Political Research Quarterly

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 1065-9129

Issue Number

No. 77-2, June 2024

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Varieties of Mistrust and American Epistemic Fragility
Mistrust in both government and scientific authority has grown. Yet the relationship between these trends remains underappreciated, even though such mistrust shaped behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and deserves much blame for America’s troubles with truth. Using original data from 3,000 American counties and at different points of time during the pandemic, we identify social and political conditions that increase different types of “vertical” mistrust. We use tax and Census data to proxy for political trust, and mask wearing and vaccination variables to capture trust in scientific authority. Statistical tests demonstrate a robust relationship between partisanship and both types of trust, confirming national polls and lending support to the “asymmetry hypothesis.” Tests also indicate that psychological distress and socioeconomic vulnerability contribute to mistrust, though partisanship has a powerful mediation effect. Controls reveal high levels of mistrust among evangelicals, rural residents, and some minorities while other minorities are strikingly trusting. The results hold under alternative statistical specifications. We call for more research exploring the behavioral expressions of vertical mistrust, including how it manifests collectively in communities.
Ethnicity and Response to Internal Environmental Migrants in the United States
We examine how responses to individuals displaced by environmental shocks vary based on the ethnicity of the migrants, the locals, and their ethnic groups’ political status. We embed an experiment into a stratified sample of 2,188 white, Black, and Latinx Americans surveyed through Qualtrics Panels. The experiment shows respondents a photo of a flooded road, randomly assigning whether there are white, Black, Latinx, or no persons wading through the water. Results show no outward change in approval for migrants settling in respondents’ neighborhoods based on their ethnicity. However, emotional responses to migrants, perceptions of migrants’ economic backgrounds, and levels of tolerance and ethnocentrism among locals vary based on migrants’ ethnicity. While there may not be outward xenophobia and conflict in the face of internal climate-related migration, the underlying attitudes of members of receiving communities suggest internal migrants from politically excluded groups lack local acceptance and may face more subtle prejudice.
Countering “Fake News” Through Public Education and Advertisements: An Experimental Analysis
This paper examines whether proactive efforts to educate people about disinformation through advertisements can successfully increase skepticism towards false headlines or if such efforts do more harm than good by inadvertently increasing belief in false information. We analyze a survey experiment that employed three different advertisements that directly addressed “fake news.” We find that all advertisements were effective at increasing skepticism towards “fake news” headlines. We also find no evidence of backfire effects occurring. However, subsequent analysis using Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) finds significant heterogeneity within these treatment effects. While all advertisements were effective, each ad was effective in different ways despite common themes and content. This suggests a more complicated understanding of the counter-disinformation process and highlights BART’s utility in public opinion research.
Country Bumpkin or City Slicker? The Role of Place of Living and Place-Based Identity in Explaining Place-Based Resentment
In recent years, the rural-urban divide has not only made its way back into political science, but has also been given an entirely new angle by investigating place of living as its own social identity. However, research is still in its early stages and studies so far focus on linear explanations of place-based resentment. This paper studies place in the light of social identity theory and investigates how place of living and place-based identity interact in shaping place-based resentment. Original survey data on around 4000 respondents from Switzerland from 2022 with a novel measure of place-based identity and resentment is used. A distinction is made not only between rural and urban residents, but also between the suburbanites. Results show that rural residents hold the highest levels of identity and resentment, while suburban residents hold higher levels of resentment than urban ones do. Findings show that there is a moderating effect, whereby the rural-urban divide in resentment increases with place-based identity, while the suburban-urban gap diminishes with increasing place-based identity. These differences in place-based identity and resentment could explain the rural-urban divide in political attitudes and behavior.
Deceptively Stable? How the Stability of Aggregate Abortion Attitudes Conceals Partisan Induced Shifts
