邓小平防止两极分化思想探析

深化对邓小平防止两极分化思想的理论认识,防止对它进行曲解和割裂,具有十分重大的理论意义和深远的现实意义。收入差距拉大并不直接等同于两极分化;“先富论”已经内在地包含了防止两极分化的思想,将当前贫富差距过大这一严峻的社会问题归咎于邓小平的“先富论”有失公允;社会主义本质论是邓小平反对两极分化思想的集中体现。践行邓小平防止两极分化思想,就要在正视收入差距的基础上,坚定不移地继续深化改革,构筑一个科学合理、公平公正的社会收入分配体系,坚决防止两极分化,让发展的成果惠及全体人民。     

Does Media Coverage of Partisan Polarization Affect Political Attitudes?

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in the partisan polarization of the American electorate. Scholarly investigation of this topic has coincided with the media’s portrayal of a polity deeply divided along partisan lines. Yet little research so far has considered the consequences of the media’s coverage of political polarization. We show that media coverage of polarization increases citizens’ beliefs that the electorate is polarized. Furthermore, the media’s depiction of a polarized electorate causes voters to moderate their own issue positions but increases their dislike of the opposing party. These empirical patterns are consistent with our theoretical argument that polarized exemplars in journalistic coverage serve as anti-cues to media consumers. Our findings have important implications for understanding current and future trends in political polarization.     

Elite Polarization and Public Opinion: How Polarization Is Communicated and Its Effects

Elite polarization has reshaped American politics and is an increasingly salient aspect of news coverage within the United States. As a consequence, a burgeoning body of research attempts to unravel the effects of elite polarization on the mass public. However, we know very little about how polarization is communicated to the public by news media. We report the results of one of the first content analyses to delve into the nature of news coverage of elite polarization. We show that such coverage is predominantly critical of polarization. Moreover, we show that unlike coverage of politics focused on individual politicians, coverage of elite polarization principally frames partisan divisions as rooted in the values of the parties rather than strategic concerns. We build on these novel findings with two survey experiments exploring the influence of these features of polarization news coverage on public attitudes. In our first study, we show that criticism of polarization leads partisans to more positively evaluate the argument offered by their non-preferred party, increases support for bi-partisanship, but ultimately does not change the extent to which partisans follow their party’s policy endorsements. In our second study, we show that Independents report significantly less political interest, trust, and efficacy when polarization is made salient and this is particularly evident when a cause of polarization is mentioned. These studies have important implications for our understanding of the consequences of elite polarization—and how polarization is communicated—for public opinion and political behavior in democratic politics.     

对网络涉警啸聚事件的考证

＂网络游行时代＂,草根阶层在对涉警负面事件表达态度和倾向时,往往自发地啸聚于网络街头,掀起舆论狂潮。受网络技术和公众道德水平的限制和制约,网络草根啸聚游走在＂民意表达＂与＂民意裹胁＂之间,成为影响当今社会的一把＂双刃剑＂。一方面,它有利于社会压力的释放和缓解,有助于社会在动态中保持和谐与平衡;另一方面,它又是社会矛盾激化的刺激因素,极易诱发现实社会中群体性事件的发生。     

Affective polarization and the salience of elections

In this article we analyze the effects of election salience on affective polarization. Campaigns and elections epitomize the moment of maximum political conflict, information spread, mobilization, and activation of political identities and predispositions. We therefore expect that affective polarization will be higher just after an election has taken place. By the same token, as elections lose salience, affective polarization will diminish. We analyze this question using CSES data from 99 post-electoral surveys conducted in 42 countries between 1996 and 2016. Our identification strategy exploits variation in the timing of survey interviews with respect to the election day as an exogenous measure of election salience. The empirical findings indicate that as elections lose salience affective polarization declines. The article further contributes to the debate on the origins of affective polarization by exploring two mechanisms that may account for this relationship: changes in ideological polarization and in the intensity of party identification. Both are relevant mediators, with ideological polarization seemingly playing a more important role.     

Toward Conflict or Compromise? How Violent Metaphors Polarize Partisan Issue Attitudes

We know much about how opinion leaders drive mass partisan polarization with position-taking cues but little on how different message types polarize citizens, and who responds most to those messages attributes. This article contributes new insights by investigating how exposure to common violent metaphors interacts with audience personality traits to polarize partisans on issues. Building from research on conflict orientations, we theorize that aggressive rhetoric primes aggression in aggressive partisans, motivating greater intransigence on party positions. As a consequence, aggressive partisans are pulled further apart on issues, thereby reducing prospects for compromise. We find support for our predictions in two large nationally diverse survey experiments conducted in very different political contexts. Our results demonstrate the subtle power of aggression in public opinion and highlight the important moderating role of individual differences in the communication of partisan conflict.     

Death of Rationality: The Social Networks’ Factor in Policy Response to Ebola

The sociopolitical role of social networks in public decision-making is far from fully understood. Their fast-pace and elusive nature makes the situation fluid and therefore susceptible to rushed theorization. The emerging dominant view is that social networks increase mass political polarization. A new view proposes that social networks increase harmony and tolerance. By examining the role of social networks in the policy response to Ebola in the United States, this paper suggests that social networks play a dual role: increasing polarization around politically divisive issues and promoting tolerance regarding less contentious issues. The paper also expanded the definition of social networks to include online discussions forums. Using the public choice theory and its rational model as a frame of reference, the study focused on six online forums during the peak of Ebola scare, October 2014 through January 2015.     

Exploring differences in affective polarization between the Nordic countries

After a period in which affective polarization—defined here as the difference between positive feelings toward in-parties and negative out-party animus—has mostly focused on the single US case, there has recently been an increase in large-N comparative analyses and single case studies in other countries, including in the Nordic region. This study adds to this by studying and comparing affective polarization in the Nordic countries. In line with what previous comparative and single case studies have already indicated, the results show that affective polarization has tended to be higher in Sweden and Denmark than in Norway, Iceland, and Finland. The article also tracks time trends for the association between ideological distance from parties and affective party evaluations. As expected, placing parties further from oneself on the left-right scale has been more strongly associated with party affect in Denmark and Sweden. Furthermore, the results show that there are some variations between the countries in terms of how distance from parties on other ideological dimensions than left-right placement is associated with out-party affect.     

From political conflict to partisan evaluations: How citizens assess party ideology and competence in polarized elections

Recent comparative electoral research shows that both ideological and competence voting are influenced by the degree of party system polarization. However, while the former association is uncontroversial, investigations on the latter have led to contradicting results. This study takes one step back, arguing that polarization rather affects how voters perceive party ideological positioning and competence. Building on literature linking elite polarization to mass partisanship, the study argues that party identification is a strong moderator of party evaluations in polarized elections. Hypotheses are tested with multilevel logit models on a pooled data set of European Election Studies from 1994 to 2009. Results show that partisans are more likely to view their preferred party as the most competent and ideologically close when the environment is polarized, while there is no such effect for non-partisans.     

Group Polarization and 12 Angry Men

Deliberating groups, including juries, typically end up in a more extreme position in line with their predeliberation tendencies. A jury whose members are inclined, before deliberation, to find a defendant not guilty will likely render a verdict of not guilty; a jury whose members want to award punitive damages will likely produce an award higher than that of the median juror. The phenomenon of group polarization, found in many domains, stems from a combination of information pooling and peer pressure. The events portrayed in the film 12 Angry Men seem to defy the logic of group polarization, but the film nonetheless shows an acute psychological sense.