Public perceptions of India’s role as an international development cooperation partner: domestic responses to rising ‘donor’ visibility

The literature on South–South Development Cooperation (ssdc) has grown exponentially in the past few years. One focus of analysis has been how domestic institutions and agendas shape the approaches to development cooperation of different Southern partners. However, few analysts to date have commented on how the ‘ordinary’ general public of these countries might perceive or assess their country’s role in international development. Through a study based on interviews and media analysis, this paper attempts to tease out the slim evidence currently available on ‘public’ attitudes in India, concentrating, for reasons explained, exclusively on elites and ‘middle classes’. It argues that, while some domestic criticism will certainly accompany the growing visibility of Indian development cooperation, the attractive blend of discursive positioning and material benefits may provide the Indian government with broad support for its growing investment and profile in international development, or at least offset a degree of criticism. At present there appears to be little public discussion about whether and how India’s external role relates to domestic poverty, or the nature of growth and ‘development’ that India is helping to stimulate in partner countries. The paper also discusses ‘boundary making’ with China through the public construction of Indian development cooperation.     

Perceptions of children during a police interrogation: Guilt,confessions, and interview fairness

Abstract

Jurors are often provided with confession evidence and must determine whether the confession was true, false, coerced, or voluntary. As more juveniles are tried in adult criminal court, jurors must increasingly make these determinations about minors’ statements. In this study, mock jurors read an actual interrogation of a child suspect that included confession evidence, and then provided judgments regarding the coerciveness of the interrogation, the child's and police's knowledge and behaviors, and guilt. Child age (11 versus 14 years) and gender were manipulated and examined in relation to participant gender and pre-existing sympathy levels for juvenile offenders. Factors external to the suspect – participant gender and sympathy for juvenile offenders – interacted with child suspect factors to influence perceptions of the child, the interrogation, and guilt. When multiple factors were considered, perceptions of suspect credibility and police fairness were the strongest predictors of guilt and perceived culpability. The findings have implications for decision-making in cases involving juvenile defendants and confession evidence.     

Perceptions and personal experiences of unwanted attention among Portuguese male students

The present study investigated male perceptions and personal experiences of ‘unwanted attention’ (UA), as well as possible associations between perceptions and personal experiences of UA. Ninety-one male college students, from five Portuguese universities, were asked to indicate which of a continuum of 47 behaviours represented UA. Although UA, stalking and harassment are rarely addressed in Portugal, male college students shared a clear understanding of what behaviours constituted UA, with the identification of four main categories of UA behaviours: ‘aggressive’, ‘threatening’, ‘classic’ and ‘dysfunctional attachment’. Almost all participants (96%) reported personal experiences of at least one UA behaviour. There was a minimal relationship between perceptions and personal experiences of the individual behaviours. The findings highlight the widespread risk of male victimisation and the need to legitimise male complaints.     

Local News Media and Voter Turnout

A reasonably high turnout is a quality of a local democracy. In this article, we investigate whether media coverage of politics leads to increased or decreased voter turnout. Based on a unique data set, our analysis shows that local news media coverage has a positive effect on voter turnout, but only if the news media provide politically relevant information to the voters and only at local elections. Both findings are in accordance with the Information Model, which states that rising levels of political relevant information increases the probability of voting.     

Editorials in national development: Perceptions of Nigerian journalists

This study examines the self‐reported perceptions of the role of editorials in national development for a purposive sample of 348 full‐time, salaried Nigerian journalists on nine national newspapers in two newspaper ownership groups: private and government. Three major findings are indicated.

The first finding is that, on seven‐statement comparisons of the role of editorials in national development, government journalists perceived their editorials as more supportive of the government than did private journalists, a result largely reflective of government newspapers’ persuasive role in behalf of government agencies.

The second finding is that ownership of newspapers is not a particularly strong factor in journalists’ perceptions of the role of editorials in development. Such a finding calls into question the rationale for the continuing case for private ownership of Africa's media institutions as a solution to the limitations of the region's media in exercising independent, effective, and persuasive influence on development.

