in theoretically expected ways. This suggests that certain personality types are more likely to be exposed to divergent political information, and that not everyone is equally likely to experience cross‐cutting discourse, even in heterogeneous networks.     

网络政治参与和廉洁政府建设

互联网的发展促使一种新的政治参与方式——网络政治参与——出现并不断扩大,成为社会监督的重要途径。当前我国公民网络政治参与形态主要有网络舆论、网络社团、网络政治人及其精英等,广泛的网络政治参与对廉洁政府建设有着极为重要的价值和作用。首先,网络政治参与克服了传统的以权力制约权力的监督机制中的弱点,为监督机构充分履行遏制腐败的责任提供了丰富的信息资源,成为防止权力滥用的有效监督形式。其次,网络政治参与简化了反腐程序,激发了广大人民群众的政治参与热情,改善了整个社会反腐的文化观念氛围。最后,网络政治参与为人民参政议政提供了便捷的渠道,提高了决策的民主性与科学性,促进了廉政制度建设。     

Social Networks and the Affective Impact of Political Disagreement

Although few studies have explored the link between emotion and political talk, here I argue that political disagreement depolarizes emotional reactions via information exchanged in social networks. Analyzing data from the ANES 2008–2009 Panel Study, several conclusions are drawn. First, disagreement increases negative emotions and decreases positive emotions toward the in-party candidate, and also increases positive emotions and decreases negative emotions toward the out-party candidate. In other words, disagreement depolarizes emotions toward political candidates. Second, the affective impact of disagreement does not vary with political knowledge. Finally, positive emotions toward the out-party candidate and negative emotions toward the in-party candidate reduce political interest, candidate issue placement accuracy, and political participation. Overall, this study develops important theoretical connections between affect and political talk that have implications for the value of political disagreement.     

Surrogate Versus Direct Measures of Political Culture: Explaining Participation and Policy Attitudes in Illinois

To date, there has been little persuasive validation of Elazar'sconcept of political subcultures as it applies to mass publics.This study represents an attempt to establish an agenda forfuture research utilizing this popular formulation of the relationshipbetween the citizen and government. A statewide sample of 805residents of Illinois was given agree-disagree statements representingElazar's individualistic, moralistic, and traditionalistic subcultures.The data are used to explore three basic research questions:Do individuals discriminate themselves along the political subculturedimensions suggested by Elazar? Can region of residence, religion,or ethnicity be used as surrogates for individual level politicalculture? And, can political culture, measured directly at theindividual level, add significant independent explanation ofpolitical behavior and opinions beyond that of socioeconomiccharacteristics?     

网络发展对知识分子政治参与的影响

以互联网为标志的信息网络技术革命 ,给知识分子政治参与提供了新的发展机遇 ,同时也带来了消极影响。为此 ,我们应及早采取对策 ,扩大其积极作用 ,同时尽可能防止由此带来的弊端     

中国网络政治参与的类型与适用性研究

随着政治体制改革的深入,政治参与越来越受到人们的重视。网络的发展不仅方便了日常生活,在政治文化层面也推进了参与型政治的发展。以政治文化作为出发点,对当前我国网络政治文化的内涵和特点做了详细的考察,进一步阐述了当前网络政治文化的现状及参与形式的类型,并对各类型在当前社会政治生活中的适用性进行了分析。提高真正意义上的政治参与适用程度,加快普及参与型政治文化,才能切实推进政治体制改革。     

Japanese Network Capital: The Impact of Social Networks on Japanese Political Participation

Recent scholarship shows that social capital has a large influence on political behavior. Social capital’s definition includes trust, norms of reciprocity, and social networks. Most studies, however, ignore the networking component. Here, we test the influence of social networks on political participation using new Japanese survey data. We separately test the effects of involvement in formally organized voluntary associations and informal social networks. We also examine whether hierarchical networks have a different impact on participation than equal relationships. To determine if networks with bridging or bonding social capital affect participation differently, we also measure the openness to outsiders of these networks. Negative binomial regression models indicate a strong positive relationship between formal and informal social networking—including network hierarchy and some forms of openness—and political participation.     

Jurisdiction Size,Political Participation,and the Allocation of Resources

This paper analyzes the effect of population size on politicalparticipation and allocative efficiency. Increasing populationis generally found to reduce political participation. However,since participation is not evenly spread throughout thepopulation, this will have consequences for allocation.Namely, we argue that increasing population size shifts powerto the rich. We discuss the consequences for the optimal sizeof jurisdictions, the size of government, and the measurementof publicness.     

Social Context and Information Seeking: Examining the Effects of Network Attitudinal Composition on Engagement with Political Information

The people we associate with everyday have an important influence on our exposure and reactions to political stimuli. Social network members in particular can have a dramatic impact on our political views and behavior. Prior research suggests that these attitudinal differences may reflect the information available in a social network: attitudinally congruent networks expose individuals to supporting positions, bolstering their views, while heterogeneous networks provide information on both sides of an issue, generating doubt and ambivalence. In contrast, the current studies examine the effects of individuals’ networks in motivating them to find and engage with new political information on their own. Using ANES panel data, a laboratory-based information board session that examines behavior in detail, and an experimental design that manipulates network composition, we find that individuals in attitudinally heterogeneous social networks are more likely to seek out and attend to political information. They spend more time looking for political information, and then (having found it) spend more time reviewing that new information compared to those whose network members are more like-minded. An experimental study further demonstrates that network composition causally determines these information-seeking preferences. Implications for democratic citizenship in light of these findings are discussed.     

