How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

Scholars have reached mixed conclusions about the implications of increased political polarization for citizen decision-making. In this paper, we argue that citizens respond to ideological divergence with heightened affective polarization. Using a survey experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample of U.S. citizens, we find that increased ideological differences between political figures produce increasingly polarized affective evaluations, and that these differences are especially large among respondents with stronger ideological commitments and higher levels of political interest. We provide further support for these findings in an observational study of citizens’ evaluations of the U.S. Senators from their state. We also find that the polarizing effects of ideological differences can be largely mitigated with biographical information about the public officials, which suggests that the pernicious consequences of ideological polarization can be overcome by focusing on matters other than political disagreement.     

Masculine responsibility across generations: living arrangements in a Norwegian parish around 1900

This article researches living arrangements longitudinally on the basis of census materials and church records from around 1900 in a Norwegian parish. We are interested in patterns of obligations and expectations between generations, and to what extent these were related to rules of inheritance practices. We hypothesize that the parity of children co-residing with elderly fathers in the census reflects expectations and attitudes towards filial responsibility. Based on linking the census records of elderly fathers to their fertility history in the church records, the article indicates that traditions in the circumpolar north differed from the usual practice of primogeniture among countries in the Germanic cultural area, including most of Norway. Irrespective of the father’s marital status, the majority of children living with their elderly fathers were sons. One important reason for this is the masculine character of the fisheries, where the transfer of knowledge from father to son was crucial for successful economic results, thus promoting masculine obligations across generations, strong enough to have a significant effect upon living arrangements.     

Grid-Group Theory and Political Orientations: Effects of Cultural Biases in Norway in the 1990s

A number of cultural theories identify, or call for the elaboration of, deeper cultural patterns that both disallow cultural invariance and constrain cultural variation. Grid-group theory identifies four cultures: hierarchy, egalitarianism, individualism and fatalism. This article, which measures grid-group theory's four cultures by means of cultural biases, (1) explores the neglected relationship between sociodemographic correlates and cultural biases, and (2) tests the theory's hypothesized effects of cultural biases, controlled for sociodemographics, on attitudes toward nature, technology and human nature, and on geographical belonging and trust in institutions. The test draws on three independent surveys of the general public in Norway in the 1990s. The empirical results show that cultural biases are significantly explained by sociodemographics, and whereas convergent validity of cultural biases on selected attitudes and beliefs was acceptable, discriminant validity was weaker and more inconsistent.     

'Just War' or Just War? The Future(s) of a Tradition

The greatest virtue of the just war lies in its ability to pass judgement on war (the announced aims) and its conduct (the adopted strategy). But how coherent is this synthesis of ideas that assumes a unity between force, political expediency and morality? Can individual wars be morally assessed, and how useful is the just war in this respect? This article assesses the modern relevance of the tradition before suggesting directions for further research in the light of the recent Kosovo Crisis.     

Iceland

European Journal of Political Research -     

False Profits: Why Product Counterfeiting is Increasing

Product counterfeiting has grown in scope, scale and complexity in the last two decades, and now affects many areas of manufacturing and retailing from clothes and CDs to items such as shampoo and vehicle components. Based on a wide range of interviews in the UK, this article argues that despite recent legislative change and increased criminal penalties for counterfeiters, enforcement is haphazard, resource problems often dictate that no criminal prosecution is undertaken, and actual penalties remain low. Moreover, questions of whether or not a particular item is counterfeit have become greatly complicated by the development of outsourcing and the rise of parallel trading. These points suggest that counterfeiting is likely to grow in the future.     

Knowledge-based management of protected areas and hydropower: the case of Norway

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - How has ecological knowledge been applied in Norwegian management of hydropower and protected areas? By recognizing a diversity...