Finally, because this study indicates that newspaper ownership is occasionally not a factor in the perception of the role of editorials in development, it questions the implications of the simple, traditional distinction between government and private newspapers for national development in sub‐Saharan Africa.     

Need a Hand? No Thanks! Media Representations and Peace Building Indicators: The Case of UK Foreign Aid Programmes in Colombia

This article considers research approaches often associated with media and journalism studies as complementary assessment strategies to inform decisions associated with evaluating foreign aid. In order to do so, the case of British foreign aid towards Colombia in the context of the War on Drugs is examined as a case study. The authors explore the relationship between aid giving and the receipt of aid by focusing on how the media can be used as a peacebuilding indicator. There is a dearth of academic inquiry into these issues. This article attempts to flesh out some future lines of scholarly enquiry using the UK–Colombia case study example. It uses research interviews with state officials, multilateral organizations and NGO representatives as well as a review of press coverage in Colombia over a two-year period. The article argues that media could potentially be used as an important indicator of peacebuilding success and failure in the context of aid giving and receipt but that to achieve that there are specific pre-conditions and issues to be addressed by the different parties.     

Strategic campaigning, closeness, and voter mobilization in U.S. Presidential elections

The scholarly literature on voter mobilization is ambivalent regarding the effects of closeness on turnout. Economic analyses of turnout (i.e. the classic calculus of voting) contend that as elections become closer, voters perceive their participation as more valuable because there is a greater chance that they will cast the deciding vote. Other work argues that voters do not take closeness into account because the probability that their vote uniquely changes the outcome of an election is quite small even in close elections. Still, this second perspective maintains that closeness may increase turnout because elites distribute campaign resources to places where election results could be affected by mobilizing additional supporters. While the latter perspective is theoretically well-developed, empirical support for the notion that elite activity (rather than citizen perceptions) connects closeness and turnout is limited. Using improved measures of closeness and campaign activities, we test for citizen perception and elite mobilization effects on turnout in the context of U.S. Presidential elections. Results show that while closeness has no direct effect on turnout, elites indeed target campaign activities on close states and the asymmetric distribution of resources across states results in higher turnout in battleground states.     

Optimists and skeptics: Why do people believe in the value of their single vote?

We investigate the origins of voters' beliefs about the value of their single vote. We construe such beliefs as a function of psychological predispositions and exposure to information about the competitiveness of the electoral race. We test this theoretical model using data from the 2008 Canadian federal election and a new survey question tapping voters' beliefs about whether their vote can make a difference. Our results show that sense of efficacy has a strong effect, efficacious voters being more prone to optimism. Competitiveness of the race also matters, but only among attentive voters.     

A balance between candidate- and party-centric representation under mixed-member systems: The evidence from voter behavior in Taiwan

Mixed-member systems are usually defined as electoral systems that combine SMDP and CLPR, both of which are more likely to induce party reputation-seeking. Building on the literature of electoral institutions, this article provides an explanation of how mixed-member systems structure voter behavior and achieve a balance between candidate- and party-centric representation. Using Taiwan as a case of MMS, this article tests hypotheses against survey data and investigates the determinants of voting decisions for the two ballots. By employing a Bayesian bivariate probit model, this article shows that, first, partisan factors affect voter behavior in both nominal and list ballots. However, it is affective rather than rational considerations for political parties that play the major role. Second, personal reputation influences voters' choices of the nominal and list vote, but only negative elements matter for the list vote. Finally, there is a moderately positive correlation between the two ballots, which potentially results from affective, partisan considerations.     

Boxholm tea party: Taxation and voter turnout in a mature democracy

The link between taxation and representation is generally considered foundational to the emergence of democratic governance. Nevertheless, the empirical relationship between taxation and the extent to which citizens actually exert representation by turning out to vote remains virtually unexplored. Using a panel of all Swedish municipalities from 1979 to 2018, I find that hikes in local tax rates are linked to increased municipal voter turnout. Accounting for a wide range of confounders, including turnout in concurrent parliamentary- and county elections, these results indicate an important untapped explanation for changes in turnout, while offering a rare explicit test of the taxation-representation argument drawn from a mature democracy.