Paradox in Political Participation and Economic Development—A Study of Congressional Voting in Urban China in 1993 and 2002

This paper is interested in the decline of congressional voting in urban China. Classic studies in comparative politics long argue that with economic development, countries would experience increased level of political participation. Employing the 1993 Social Mobility and Social Change Survey and 2002 Asian Barometer Survey, I found congressional voting in urban China declined substantially in the past decade. With the analyses of the Probit Model and Generalized Linear Model, I contributed this decline to the disappearance of sociopolitical institutions that used to serve critical conduits for citizens’ participation. I argue that although economic development produces more resources to encourage participation, overall political participation actually declines in urban China and the public opts to withdraw from politics.

Race,Partisanship, and Political Trust Following <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bush versus Gore</Emphasis> (2000)

In contrast to what we know about the sources of political trust among whites, recent research suggests that political mistrust among blacks indicates discontent with the political system. The current study adds to research investigating racial differences in political trust by examining racial differences in the influence of the 2000 United States presidential election on political trust. Specifically, I test for whether whites and blacks adjusted their trust in government in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush versus Gore (2000) and whether the influence of the Court’s decision on trust was dependent on partisan identification. The findings indicate that blacks perceived the Court’s decision as illegitimate, reinforcing their mistrust in their political system.

Western Political Research Approaches and the Development of Political Science Methodology in China

The restoration and development of political science as a discipline in China since 1980 benefits from its methodological improvements that were made largely by introducing research approaches from western academia. The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of the introduction based on articles published in Chinese academic journals since 1990. There exists a wide diversity in research approaches in political science, and the authors try to explain why each approach has a different impact on Chinese political studies and how the introduction of such knowledge has changed the way Chinese political researchers understand the methodology and political science as a discipline.

Public Opinion and Collective Obligations

This article attempts to identify the general principles that underlie public reasoning about collective obligations and that help explain when political parties can create new obligations or defend existing ones. I use these principles to President Clinton’s unsuccessful attempt to create government health-care plan and attempts by President Bush to privatize Social Security. The success of a party in selling – or defeating – an obligation depends upon what people believe about the competence and capacity of government and the value of autonomy – choices made by each citizen; whether people perceive the obligation as providing floors or establishing ceilings by limiting choice or otherwise restricting opportunities for the better-off; and whether the program is more like insurance or more like welfare. A party’s ability to maintain credibility with voters also depends upon whether party leaders can suppress issues that threaten intra-party elite pacts. When attempts to suppress “taboo” issues like “stem cells” or “black crime” fail, the party loses credibility with its voters and attempts to defend or sell obligations fail.

Intolerance Toward Gays and Lesbians in Poland

The protection of rights of freedom of speech and assembly for gays and lesbians in Poland has come under greater international scrutiny because of the mismanagement of peaceful demonstrations throughout Poland in 2005. An overview and context of the political, economic, and social transformation of Poland in the 1990s shows a flourish of activity among gays and lesbians as the economic and political spheres open, as well as weaker law enforcement during the rapid change to capitalism and democracy. Although society has opened dramatically and tolerance has grown recently, the concept of protecting minority rights for gays and lesbians in Poland continues to be weak in public opinion, laws, and the top sources of opinion.

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Investigating the Roots of Civic Morality: Trust, Social Capital, and Institutional Performance

In the last decade considerable research in social sciences has focused on interpersonal trust, treating it as a remedy for most maladies modern democracies suffer from. Yet, if others act dishonestly, trust is turned into gullibility, thus mechanisms linking interpersonal trust with institutional success refer implicitly to honesty and civic morality. This paper investigates the roots of civic morality. It applies hierarchical models to data from 38 countries, and tests the individual, community and structural explanatory factors. The results of the analysis point to the relevance of an institutional dimension, both in the form of individuals’ perceptions as well as the quality of governance: confidence in political institutions and their objective quality are the strongest predictors of civic morality. At the same time, the findings show that the recently popular claims about the importance of social capital for citizens’ moral standards are largely unfounded.

The Weakness of Our Political Parties

Whatever else the 2008 presidential election may result in, we can be sure that it will only contribute further to the steadily declining role of political parties in American politics, and the myriad negative consequences arising from that decline.

