Uninterested Youth? Young People's Attitudes towards Party Politics in Britain

Following the outcome of the 2001 and 2005 general elections, when the numbers of abstainers outweighed the numbers of Labour voters on both occasions, much attention has focused upon the state of British democracy and how to enthuse the electorate, especially young people. Whilst the government is exploring ways to make the whole process of voting easier, it may be failing to tackle the real problem – that youth appear to find the business of politics uninviting and irrelevant. This paper examines data derived from a nationwide survey of more than 700 young people in order to shed light on what lies at the heart of young people's apparent disengagement from formal politics in Britain – political apathy or a sense of political alienation. The findings reveal that they support the democratic process, but are sceptical of the way the British political system is organised and led and are turned off by politicians and the political parties. However, there is no uniform youth orientation to politics, and the data indicate that views differ according to social class, educational history and also gender. However both ethnicity and region of the country in which young people live seem to have little influence in structuring political attitudes and behaviour.     

Political Orientation,Party Affiliation,and American Attitudes Towards China

Little is known about how the political orientations and party affiliations of ordinary Americans impact their perceptions of China. Based on our surveys, we find that partisanship does indeed impact American views of China. Self-reported “conservatives” perceive significantly greater threat in China’s rise, hold more negative views of the Chinese government, exhibit more prejudice towards the Chinese people, and advocate a much tougher U.S. China policy than self-reported “liberals” do. Republicans perceive significantly greater threat from China and advocate tougher China policies than Democrats do, but party affiliation has a lesser impact on prejudice scores. Regression analyses reveals that education, gender, and age each has an impact on American views of China, but that impact is negligible compared to partisanship.     

A Dynamic Model of Political Change Among Party Activists

In this article, we develop a dynamic model of aggregate attitudinal change among party activists in order to better understand the process by which new issues/cleavages divide major political parties. We build on existing research by developing a model of change that incorporates both conversion among continuing activists and the replacement of previous activists with newcomers who hold different views. We first explore such change among activists of the two major parties in the United States on the abortion issue. We then consider a number of alternative specifications of the model in order to generalize our findings. We conclude that conversion among continuing activists contributes in a substantial way to aggregate change among party activists by influencing the level of change, accelerating the change process, and sustaining change over time.     

Party Identification,Issue Attitudes,and the Dynamics of Political Debate

This article investigates whether media coverage of elite debate surrounding an issue moderates the relationship between individual‐level partisan identities and issue preferences. We posit that when the news media cover debate among partisan elites on a given issue, citizens update their party identities and issue attitudes. We test this proposition for a quartet of prominent issues debated during the first Clinton term: health care reform, welfare reform, gay rights, and affirmative action. Drawing on data from the Vanderbilt Television News Archives and the 1992‐93‐94‐96 NES panel, we demonstrate that when partisan debate on an important issue receives extensive media coverage, partisanship systematically affects—and is affected by—issue attitudes. When the issue is not being contested, dynamic updating between party ties and issue attitudes ceases.     

Causal Complexity and Party Preference

Abstract.  Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) overlaps logistic regression in explaining events, but challenges the latter's lack of accounting for causal complexity. QCA has only to a limited degree been applied to large-N studies or individuals as cases and has not incorporated the logic of probability. QCA and logistic regression are compared with respect to logic, procedure and outcome. Political orientations from five national surveys are adapted to the requirements of the two methods. The methods are demonstrated on explanations of individuals' party preferences. QCA and logistic regression converge and overlap in identifying degrees of causal complexity, in ascertaining model significance and in identifying antecedents to party preference. Results differ in degree, not in kind. A slightly more nuanced picture emerges using the QCA approach, whereas logistic regression delivers greater parsimony. Choice of method(s) is not arbitrary. QCA can easily be used on any large-N research problem. It should apply probability when appropriate.     

