Values,Acts, and Actors Distinguishing Generic and Discriminatory Intolerance

Where tolerance is defined as a person's willingness to put up with political expression that the person finds objectionable, we see three prerequisites for tolerance. The person must support the general right of political expression, the general right of people to engage in the particular acts under consideration, and finally the right of members of even objectionable groups to engage in those specific acts. Many past studies of tolerance proceed directly from the first of these prerequisites to the third, and, in doing so, fail to distinguish between general attitudes regarding particular acts of expression (i.e., does the survey respondent support the right of people in general to hold public rallies) and attitudes regarding particular groups engaged in those same acts (i.e., does the respondent support the right of Communists or militia groups to hold public rallies). The consequence is ambiguity in interpretation of the meaning and etiology of tolerance, and in cross-national comparison. We demonstrate our concerns using data from a split-ballot survey conducted in Romania. Results reveal that accurate interpretation of Romanians' tolerance of the right of ethnic Hungarians to engage in various acts of political expression requires attention to respondents' general attitudes regarding those same acts.     

The Role of Citizen Participation and the Use of Social Media Platforms in the Participatory Budgeting Process

In the United States participatory budgeting (PB) is a relatively new and innovative approach to municipal budgeting that has implications for improving the role of citizen participation in the budgetary process. The research is based on personal interviews with local community leaders involved in the PB process in the 49th Ward of Chicago, Illinois; the 6th Ward of St. Louis, Missouri; and the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Highlights are provided of the specific experiences and perceptions of these community leaders with a particular emphasis on the use of social media platforms in engaging citizens in the PB process. This article concludes with recommendations for creating a PB infrastructure, for increasing citizen participation in the PB process, and for assessing and increasing the impact of PB in cities within the United States.     

Learning from each other: causal inference and American political development

Public Choice - Within political science, a movement focused on increasing the credibility of causal inferences (CIs) has gained considerable traction in recent years. While CI has been...     

Gendertyping sports: social representations of masculine,feminine, and neither-gendered sports among US university students

Sport is shifting from being hegemonically masculine but it is unclear how sports are viewed as gender segregated or gender integrated. Previous quantitative studies of gendertyping sports have reported mixed findings. Gendertyping constructs social representations that shape institutional and individual sport activities. This study examined how particular sports are represented as masculine, feminine and/or neither-gendered in one sample of 310 students at a US university. Qualitative open-ended recall questions asked students to name three masculine, feminine and neither masculine nor feminine sports. Results revealed that most students were aware of and used hegemonic gendertyped terms to describe sports. Recall questions elicited 2515 namings of 80 different sports that were arrayed as a spectrum of social representations of gendertyped sports ranging from masculine to neither-gendered to feminine. Some representations were hegemonic segregated masculine sports, many were integrated neither-gendered sports, and fewer were segregated feminine sports. Gendertyped social representations of sports offer cultural toolkits for calibrating the practices of doing and redoing gender in sport.     

Agency Problems, the 17th Amendment, and Representation in the Senate

A prominent change in American electoral institutions occurred when the 17th Amendment to the Constitution established direct election of U.S. Senators as of 1914. How did this change the political agency relationship between the mass electorate and U.S. Senators? We develop theoretical expectations about the representational effects of direct election by a relatively inexpert mass electorate and indirect election by a relatively expert political intermediary, based on principal‐agent theory. The chief predictions are that the representative will be more responsive to the mass electorate under direct election, but will also have more discretion to pursue his or her own ends. We use the 17th Amendment as a quasi‐experiment to test the predictions of the theory. Statistical models show strong support for both predictions. Moreover, the 17th Amendment is not associated with similar changes in the U.S. House of Representatives—as expected, since the amendment did not change House electoral institutions.     

Parent child coalitions: Innovative public‐sector management and early childhood development in Manitoba

Abstract: This article considers a coalition model of governance as an innovative approach to public management. In general, the coalition governance model adopts key principles of new public management and inherits criticisms similar to those levelled against the new managerialism. Looking at a case study of parent child coalitions in Manitoba, this article explores some benefits and consequences of implementing and utilizing coalition governance as a model for social policy. It finds that the attempt to increase child‐centred programming across the province required innovative adjustments to the management of this social policy issue, as well as a restructuring of the overarching policy structure. Innovative public management and the implementation of a coalition governance approach helped transform early childhood development in Manitoba from a private and personal family concern to a public policy issue. It has increased citizen engagement and has also increased government access to a previously inaccessible segment of society. Although these innovations resolved some key concerns, additional criticisms remain as yet unaddressed.     

Does Familiarity Breed Contempt? The Impact of Information on Mass Attitudes toward Congress

Two features of citizen response to Congress can be taken as grounds for concern. First, Americans know relatively little about Congress, and especially about congressional procedures and policy output. Second, Congress typically emerges as the least respected political institution. Although these matters are troubling when viewed individually, more disturbing is the dilemma posed when knowledge and attitudes toward Congress are viewed in tandem. It appears that citizens who know Congress the best like Congress the least. Consequently, a sophisticated polity and a well-respected legislature seem fundamentally incompatible. This article seeks to resolve this dilemma, contending that there is nothing about knowledge per se that leads citizens to view Congress unfavorably. Rather, differences in knowledge levels alter the considerations citizens bring to bear when evaluating Congress, with the best-informed individuals constructing judgments on the basis of the most relevant Congress-specific criteria while less knowledgeable citizens employ readily available but more peripheral criteria.