Does Workplace Experience Enhance Political Participation? A Critical Test of a Venerable Hypothesis

Several schools of thought claim that citizens can develop their democratic skills at the workplace. Here I focus on the hypothesis put forward by Carole Pateman and by Sidney Verba and colleagues that state that by practicing civic skills and democratic decision-making at the workplace, citizens become more active in politics. I test the hypothesis with a nationally representative panel survey of the Swedish population. My findings contradict previous empirical research as no impact on political participation was discovered. I argue that the effects may have been overestimated in prior studies because the tests were based on cross-sectional data: insufficient care was taken with a number of significant methodological problems. The study points to the importance of using panel models when investigating the causes of political participation.

Antwort auf die Replik von Marc Bühlmann,Wolfgang Merkel,Lisa Müller und Bernhard Weßels zum Forumsbeitrag von Thomas Müller und Susanne Pickel

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Wie lässt sich Demokratie am besten messen? Zum Forumsbeitrag von Thomas Müller und Susanne Pickel

Ohne Zusammenfassung * Die vier Autor(inn)en arbeiten in einem gemeinsamen Forschungsprojekt des NCCR Democracy (vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds finanziertes National Centre of Competence in Research: Challenges to Democracy in the 21^st Century) und des WZB an einem „Demokratiebarometer“ für die 30 OECD-Staaten, das die Ignoranz der 0-Varianz bei Polity und Freedom House aufkl?ren will.

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Challenging Privatization: A Conceptual and Theoretical Argument

This is the second of a three-part polemic against the destruction of state owned enterprises in China (the first, “Against Privatization: A Historical and Empirical Argument”, is published in JCPS 13:1, 2008). It critically examines the ideology of privatization and argues for alternative guidelines of reform. The central contention is that a healthy market economy does not require domination of private property; rather it relies on apposite political-legal-ideological power and regulatory-monitoring regimes of accumulation and distribution socially legitimated within a given public culture. Rejecting the fallacies of ownership determinism and precision requirement on property rights for morality and efficiency, this essay clarifies distinction between the notion of exclusive properties and the vision of their socialized utility and management. Justifications for reforming state and private sectors alike in accordance with a unifying commons of social defense and feasibilities of innovative reform measures and policy proposals in that direction, will be elaborated in a third essay titled “Overcoming Privatization: A Strategic and Institutional Argument”.

Efficacy,Emotions and the Habit of Participation

Political behavior is triggered by the presence of a variety of material and cognitive resources, including political efficacy. The dominant view conceptualizes efficacy as capital, used to overcome obstacles to participation. Our theory suggests that unlike other resources, efficacy aids in the development of habitual participation by activating a particular negative emotion, anger. Using the 1990–1992 NES Panel, we find that internal efficacy boosts participation in part by facilitating anger, but not fear, in response to policy threats. This partial mediating effect operates primarily among younger citizens who are in the process of developing the habit of participation. External efficacy, because it is not self-referential, is not causally linked to participation via emotions. Finally, internal efficacy is enhanced by successful participation in politics, closing a feedback loop that helps explain participatory habits.

European Professors as Public Intellectuals

Historically, European economists, compared to their American counterpart, were more involved in public discussions of policy. In this paper it is argued that this has likely changed. The chief reasons seem to involve the European imitation of the academic ethos that is more prevalent in America. Features of this academic ethos include a more formalist orientation in graduate programs and an academic incentive system wherein professional journal publication is paramount and public discourse is relatively devalued. I suggest there is an inescapable ideological dilemma in addressing the costs and benefits of professors’ neglect of public discourse. The ideological character of academics compared with our own political sensibilities affect whether we want academics to influence public discourse or not. I use the history of academics as public intellectuals in Sweden to substantiate the change, and I use new data on Swedish social science academics to see whether those who participate in public discourse tend to have certain political and social views.

Public Intellectuals as Media Critics

In the 1940s, leading public intellectuals established a commission to reform the American press. Many of them initially favored heavy regulation of newspapers and other media. Though the men failed to change the press, their report lives on in schools of journalism.