Shades of Privilege: The Relationship Between Skin Color and Political Attitudes Among White Americans

Shifting racial dynamics in the U.S. have heightened the salience of White racial identity, and a sense that Whites’ social status and resources are no longer secure. At the same time, the growing size of non-White populations has also renewed attention to skin color-based stratification and the potential blurring of racial boundaries. We theorize that Whites with darker skin will be motivated to protect the boundaries of Whiteness due to the loss of status they would face from blurring racial boundaries. Consistent with growing evidence of skin color’s importance for Whites, we demonstrate that darker-skinned Whites—measured via a light-reflectance spectrophotometer—identify more strongly with their White racial identity and are more likely to hold conservative political views on racialized issues than lighter-skinned Whites. Together, these findings offer new insights into the evolving meaning of race and color in American politics.

     

Risk Attitudes and Political Participation

This article contributes to existing explanations of political participation by proposing that citizens’ attitudes towards risk predict participation. I argue that people who are risk accepting participate in political life because politics offers novelty and excitement. Analyses of two independent Internet surveys establish a positive, significant relationship between risk attitudes and general political participation. The analyses also suggest that the relationship between risk attitudes and action varies with the political act: people who are more risk accepting are more likely to participate in general political acts, but they are no more or less likely to turn out in elections. Further analyses suggest that two key mechanisms—novelty seeking and excitement seeking—underlie the relationship between risk attitudes and political participation.     

Political Involvement and the Development of Political Attitudes

Political socialization research so far has focused primarily on the direction of attitudes among children and youngsters. The preconditions for the development of political attitudes among these age groups have been neglected. In theoretical discussions cognitive development has been offered as a major prerequisite. In the article it is posited that political involvement is a second major prerequisite.
The effects of political involvement are examined with respect to four aspects of political attitudes among Danish school children: the ability to express attitudes, the correlation between indicators of a particular attitude, the stability of attitudes, and the correlation between different attitudes. Except for the stability of attitudes, results are clear. Political involvement is related to the formation of attitudes. The effect of political involvement is stronger than the effect of any of the traditional socio-economic variables ordinarily considered in socialization research.     

The Political Economy: Political Attitudes and Economic Behavior

It has long been recognized that voters bring their political behaviors in line with economic assessments. Recent work, however, suggests that citizens also engage in economic behaviors that align with their confidence—or lack thereof—in the political system. This alignment can happen consciously or, as we suggest, unconsciously, in the same way that positivity carries over to other behaviors on a micro-level. Using monthly time series data from 1978 to 2008, we contribute further evidence of this relationship by demonstrating that political confidence affects consumer behavior at the aggregate level over time. Our analyses employ measures more closely tied to the theoretical concepts of interest while simultaneously accounting for the complex relationships between subjective and objective economic indicators, economic behavior, political attitudes, and the media. Our results suggest that approval of the president not only increases the electorate’s willingness to spend money, but also affects the volatility of this spending. These findings suggest that the economy is influenced by politics beyond elections, and gives the “Chief Economist” another avenue by which they can affect the behavior of the electorate.     

The Swedish Constitution and Social Democratic Power: Measuring the Mechanical Effect of a Political Institution

Recent discussions of Swedish political change have focused on the decline of Social Democratic 'hegemony' and on the end of the 'Swedish model'. In contrast to preference– or interest –driven explanations for these developments, this paper investigates the impact of constitutional changes made in 1969 in Sweden, which included the elimination of the Upper House or First Chamber of the Swedish parliament and the introduction of a more directly proportional electoral system. Using a simulation model, the actual electoral results from 1969 through 1994 were plugged into the formulas set forth by the old constitutional rules, in order to generate the number of parliamentary seats each party would have received under the old system. This simulation shows that the Social Democratic Party would have received a significantly larger share of parliamentary seats under the old constitutional rules than under the current constitution. Thus one can conclude that the new constitution decreased Social Democratic power in Sweden.     

The Preference Puzzle: Educational Differences in Racial-Political Attitudes

Education leads to racial liberalism in a great many instances. In this piece, I show that better educated whites are more racially liberal than less educated whites on issues involving minority preferences, with one notable exception. Better educated whites are significantly more opposed to affirmative action in university admissions than less educated whites. This is a puzzle, and my resolution of it is informed by group conflict theory and how university preferences evoke the group interests of better educated whites as they approach the issue. Additionally, I show that the group interests of less educated whites also are engaged by the issue. In the context of the survey I study, the class orientations of the less educated are roused, and, I argue, lower status individuals are encouraged to view university preferences as an opportunity to share the burden of affirmative action, contributing to the puzzling reversal in the relationship of education and racial-political attitudes.     