The 2022 Dobbs decision, striking down constitutional protection for abortion, sent shockwaves through the American political system. For the 50 years prior, however, public opinion on abortion was distinctive for its stability, with almost the same percent of Americans supporting legal abortion in the twenty-first century as in the 1970s. This stasis persisted during a period of dramatic change in the political landscape. We employ General Social Survey (GSS) data to explore the ways that partisanship, as well as demographic and attitude changes among key groups, have contributed to underlying shifts in abortion attitudes and, on an aggregate level, the appearance of stability. We show that demographic changes combined with meaningful attitude change balance each other out leading to deceptive stability. We also show the growing power of partisanship as a predictor of abortion attitudes for both Democrats and Republicans, especially Republican women, who have become more opposed to legal abortion than Republican men. Our findings provide a baseline for understanding abortion attitudes in post-Roe America and insights as to where continuity and change can be expected.
Revolutionary Confucianism? Neo-Confucian Idealism and Modern Chinese Revolutionary Thought
This article explores the relationship between materialism and philosophical idealism in the political philosophy of Marxist revolutionary movements, by illuminating the influence of Neo-Confucian idealism on the sinification of Marxism. Although they had virtually no access to the writings of the young Marx, Li Dazhao and Mao Zedong incorporated idealist philosophical ideas into their sinified Marxism. I argue that three elements of Neo-Confucian idealism contributed to the sinification of Marxism that emerged by the 1940s: (1) acknowledgment of the real existence of the material world as apprehended by the mind-and-heart in Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism; (2) emphasis on human will and consciousness, drawn from Wang Yangming’s Neo-Confucianism; and (3) recognition of an autonomous, even decisive role of consciousness and culture in revolutionary change. The resulting sinified Marxism constituted a revolutionary New Confucianism, highlighting the most universal, humanistic, liberative elements in the Chinese philosophical tradition. These community-affirming and spiritually rich elements can be mobilized against authoritarian forces to support the continuing struggle for human rights and democratization within and well beyond China today.
Decider in Chief? Why and How the Public Exaggerates the Power of the Presidency
Democratic accountability requires that citizens accurately attribute credit and blame to leaders and institutions. However, citizens tend to simplify politics by personifying the state as its leader and directing credit and blame accordingly. Using an expert survey and a five-wave public panel survey spanning two administrations, we contrast public and expert perceptions of presidential power. We demonstrate that the public exaggerates the president’s powers relative to scholarly experts and that people who exaggerate presidential powers most are more likely to attribute blame to the president. However, a change in partisan control of the presidency shifts perceptions of power among partisans. Finally, we find suggestive evidence of similar shifts in belief after salient policy failures. These results provide the most direct evidence to date that citizens generally exaggerate the president’s influence and control but that these beliefs change over time in response to events.
Unequal Resources, Unequal Careers: The Role of Campaign Financing in the Gender Gap in Candidates’ Persistence in Brazil
Do female candidates give up running for office after losing more readily than their male counter-parts? I address this question by employing a regression discontinuity between last winners and first losers in city council elections in Brazil. The results show that losing an election diminishes the chances of running again for both genders. However, the effect is large for women. I offer an explanation for this gender gap in rerunning by developing a model based on the distribution of campaign financial resources among candidates. I argue that female candidates receive fewer financial resources from donors and their political parties than male candidates. Consequently, to run for office, women often need to use more of their own money. This leads to a faster depletion of their personal financial resources and, ultimately, a greater likelihood of them dropping out of politics. The argument is supported by evidence on campaign financing for the same period.
Correcting Myopia: Effect of Information Provision on Support for Preparedness Policy
Some scholars argue that the public is generally myopic in their attitudes about disaster preparedness spending, because they prefer to spend money on disaster response rather than preparedness, despite the greater cost effectiveness of the later. Given voters’ general lack of policy information, it is possible that limited support for preparedness comes from lack of information about its efficacy. In this paper, we build on these studies by examining how people respond to new information about the effectiveness of policy initiatives in the context of public health and the COVID-19 pandemic. Through two online survey experiments with over 3400 respondents, we demonstrate that information can lead people to update attitudes about preparedness, illustrating the potential for information campaigns to increase support for preparedness policies. Our results suggest that information about the efficacy of preparedness can increase support for these policies, and the information effect exists even for individuals whose prior beliefs were that public health programs were ineffective. These results suggest that information can make people more supportive of preparedness spending, which could provide electoral incentives for its provision. We conclude by providing some directions for future research to enhance our understanding of public opinion and preparedness spending.