No Future Without (Personal) Forgiveness: Reexamining the Role of Forgiveness in Transitional Justice

This article discusses the political possibilities of personal forgiveness in transitional justice. Personal forgiveness is extended by a single human victim who has been harmed by a wrongdoer. The victim forgives only that harm which has been done to him or to her. Personal forgiveness is distinguishable from three other forms of forgiveness: group forgiveness, legal forgiveness (a form of group forgiveness), and political forgiveness. In the context of transitional justice, I argue that: (1) personal forgiveness is a necessary condition for political forgiveness; (2) group forgiveness (including legal forgiveness), while not without a normative function, cannot effectuate either personal or political forgiveness, and (3) personal forgiveness requires a shared narrative framework to lead to political forgiveness. These assertions lead to two further observations. First, because the state has a normative role in its (limited) capacity to forgive on its own behalf and a practical role in its ability to spread and to transmit a shared narrative framework, the state is an important actor in political forgiveness. Second, because the primary historical example of political forgiveness in transitional justice is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that unfolded within an explicitly Christian theological framework, it may be that the shared narrative framework need be religious or even Christian in nature.

Economic Sanctions and Political Repression: Assessing the Impact of Coercive Diplomacy on Political Freedoms

This article offers a thorough analysis of the unintended impact economic sanctions have on political repression—referred to in this study as the level of the government respect for democratic freedoms and human rights. We argue that economic coercion is a counterproductive policy tool that reduces the level of political freedoms in sanctioned countries. Instead of coercing the sanctioned regime into reforming itself, sanctions inadvertently enhance the regime’s coercive capacity and create incentives for the regime’s leadership to commit political repression. Cross-national time series data support our argument, confirming that the continued use of economic sanctions (even when aimed at promoting political liberalization and respect for human rights) will increase the level of political repression. These findings suggest that both scholars and policy makers should pay more attention to the externalities caused by economic coercion.

Western Political Science Theories and the Development of Political Theories in China

This article outlines the recent development of Chinese political studies spawned by the transformation of Chinese politics in the post-Mao era, with its focus mainly on contributions from the Chinese scholarship. After a close examination of the applicability of the western theories on the transforming politics in China, it reviews the indigenous methodologies, the theorizations on the Chinese Communist Party, the state-society relationship analysis, and research on the central-local relationship. Referring to the original works in different periods, the article generally portrays the indigenous contributions of the Chinese academia, and illustrates the essential connections between real politics and theoretical progress.

Priming Presidential Approval: The Conditionality of Issue Effects

Variations in the effectiveness of media priming are traditionally attributed to individual differences in political sophistication and news exposure. We contribute to this literature by considering the degree to which the content of an issue prime drives its use in presidential approval. Using a macro level approach, we combine public opinion data on presidential approval from 1981 to 2000 with content analyses of presidential news coverage to see how media attention affects the way issues are weighted in presidential approval. We find that the effectiveness of issue primes depends on issue content, such that familiar and understandable issues are more likely to be primed than more complex and difficult issues.

The Gender Gap in Ideology

Over the past few decades, a gender gap has emerged in the mass public in ideological self-placement. While most men and women moved in the conservative direction, another segment of women retained their liberal self-identifications. A gender gap also exists in how men and women define their ideology. Which issues are linked to ideological identities is conditioned by gender and time period. Finally, ideological identities are structure by nonpolitical values as well as political issues. Religiosity and religious beliefs have come to increasingly shape Americans’ ideological identities, with some differences across the two sexes.

Issue Framing and Engagement: Rhetorical Strategy in Public Policy Debates

Conventional wisdom and scholarly research indicate that to win a policy debate political actors should frame the issue strategically—that is, selectively highlight considerations that mobilize public opinion behind their policy position. Engaging the opponent in a dialogue (i.e., focusing on the same considerations) is portrayed as a suboptimal strategy because political actors forfeit the ability to structure the debate. Using over 40 public opinion polls and a detailed content analysis of news stories, I examine the use of framing and engagement strategies during the 1993–94 debate over health care reform. The analysis shows that engagement was more effective at increasing support for reform than framing. This study is the first to document the role of engagement in a policy debate, and it extends work showing that this strategy is more common in election campaigns than scholars once suspected.