Theoretical Perspectives in Analyzing Ideological Change and Persistence: The Case of Swedish Social Democratic Party Ideology*

This article deals with analytical approaches to the problem of change and persistence in party ideologies. After examining a number of theoretical perspectives, the article suggests an additional approach and argues that one of its major advantages is that it offers a possibility to combine significant features of several existing perspectives. The proposed approach focuses on the functions of party ideology. The thesis here is that the development of an ideology is shaped by its functions. Contrary to numerous writers who view ideological functions in dichotomous terms, I argue that the functions of ideology are multiple. The possible functions of party ideology are outlined, and a distinction is introduced between the intellectual and tactical functions of ideology. The article then comments on how tactical functions contribute to ideological change and persistence by examining the case of Swedish Social Democratic ideology.     

The Feminisation of the Conservative Parliamentary Party: Party Members' Attitudes

Under David Cameron's leadership reforms have been made to the Conservative party's parliamentary selection procedures and distinct women's policy initiatives have been developed. This article, based on focus group data with party members, explores attitudes towards measures designed to recruit more women Conservative MPs. Broadly, we find that, despite widespread support for the principle of greater social diversity among PPCs, members are uncomfortable with the specific measures that have been introduced. This is largely on the grounds that anything approaching 'positive discrimination' should be eschewed in favour of the 'meritocratic' selection of candidates. Further, the members tend to resent central party 'interference' in what has traditionally been the domain of local Constituency Associations.     

Party Identification and Core Political Values

Party identification and core political values are central elements in the political belief systems of ordinary citizens. Are these predispositions related to one another? Does party identification influence core political values or are partisan identities grounded in such values? This article draws upon theoretical works on partisan information processing and value‐based reasoning to derive competing hypotheses about whether partisanship shapes political values or political values shape partisanship. The hypotheses are tested by using structural equation modeling techniques to estimate dynamic models of attitude stability and constraint with data from the 1992–94–96 National Election Study panel survey. The analyses reveal that partisan identities are more stable than the principles of equal opportunity, limited government, traditional family values, and moral tolerance; party identification constrains equal opportunity, limited government, and moral tolerance; and these political values do not constrain party identification.     

从政党与公民社会的关系看当代西方政党的发展趋势

当代西方国家基本上完成了国家和社会的分离,形成了较为成熟的公民社会。①在此背景下,从政党和公民社会的关系的视角来研究当代西方政党的发展趋势。共分为三个部分,在第一部分,简要地阐述了西方政党与公民社会的历史关系;在第二部分,主要论述了当代西方政党和公民社会的关系;第三部分,对当代西方政党的发展趋势进行了简单的探讨。     

Models Among the Political Theorists

Political theorists rely on models in ways that typically are neglected. They do so for largely the same reasons other political scientists do. Those reasons have little to do with the standard rationale political scientists advance, namely, that they use models to deduce predictions that, treated as hypotheses, can be tested against the “real world.” Starting from Thomas Schelling's view of models, I show how John Rawls and Michel Foucault each rely on a model in ways that conform to his characterization. I then draw a comparison between Isaiah Berlin and Kenneth Arrow to illuminate the value of formalization. I conclude by sketching a view of models not as devices for making predictions but as tools for conceptual exploration. On that basis, I argue that the standard rationale turns out to be deeply problematic.     

论“政权党”——以当代俄罗斯和中华民国初年政党政治为例

本文详细考察了当代俄罗斯和中华民国初年的政党政治和政治制度,认为二者都是以政权党为显著特征的政党政治,表现出总统重视政党的作用,善于利用政权党来巩固政治地位但又超越政权党,具有不受任何党派约束的巨大权威;政权党虽然能得到总统的支持,但是无法成为执政党,因而表现出既支持政府又批评政府,既与政府合作又与政府斗争的特征。由此得出结论,政权党是一种在政党与政权关系问题上相对于执政党、在野党之外的又一政党类型,有其特定的历史文化基础。