Let’s Intervene! But Only If They’re Like Us: The Effects of Group Dynamics and Emotion on the Willingness to Support Humanitarian Intervention

International relations (IR) studies on humanitarian intervention have debated both the nature and strength of intervention norms. This article contributes to this debate by exploring under what conditions individuals are willing to support military humanitarian intervention (MHI) and the psychological factors that influence whether, and the degree to which individuals support MHI. Taking a psychological approach, we hypothesized that individuals’ decision to support MHI is influenced by in-group favoritism and emotional responses to in-group suffering. We tested our theory with two experiments, each of which recruited roughly 200 American participants. Both experiments centered on the ongoing Syrian civil war and assessed Americans’ willingness to support intervention to protect different civilian groups. The results suggested that support for intervention was widespread, but not a majority view in most cases. The findings also suggested that participants exhibited slightly higher rates of support for intervention when those suffering were Christian, as opposed to Muslim. Furthermore, we found that the dynamics of support for intervention changed when chemical weapons were introduced into the scenario, which reframed the the crisis as a national security issue. Overall, our results suggest that individuals’ decisions to act upon norms can be influenced by the context of a crisis and individual level psychological factors, which have been under explored in IR scholarship on norms.     

Advances and Opportunities in the Study of Political Communication,Foreign Policy,and Public Opinion

We review contemporary research at the intersection of political communication and foreign policy, highlighting four themes: 1) new, more realistic and psychologically-nuanced approaches that account for limited information and issue framing; 2) the question of whether the flow of communication between the state and the public is best conceived as a closed system, or one that is open to outside influences such as foreign elites; 3) how variations in political or governmental structures, patterns of media access or ownership, and other institutional factors can alter the relationships between foreign policy and communication processes; and 4) whether or not it is useful to distinguish between foreign and domestic policymaking when analyzing the role of political communication. We also suggest avenues for further research in each section and conclude by summarizing these opportunities for continued theoretical development.     

改革开放三十年中国意识形态建设的历程与媒体的作用

本文重点探讨改革开放30年来我国意识形态建设的历程，从宏观的视角观察我国媒体发生的变化，以及30年来我国媒体和意识形态所面临的挑战，并且就如何进一步发挥媒体的作用，以推进意识形态建设提出若干建议。     

Partisanship,media and the objective economy: Sources of individual-level economic assessments

Economic voting studies have repeatedly shown that voter's assessment of incumbent economic performance is important for the vote decision. However, there is little work explaining how individuals form their economic assessments. Utilizing individual-level data from Turkey, we find that variation in retrospective assessments can actually be predicted by individual income growth rates over the previous year, and the association is stronger for pocketbook assessments. Nonetheless, partisanship and media are important sources of bias, especially for sociotropic assessments. Controlled for partisanship, viewers of pro-government media are more likely to think that the national economy has done better than their own household over the last year, and also more likely to believe that the economy would fare worse if the incumbent is replaced. The findings testify both to the capacity of the individuals to anchor their assessments to personal experience, and to the media's ability to weaken this anchor.     

系统论视野中法律与大众媒体的关系

法律与大众媒体的关系问题是全面推进依法治国背景下重要的理论问题和实践问题,但目前尚未形成有说服力的结论。若过分强调两者的分立可能导致新闻管制或媒体权力滥用,若过于强调两者的融合则可能影响司法公正。在系统论视野下,法律与大众媒体具有同质性,两者分别按照各自的纲要分配自身所特有的符码,各自建构具有不同意义的“事实”及其评价。法律与大众媒体作为独立运作的功能子系统,彼此之间既非分立也非融合,而是存在不可避免的激扰关系,且部分激扰关系被结构化并以“论题”的形式构成“结构耦合”关系。因此,法律只有立足于自身,坚守司法公正并不断实现司法统一,才有可能既保障新闻自由又能抵御大众媒体中各类论题与意见的冲击,才有可能稳定社会成员普遍的规范性行为预期。     

The first one wins: Distilling the primacy effect

Research has shown that in proportional, flexible list systems, ballot list position influences electoral success. In this paper we investigate to what extent this is due to the primacy effect, a psychological bias towards the first option in a list. We also examine alternative explanations such as the electoral beneficial traits these candidates share and extra media coverage they receive. Using data from the 2014 Belgian elections, we find that candidates with higher ballot list positions indeed score better because they have more political experience and receive more media attention. We also find strong evidence for the primacy effect which is caused by a confirmation bias as well as ballot list position being the easiest heuristic for voters.     

读报教育:新时期大学生思想教育手段的探索

首先通过与媒介素养教育的联系与区别、国内外发展现状及对"读报教育"的概念进行阐述,然后描述了当前我国大学生的发展特点与高校思想教育手段存在的问题,进而提出"读报教育"对我国新时期大学生思想教育手段的探索.     

反劫制暴谈判中非警方因素介入的几点思考

在劫持谈判、暴力胁迫谈判案件处置中,非警方因素的介入对事态的发展有着广泛的影响,其中也存在着一些问题。非警方因素特指法律监督、媒体、公众力量、涉案关系人、其他官方力量等。在此,我们也对谈判层级指挥的问题作了一些初探。     

Cyprus: in search of an exit from ambiguity

This paper underlines the relevance of ambiguity theory to understand the persistence of frames of agents and their audience with regard to ‘self,’ ‘other’ and the ‘land’ in a protracted conflict such as Cyprus. It examines the case study of Cyprus from the signing of the Agreements on Cyprus (1959), through the Turkish intervention (1974) and until the Akinci election (2015). The paper shows how peace agreements may impose ways of looking that endure the ups and downs of social adaptation after the signing of peace agreements. These frames go on to constitute archetypes against which other frames are ordered or evaluated. Moreover, the paper shows that despite worthy suggestions to create cross-cutting linkages among the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot communities, coexistence necessitates understanding how groups are likely to frame the available options and respond to ambiguity.