Social Development and Political Participation: Class, Organizations and Sex

The relationship between social development and political participation has been described by Nie, Powell, and Prewitt in terms of two major contentions: (1) social development leads to increases in both the relative size of the middle class and the scope of the organizational infrastructure; (2) both factors lead in turn to higher rates of political participation, but the one - socioeconomic status - is mediated by civic attitudes, while the other - organizational involvement - is not. In trying to assess these contentions in relation to Norway, the present study arrives at several interesting, but disparate, conclusions: (a) existing findings with relevance for the problem (Martinussen's Distant Democracy ) are open to reinterpretation; (b) in a highly developed corporate-pluralist state such as Norway, organizational involvement must be distinguished as to its dependent-variable and independent-variable characteristics; (c) occupational status must be problematized as a sexist indicator; (d) class characteristics are not important determinants of participation in Norway, but sex is; (e) in relation to involvement in the electoral channel, civic attitudes do not mediate class position as much as they mediate sex; and (f) in relation to involvement in the corporate (interest-group) channel, neither sex nor class are significantly mediated by attitudes. Finally, it is pointed out that the relevance of these findings for the Nie-Powell-Prewitt position is uncertain, due to the problematic operationalization of both sex and organizational involvement in the original study*.     

Nonformal Education, Political Participation, and Democracy: Findings from Senegal

The relationship between nonformal education (NFE) and democracy has not been subject to empirical examination. Given the prominence that NFE has gained in many countries, such as those in Africa, this inattention is unfortunate. Using data from a survey involving a probability sample of 1484 Senegalese citizens, this paper examines the effects of education, both formal and nonformal, on political participation among rural Senegalese. The results indicate that NFE and formal education tend to have similar effects on several political behaviors, but the effect of NFE generally appears to be stronger. NFE has a positive impact on political participation. NFE increases the likelihood that one will vote and contact officials regarding community and personal problems. In addition, NFE has a strong, positive impact on community participation.Michelle T. Kuenzi, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Box 455029, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5029, USA (michele.kuenzi@ccmail.nevada.edu)     

Education and Political Participation: Exploring the Causal Link

One of the most consistently documented relationships in the field of political behavior is the close association between educational attainment and political participation. Although most research assumes that this association arises because education causes participation, it could also arise because education proxies for the factors that lead to political engagement: the kinds of people who participate in politics may be the kinds of people who tend to stay in school. To test for a causal effect of education, we exploit the rise in education levels among males induced by the Vietnam draft. We find little reliable evidence that education induced by the draft significantly increases participation rates.     

Electoral Choice,Ideological Conflict,and Political Participation

Generations of democratic theorists argue that democratic systems should present citizens with clear and distinct electoral choices. Responsible party theorists further argued that political participation increases with greater ideological conflict between competing electoral options. Empirical evidence on this question, however, remains deeply ambiguous. This article introduces new joint estimates of citizen preferences and the campaign platforms chosen by pairs of candidates in U.S. House and Senate races. The results show that increasing levels of ideological conflict reduce voter turnout, and are robust across a wide range of empirical specifications. Furthermore, the findings provide no support for existing accounts that emphasize how ideology or partisanship explains the relationship between ideological conflict and turnout. Instead, I find that increasing levels of candidate divergence reduce turnout primarily among citizens with lower levels of political sophistication. These findings provide the strongest evidence to date for how mass political behavior is conditioned by electoral choice.     

Sex, Resources, and Political Participation: Direct and Indirect Effects*

This article discusses the impact of sex and resources on political participation. The independent variables in the causal model are sex, education, organizational membership, and political involvement. Two measures of participation are used: frequency of voting and campaign participation. The results show that organization membership is the most important resource of participation. Organization is the only resource to have both indirect and direct effects. For sex and education, the effects are mediated through political involvement. The model is very weak in explaining variation in voting, but is clearly stronger in explaining variation in campaign participation.     

Political Communication and Disagreement Among Citizens in Japan and the United States

Patterns of interdependence among and between citizens add an additional level of complexity to a comparative analysis of democratic politics. In this article we examine communication and disagreement among citizens in Japan and the United States. We argue that a majoritarian bias in political communication operates in both settings, but it tends to perpetuate a system of one-party dominance in Japanese politics. Comparative studies of democratic citizenship have focused generally on the variation across national contexts in the political beliefs and values held by individuals. Our argument is that citizenship and the alternative cultures of democratic politics have less to do with the idiosyncratic beliefs and values that individuals carry with them and more to do with the contextually embedded nature of political communication. We address these issues using two community-based studies, one conducted in South Bend, Indiana, in 1984 and the other in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, in 1997.     

村民自治:中国农民政治参与与基层政治稳定

一、问题的提出村民自治是改革开放以来中国社会结构转型过程中的一种制度创新 ,是中国农村基层经济、政治体制变革的逻辑产物。中共十一届三中全会后 ,中国基层原有的以高度集权为特征的人民公社体制逐渐解体 ,旧有的基层社会的控制机制失效 ,基层政治权力几近于一种真空状态 ,乡村社会的治安、公益事业、公共服务等无人问津。时代的发展召唤着一种新的乡村社会控制机制。村民自治正是在这一深刻的社会政治背景下出现的。在其初始阶段 ,村民自治仅仅以村民委员会的换届选举为主要内容 ,其后经过十多年发展 ,村民代表会议制度、村务公开制度…