Candidate and party affective polarization in U.S. presidential elections: The person-negativity bias?

We investigate the degree of affective polarization in presidential election years toward the two major parties and their nominees. Notwithstanding studies which show that individuating information about an out-group member can generate a person-positivity bias, we demonstrate a person-negativity bias directed at out-party candidates at least for some. We motivate and test two hypotheses: first, we expect more sophisticated partisans to display a greater difference in their feelings towards specific candidates compared to evaluations of the parties themselves; second, we anticipate sophisticated partisans will exhibit a person-negativity bias toward out-party candidates and a person-positivity bias toward in-party candidates. The results accentuate the conditional nature of the person-positivity bias and shed light on how political sophistication is linked to affective polarization.     

Ticking all the boxes? A comparative study of social sorting and affective polarization

This study explores whether, in societies around the world, affective polarization – or animosity between citizens based on their political allegiance – is stronger if political divisions align with non-political ones. Such ‘social sorting’ has earlier been established to foster affective polarization in the United States. In this study, I argue that the underlying mechanism travels across the globe. I then present two complementary studies which confirm this hypothesis. First, I employ CSES data to predict the level of affective polarization by social sorting at 119 elections in 40 countries, showing that greater alignment of partisan divisions with non-political divisions in a society (along the lines of income, education, religion and region) is associated with stronger dislike towards political outgroups. Second, using Dutch panel data, I show that individuals who fit the socio-demographic ‘profile’ of their party better tend to be more affectively polarized. This has important implications for our understanding of affective polarization.     

Political polarization,voting and democratic representativeness: Too much or too little?

This contribution evaluates the mediating role of different political contexts and levels of democratic consolidation on the effect of party system polarization on ideological vote and discusses how this relationship enhances democratic representativeness. The influence of party system polarization on ideological voting is analyzed in two areas: the voters' competence in identifying parties' ideological positions; and the voters’ tendency to vote for the most ideologically proximate party, which is one of the key features of the spatial theories of voting. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) from 1996 to 2019 and multilevel modelling techniques, the paper compares how those features vary across different types of countries, particularly older and newer democracies, and different regions of the world.     

Political Socialization in Context: The Effect of Political Competition on Youth Voter Turnout

Adolescence is an important time for political development. Researchers have concentrated on the family as the sole socializing agent of youths; however, as Campbell, Gimpel, and others have shown, political contexts also matter for young citizens. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Record of American Democracy, and election outcomes data, I find that adolescents who resided in politically competitive locales or states have higher turnout years later compared to those who lived in uncompetitive contexts. These effects are not mediated by the home political environment and act through political socialization. This research adds to a growing literature on the influence of political contexts on political behavior and is the first to explore how political competition during adolescence influences voter turnout in young adulthood.

科学发展观指导下的大学生思想政治教育方法创新

2004年10月,中共中央国务院发出《关于进一步加强和改进思想政治教育的意见》,强调指出,大学生是十分宝贵的人才资源,是民族的希望,是祖国的未来。加强和改进大学生思想政治教育,提高他们的思想政冶素质,探索大学生思想政治教育的方法,把他们培养成中国特色社会主义事业的建设者和接班人,加快推进社会主义现代化的宏伟目标,确保中国特色社会主义事业兴旺发达,具有重大而深远的战略意义。     

论高校学生思想政治教育中的“二元对立”及其超越

思想政治教育是促进高校学生全面发展的重要途径。在当代,随着中国社会转型期的到来,高校学生思想政治教育所处的环境发生了很大的变化,其中,有机遇也有挑战。直面高校学生思想政治教育中的困境、剖析背后的原因并在原有基础上实现超越,对于增进高校学生思想政治教育发展,增强高校学生思想政治教育的针对性、实效性有重大意义。     

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.

Explaining Turnout Decline in Britain, 1964–2005: Party Identification and the Political Context

Turnout decline in Britain is greater than it first appears since changes in the social composition of the electorate have had a positive impact on turnout. This paper finds that whereas a weakening in the strength of party identification is associated with the long-term decline, the political context influences short-term variation. Partisan dealignment is also changing the dynamics of the determinants of turnout. Since non-identifiers are more strongly influenced by the political context than strong identifiers, and there are now more non-identifiers than previously, the political context is becoming a more important factor in determining whether people vote or not.

Leave and Remain voters’ knowledge of the EU after the referendum of 2016

Since the UK's vote to leave the European Union, there has been considerable debate about whether voters (particularly Leave voters) were well-informed prior to making their decisions. We gave a 15-item EU knowledge quiz to a large, nationally representative sample of the British population via an online survey. Our quiz included nine ‘ideologically neutral’ items, as well as six items that we deemed more ‘ideologically convenient’ for one side or the other. Overall, there was no average difference between Leave voters and Remain voters (either before or after controlling for covariates), despite the fact that Remain voters scored slightly higher on a short test of probability reasoning. In addition, both Leave and Remain voters were more likely to answer correctly on items that were ‘ideologically convenient’ for them. Consistent with the previous literature, older age, male gender, higher education, and stronger political interest were all significant predictors of EU knowledge. Interestingly however, these variables only predicted knowledge on the nine ‘ideologically neutral’ items; their associations with knowledge on the six ‘ideologically convenient’ items were generally weak and non-significant.     

医学院校“思政”课教师在案例教学中的评讲

案例教学是医学院校思想政治理论课(以下简称"思政"课)教学的一种现代教育理念的有效教学方法,它能有效提高"思政"课的针对性、实效性和吸引力。在教学活动中"思政"课教师应结合医学生特点,精选案例、巧设问题。通过医学生思考、讨论和交流,教师引导、讲述和评论等方式,来提高其学习"思政"课的兴趣和教学效果。     

Valence beyond consensus: Party competence and policy dispersion from a comparative perspective

Part of the growing literature on valence politics interprets the electoral impact of party competence perceptions as resulting from consensus over ideological positions in contemporary societies. The relationship between valence politics and consensus, however, is usually based on either disputable theoretical assumptions or on single-country analyses. In this paper I empirically test the assumptions linking valence politics and policy consensus in a comparative perspective across 21 political systems. The results show no evidence that valence is associated with consensus, and some evidence that the electoral effect of valence is correlated with certain forms of policy dispersion, such as ideological party polarisation. The implication that perceptions of party competence are significantly informed by spatial-based considerations is discussed.