Direction Versus Proximity in the Social Influence Process

Rabinowitz and Macdonald (Am Polit Sci Rev 83(1):93–121, 1989) have advanced a directional theory of electoral choice that stands as an alternative to the proximity models that have dominated thinking in this area for a number of years. In this paper, we assess the utility of directional theory in another area of political behavior: the evaluation and influence of politically significant others in an individual’s social environment. Using two datasets collected during presidential election campaigns in 1984 and 1996, we find that respondents are more likely to evaluate their political discussants highly and be influenced by discussant vote choice if they agree in a directional rather than proximity manner. In looking at agreement on party identification, ideology, and issue positions, the directional model prevailed in 11 of 17 estimations, with neither explanation acquiring empirical support in the other six. In no instance did the proximity model prevail as an explanation of how political discussants relate to each other. We conclude by discussing the consequences of these results for political behavior and practical electoral politics.

Source Cues, Partisan Identities, and Political Value Expression

This article examines the conditions under which partisan identities shape the positions people express on four political values: equal opportunity, self-reliance, moral traditionalism, and moral tolerance. The theoretical framework posits that (1) party source cues activate latent partisan biases in the minds of citizens, which in turn affect the degree to which individuals express support for these values; (2) out-party cues are more powerful motivators of value expression than in-party cues; (3) value shifts are more pronounced when liberal-conservative identities reinforce partisan sentiments; and (4) partisan cues promote horizontal constraint among these values. These hypotheses are tested using data from a set of experiments appearing on a novel national survey. The empirical results generally support these theoretical expectations.     

Shoemaker on Sentiments and Quality of Will

In this comment, I raise a number of concerns about David Shoemaker’s adoption of the quality of will approach in his recent book, Responsibility from the Margins. I am not sure that the quality of will approach is given an adequate grounding that defends it against alternative models of moral responsibility; and it is unclear what the argument is for Shoemaker’s tripartite version of the quality of will approach. One possibility that might fit with Shoemaker’s text is that the tripartite model is meant to be grounded in empirical claims about the structure of encapsulated emotions; but I argue that those empirical claims are not made out, and that regardless it is doubtful whether this is the most helpful model of the emotions to deploy in this context. In contrast, I propose that the quality of will approach is better defended in ethical terms, by reference to the vision of the value of living together as equals (in some sense) that is embodied in P.F. Strawson’s picture of the engaged attitude, and the emotions involved in it.     

Who loves input controls? What happened to “outputs not inputs” in UK Public Financial Management,and why?

Why do frequently criticized input controls survive in the management of public spending while apparently more enlightened output/outcome controls come and go? The question matters, because output/outcome controls are often assumed in public financial management and related literature to lead to superior policy performance as compared with input-focused approaches. We tackle the question by applying qualitative push–pull analysis to compare one key type of input controls (administration cost [AC] controls) with one much-discussed form of output/outcome controls (performance targets linked to spending allocations) in one major country case, the United Kingdom, over two decades. Drawing on documents and in-depth interviews with 120 key political and bureaucratic players, we conclude that bureaucratic inertia at most only partially explains the survival of input AC controls in this case. The push/pull factors associated with the politics of blame and credit made the political players fair-weather output controllers but all-weather input controllers.     

Exploring Personal Political Brands of Iceland’s Parliamentarians

This paper focuses on an under-researched and under-developed typology of political branding and conceptualizes politicians as personal political brands. Further, this study answers explicit calls for more research devoted to exploring the development of intended brand identity particularly from a brand creator perspective. Members of Parliament from the Republic of Iceland contextualizes this study. This qualitative case-study approach reveals how personal political brands create, construct and communicate their identity. Personal political brand identities were established and managed via a clear brand mantra and offline-online communication tools, which in turn revealed a degree of alignment with their party-political brand. However, this paper also demonstrates the challenges of managing the identities of personal political brands in terms of authenticity and integration particularly with coalition partners. Our paper builds on the six-staged analytical process of personal branding and proposes the Personal Political Brand Identity Appraisal Framework as an operational tool to introspectively evaluate personal political brand identity. This framework can be used by political actors across different settings and contexts to assess personal political brands from multiple perspectives.     

Improving smallholder livestock farmers’ incomes through value chain financing in South Africa

Separating the commercialisation of agriculture from other programmes to improve access to formal credit for smallholder farmers is a source of dramatic failures of most programmes. Despite the popularity of value chain financing, livestock agriculture remains marginalised. This paper analyses the MAFISA-NERPO Livestock Credit Scheme, a scheme which provides value chain financial products in order to improve the cash incomes of smallholder farmers in South Africa. Evidence shows that more than 80% of participating farmers receive average annual incomes of US$30,000. This implies that this scheme has addressed those factors hindering effectiveness and efficiency of smallholder credit institutions, using value chain finance.     

Limitation of presidential terms in Zambia: annotating the judicial interpretation

On 7 December 2018, the Constitutional Court of Zambia delivered a judgment which has sparked controversy in the political arena. The judgement concerns the question of whether Zambia’s incumbent President, Edgar Lungu, is eligible for re-election as President in the general elections slated for 2021. The aim of this article is twofold: (1) to explore the rationale for the limitation of presidential terms in Zambia and (2) to annotate the Court’s judgment in light of that rationale. To achieve this aim, the analysis draws on various sources of literature and legal authorities bearing upon the subject. The analysis reveals that the limitation of presidential terms enjoys strong support among Zambians, and that this is justified by the need to facilitate alternation in the office of President to avert the emergency of autocracy which is associated with excessive concentration of power in the executive. As concerns the judgement at issue, the analysis finds that the Court implicitly declared Lungu eligible to contest the 2021 presidential election thereby allowing him a possibility to be re-elected to the office of President for a third term which, it is argued, undermines the law as understood in its context.     

Predicting Support for Affirmative Action in Educational Admissions

Social Justice Research - The present study examines predictors of support for ethnicity-based affirmative action (AA) in college admissions. There is considerable work focused on predicting...