The Role of Party Activists in the Evolution of the Abortion Issue

This article examines the role of party activists in the partisan evolution of the abortion issue. Previous research indicates that party elites—specifically members of Congress—and partisans in the mass public have become more differentiated in their abortion attitudes during the last several decades with Democrats becoming more pro-choice and Republicans becoming increasingly pro-life. The missing piece of the picture is the behavior of party activists. Accordingly, this research examines the changes in the abortion attitudes of two groups of party activists during the last three decades: campaign activists and national convention delegates. From 1972 to 1980 there were no significant differences in the abortion attitudes of Republican and Democratic campaign activists, and the mean positions of the two parties' national convention delegates did not differ greatly. However, since 1984 there has been a growing differentiation in the abortion positions of both groups of party activists. Now Democratic activists are consistently pro-choice while Republican activists are equally pro-life. This evidence indicates that the differentiation on the abortion issue that has only recently emerged among partisans in the mass public was predated by an earlier and much more dramatic polarization that had already developed among party activists and elites, thus supporting a model of issue evolution introduced by Carmines and Stimson in their study of racial issues. We also find that citizens' abortion attitudes have become increasingly correlated with party voting not just in presidential elections but also in House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests during this period as well as being more closely related to political ideology. All of this evidence points to the growing extent to which abortion has become a partisan issue in American politics and the key role that party activists have played in this process.     

消费立法问题研究

消费者问题是消费者在生活消费需要中,正当需求得不到满足,并且受到提供消费资料和消费服务的经营者损害而发生的社会问题。消费者问题引发的消费者运动是在市场经济条件下,消费者为维护自身权益,改善其社会地位所进行的社会运动,消费者运动推动了消费者保护的立法。     

Issue Importance and Performance Voting

Issue importance mediates the impact of public policy issues on electoral decisions. Individuals who consider that an issue is important are more likely to rely on their attitudes toward that issue when evaluating candidates and deciding for whom to vote. The logic behind the link between issue importance and issue voting should translate to a link between issue importance and performance voting. Incumbent performance evaluations regarding an issue should have a stronger impact on the vote choice of individuals who find that issue important. The analysis demonstrates that there is a significant interaction between performance evaluations and issue importance. People concerned about an issue assign more weight to their evaluations of the government's performance on that issue when making up their mind.     

Passage to cyberactivism: how dynamics of activism change

The boost to activism to which the internet has largely contributed has been underlined by financial and image issues growing from hacker attacks and the online promotion of activist groups. Emergency corporate counteractions with regard to these cyber threats have not analysed this new phenomenon. The state of the research in this area has consistently remained at the period before the development and widespread use of the internet. Cyberactivism, therefore, is a cyber phenomenon without a clear meaning or a clear definition. In order to understand cyberactivism, it is important to understand that it is much more than simply about hacking and activists' online promotion. It is a new phenomenon, growing out of activism but changing the pressure on corporations. With the internet, new dynamics of issue selection have been established and a different aggregation within groups has taken place. A new organisational set‐up among activist groups puts new pressure on corporations, which must develop new strategies concerning online rules. Cyber actions are originated by individuals triggering a spontaneous relationship between many users. The pressure is no longer the result of a long aggregation into association, but of an immediate and spontaneous network of relationships. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

目前国内关于吸毒问题研究的现状综述

通过对近十年来 ( 1 994 - 2 0 0 2 )的文献检索 ,我国目前关于吸毒问题的研究 ,大致有“吸毒人群现状、毒品泛滥原因、毒品的危害性、吸毒的心理社会干预”等 ,能够结合我国禁毒工作的实际需要开展研究 ,起到了积极的提供决策参考和禁毒宣传作用 ;同时也存在重现状原因分析 ,轻心理社会干预研究 ,实证性、理论性研究少 ,研究方法陈旧落后等不足 ,建议毒品问题研究需改进。     

The times they are a-changin’: party campaign strategies in the 2018 Italian election

Abstract

The 2018 Italian election produced striking results, with both a historic success for the two challenger parties (League and M5S) and massive defeats for the two mainstream parties (PD and FI). This article analyses party campaign strategies and their consistency with the opportunity structures provided by the configuration of Italian public opinion. Relying on issue-yield theory, original survey data were collected for both issue support and priority among Italian voters, and party emphases on issues in the electoral campaign – through Twitter data. The findings indicate a generalised ideological inconsistency of the constituencies of the main parties, while campaign strategies appear much more ideologically consistent. Moreover, it is found that parties focused mostly on conflict-mobilisation strategies, rather than on problem solving. Finally, the article shows that, in general, parties acted strategically, by aligning their campaign to the available opportunities, although with relevant variations across parties.     

Deadly foreign terrorism and the rank-ordered tournament for foreign press attention: implications for counterterrorism

Limiting the attention countries receive from the foreign press is thought to reduce the incidence of deadly foreign attacks, but by how much? We show that the incidence of deadly foreign terrorism increases as a nonlinear function of the level of foreign press attention states receive. As a result, the benefits of reducing foreign press attention to prevent deadly foreign terrorist attacks are uneven: some states stand to benefit more than others. Nevertheless, we also show that reducing press attention produces, at best, only minor reductions in the number of deadly foreign terrorist attacks states experience. These results suggest that reducing foreign press attention may not provide as much security as governments expect.     

The House of Lords: The Working of the Electoral Process in the 1999 Act of Parliament

This article investigates the working of the 1999 Act of Parliament in relation to the electoral process. One of the more controversial measures in the 1999 Act was the preservation of the representation of the hereditary element in the House of Lords. In the 2007-2008 session of Parliament, Lord Avebury introduced the House of Lords (Amendment) Bill, to repeal this electoral process, and Lord (David) Steel of Aikwood introduced the House of Lords Bill, which had provisions to the same effect as Lord Avebury's Bill. The working of this electoral process is therefore likely to be a topic of debate in the 2008-2009 session of the House of Lords. We suggest that there are three possible options to deal with the likely future issues for this electoral process. These we present as a contribution to a wider debate on the way forward for this constitutional issue.     

朝日“绑架问题”上的日本外交方针分析

朝日"绑架问题"历经小泉内阁、安倍内阁、福田内阁,已成为朝日邦交正常化的重大悬案之一。针对日益僵化的"绑架问题",小泉内阁以"绑架问题不解决,日朝邦交不会正常化"为基本原则,回避历史问题,企图完全以"对话和压力"的外交方针来解决"绑架问题"。而安倍内阁则继承和"发扬"小泉的上述方针,一味地强调以"压力"来解决"绑架问题"。福田当选日本首相以后,多次表示一揽子解决日朝间的历史问题和"绑架问题"的意愿。     

A Broad Alliance of Civil Society Organizations on Climate Change Mitigation: Political Strength or Legitimizing Support?

One hundred and one very different organizations joined together prior to the election for the Norwegian parliament in 2013 in order to make climate change mitigation the most important issue in the election campaign. The alliance (CE2013) agreed on six political demands relating to mitigation. In this article, we categorize the 101 organizations and discuss their identity and objectives according to these demands. The analysis demonstrates that even though a broad variety of organizations joined the campaign, their commitment was rather weak. Few of the organizations justify their involvement in CE2013 by all six political demands, hence demonstrating that climate change mitigation is a valence issue.