Analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation

Political participation researchers have developed several evaluative techniques to assess the representativeness of political participation patterns. Yet, while the Internet has become a mainstream avenue for political participation in the United States, current assessments of online participation insufficiently apply these methods. To incorporate these methods we begin by drawing upon resource theory to inform two-stage ordered-logit models of online and offline political participation. Our results suggest that the factors predicting online participation often differ from the factors that predict offline participation. Even so, we find that those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tend to disproportionately possess these distinct online determinants. Next, we use a wide spectrum of political opinion questions to determine whether online participators opinions reflect or distort those of the general population. Overall, we find that online participation tends to relate moderately with liberal preferences. However, because offline participation relates to political attitudes similarly, the Internet only marginally advantages the political voice of liberals. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results.     

Representation,agendas and institutions

Dynamic agenda representation can be understood through the transmission of the priorities of the public onto the policy priorities of government. The pattern of representation in policy agendas is mediated through institutions due to friction (i.e., organisational and cognitive costs imposed on change) in decision making and variation in the scarcity of policy makers' attention. This article builds on extant studies of the correspondence between public priorities and the policy activities of government, undertaking time‐series analyses using data for the United States and the United Kingdom, from 1951 to 2003, relating to executive speeches, laws and budgets in combination with data on public opinion about the ‘most important problem’. The results show that the responsiveness of policy agendas to public priorities is greater when institutions are subject to less friction (i.e., executive speeches subject to few formal rules and involving a limited number of actors) and declines as friction against policy change increases (i.e., laws and budgets subject to a greater number of veto points and political interests/coalitions).     

Focus Group Follies?

Abstract

Media coverage of the contemporary British Labour party routinely suggests party leaders, notably Tony Blair, have been overly reliant on using focus group as a means of obtaining voter feedback. The paper explores this popular understanding by considering how and when qualitative forms of opinion research began to play a significant role in developing campaign strategy. Following their incorporation into party planning during the mid-1980s, focus groups provided an increasingly influential (and at the time more discreet) source of data and support for the leadership's Policy Review later that decade. Following the 1992 election defeat selective findings from the party's qualitative research programme became integral to the public relations' initiatives of Labour's self-styled “modernisers,” particularly in their largely successful attempt to delegitimise and then marginalise the role of the party's once formidable affiliated union supporters in internal affairs. Crucially this contributed to a climate that enabled the key moderniser Tony Blair to emerge and win the leadership.     

Is anyone listening? Mass and elite opinion cueing in the EU

The paper analyses the connections between elite and mass opinion in the European Union. It considers both the ways in which mass publics use heuristics supplied by political elites to form their EU opinions, and the ways in which political elites respond to the opinions of the mass publics they represent. The paper employs data from simultaneously-conducted elite and mass surveys carried out in sixteen European countries in 2007. The results show that masses and elites in Europe do appear to take cues from one another in forming their EU opinions. Political elites base their individual-level opinions on the average position taken by their respective (national) party supporters. Mass respondents base their opinions on the average position taken by elite members of the (national) party with which they identify.     

Public Opinion and Military Intervention: Afghanistan,Iraq and Libya

Britain has participated in several military interventions of varying duration, extent and political controversy in recent years. This article analyses public opinion towards the most recent intervention in Libya in 2011, looking at three different aspects of the topic. First, it examines differences in cross‐national attitudes towards military action in Libya amongst NATO countries. Secondly, it then looks in detail at which social groups were more or less likely to approve of British involvement, comparing this with group attitudes towards Britain's role in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thirdly, it assesses how public opinion shifted during the course of the action in Libya, looking at three key indicators of the popular mood: whether Britain was right or wrong to take military action; how well the war is going; and assessments of David Cameron's handling of the conflict. Broader reflections are then made about public opinion towards British involvement in future military action.     

Citizens’ Perceptions of Governance in Rural and Urban China

This article presents three main findings from a purposive stratified survey of urban and rural residents. First, Chinese citizens “disaggregate” the state with high levels of satisfaction for Central government that fall dramatically as government gets closer to the people. Satisfaction levels are noticeably lower for those in rural China. Second, attitudes about the way policy is implemented by local governments raise concerns. Irrespective of place of residence, respondents feel that when implementing policy local officials and governments are mainly concerned with their own interests, are more receptive to the views of their superiors rather than those of ordinary people, favor those with money, and are formalistic in implementing policy rather than dealing with actual problems. Third, the areas of work that citizens would really like government to concentrate on are job creation and providing basic guarantees to protect against the shocks of the transition to a market economy. Tony Saich is the Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and Director of the Harvard University Asia Center. His recent research focuses on the development of social policy in China, particularly on the provision of public goods by local governments. His publications include Governance and Politics of China by Palgrave and edited volumes on Financial Sector Reform in China (with Yasheng Huang and Edward Steinfeld) and AIDS and Social Policy in China (with Joan Kaufman and Arthur Kleinman both by Harvard University Asia Center. He would like to thank Edward Cunningham for his great help in preparing this article. He also wants to thank Victor Yuan (Horizon Market Research Company) for his tremendous help in designing the survey and implementing it. In addition, I would like to thank Anita Chan, Martin King Whyte and two anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments on an earlier draft.     

Tony Blair's 'Media' Speech: The Commentators

Tony Blair's speech challenged the media over its standards in his valedictory lecture. Many of his charges about the absence of balance, attacks on motive and a pack mentality stand up, even if some are exaggerated and also applied well before his arrival in 10 Downing Street. Mr Blair's solutions did ot match his critique. What is required is a more self‐questioning media, being held to account on the internet and on specialist blogging sites. Vigorous criticism, requiring justification, is a more credible rout than tighter regulation. Tony Blair's speech on the changing pressures on the media is both interesting and convincing in its diagnosis (although generally reported in ways that did not reveal this). It is less convincing in suggestions for change: the fact that on‐line media will fall under Of‐com, and so under its minimal ‘content regulation’ will have little impact. Effective change could begin with other types of (self or other regulation). Some steps towards change might include minimal requirements for journalists and editors to accept elementary forms of accountability, such as disclosing conflicts of interest and payments made for ‘stories’. The scale of media coverage may be crucial in determining the allocation of aid, yet the attention the media pays to particular causes is arbitrary. Many serious disasters are not reported and as a consequence do not receive adequate aid, so that the victims of the crisis will lose out. Chronic long term problems, like famine, are ignored in favour of ‘sudden emergencies’. Reporting seeks sensation and simple stories which influences the way that aid agencies respond to the media. The complex background to a faraway disaster is often overlooked and not properly reported. Tony Blair's speech describing some of the news media as ‘feral beasts’ contained one paragraph which contained an insight into his views on new media. It was known that the outgoing Prime Minister was uncomfortable with some aspects of new technology but his remarks reveal a wider disappointment with how new media has failed to deliver changes which he had hoped for in political communications.This paper records Mr Blair's problems with new media and argues that by focusing on how the new technologies might provide a better way for politicians to by‐pass the traditional media he has missed the point of their wider benefits.     

Brothers’ Keepers?

Relying on rarely analyzed public opinion data from the 1930s and early 1940s, we take issue with the notion popular in contemporary liberal circles that the New Deal era represented a period of expansive commitment to the security and well-being of the poor and politically disenfranchised. At least where the public is concerned—as opposed to the progressive policy makers in the Roosevelt administration—the jobless were regarded with suspicion, immigrants should be forced to “go home,” women belong in the kitchen not on the shop floor. The harsher the economic conditions (by state), the more conservative were the public attitudes. Hence New Deal legislative victories accrued despite rather than because of public support.

Public Opinion and Collective Obligations

This article attempts to identify the general principles that underlie public reasoning about collective obligations and that help explain when political parties can create new obligations or defend existing ones. I use these principles to President Clinton’s unsuccessful attempt to create government health-care plan and attempts by President Bush to privatize Social Security. The success of a party in selling – or defeating – an obligation depends upon what people believe about the competence and capacity of government and the value of autonomy – choices made by each citizen; whether people perceive the obligation as providing floors or establishing ceilings by limiting choice or otherwise restricting opportunities for the better-off; and whether the program is more like insurance or more like welfare. A party’s ability to maintain credibility with voters also depends upon whether party leaders can suppress issues that threaten intra-party elite pacts. When attempts to suppress “taboo” issues like “stem cells” or “black crime” fail, the party loses credibility with its voters and attempts to defend or sell obligations fail.

Preferences,Knowledge, and Citizen Probability Assessments of the Terrorism Risk of Nuclear Power

How does the American public assess risk when it comes to national security issues? This paper addresses this question by analyzing variation in citizen probability assessments of the terrorism risk of nuclear power plants. Drawing on the literature on how motivated reasoning, selective information processing, and domain‐specific knowledge influence public opinion, we argue that heterogeneous issue preferences and knowledge of nuclear energy and homeland security have important explanatory power. Using original data from a unique 2009 national survey in the United States, we show that Americans are divided in their probability assessments of the terrorism risk of nuclear power plants. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, individuals who support using nuclear power to meet rising energy demands, who are generally less concerned with terrorism, or who are more knowledgeable about terrorism and nuclear security tend to provide lower assessments of the likelihood that nuclear power plants increase terrorist attacks, and vice versa. The findings have implications for the literature on public opinion, risk assessment, energy policy and planning, and homeland security.