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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political polarization'
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Hong, Jung-Min. "Political Polarization and Independent Voters in American Politics." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1439301969.
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Ullman, Shaundra J. "Partisanship: An Analysis of Polarization." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/813.
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Sattley, Harrison. "Voter Income, Demographics, and Political Polarization." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2019. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2223.
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Using data from the American National Election Studies from 1968 to 2016, I explore the historical relationship between voter income, other demographic factors, and political polarization. I find that while having a higher income and a better education generally correlates with increased Republican political preference, though the relationship between higher income and increased Republican preference does not hold in lower income groups. Race is by far the most significant indicator of political preference, with whites and blacks on opposite ends of the political spectrum, and Hispanics as well as other races somewhere in between the two. In addition, I analyze the data from 20th century elections separately from 21st century elections and discover key differences in how each factor influences political preference.
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Lindqvist, Erik. "Essays on privatization, identity, and political polarization." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : Economic Research Institute, Stockholm School of Economics (EFI), 2007. http://www2.hhs.se/efi/summary/733.htm.
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Mockabee, Stephen T. "Party polarization in American politics /." The Ohio State University, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1486572165277406.
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Zywiol, Douglas Lawrence Jerome. "Increasing Polarization of the Youth Vote." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/103880.
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On July 1, 1971, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified which prohibited states from denying citizens who had attained the age of eighteen the right to vote. Having passed 96-0 in the Senate and 401-19 in the House of Representatives, the amendment was widely considered a bipartisan effort with minimal resistance from within the two major political parties.
This paper seeks to determine how this largely politically unifying amendment process became so politicized since its passage, including an analysis and comparison of factions who fought against initial passage with those who seek to suppress the youth vote. A historical analysis will look deeper into how those battles were won with the ultimate passage of the amendment. Using a mixed methodology approach including a quantitative analysis of polling data and a qualitative analysis of partisan methods to influence youth voter turnout, the paper shows a trend towards increased politicization that has peaked in today's political landscape. Three specific elections serve as case studies and a lens through which to analyze changes in the law, changes in campaign strategies, changes in rhetoric, and changes in salient issues.
Youth engagement is particularly valuable to political leaders and to the nation. In American politics, youth voter turnout has become less of a normative good--in many cases it has been deeply politicized. There is a strong association between specific methods taken by political parties and interest groups and their efforts to mobilize or disincentive youth voter turnout.Master of Arts
A Constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of the House of Representatives and two-thirds of the Senate to propose it and then must be ratified by three-fourths of the states. This process is difficult to accomplish and one that requires bipartisanship in Congress and must have broad support throughout the nation. Outside of the original Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments, only seventeen amendments have been ratified since the inception of the Constitution. The Twenty-Sixth Amendment is an important milestone in the history of the United States as it ultimately lowered the voting age to 18 throughout the country. The amendment passed 96-0 in the Senate and 401-19 in the House of Representatives and was passed by the necessary number of states in less than four months. It marked the quickest ratification timeline of any amendment in the history of the United States. The amendment was a largely bipartisan effort with minimal resistance from within the two major political parties. This paper seeks to determine how this largely politically unifying amendment process has become so politicized since its passage. The paper shows a trend towards increased politicization that has peaked in today's political landscape. Three specific elections serve as case studies and a lens through which to analyze changes in attitudes about young voters. As a high school teacher who values the importance of youth engagement and voting, I provide some strategies that I believe will help overcome the level of polarization and voter suppression laws that have recently been enacted. Both of the two major political parties have an incentive to engage young voters and encourage them to show up for their side.
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Kansco, Jacob Anthony. "Effects of Social Media Use on Political Polarization." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99081.
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21st century political science has seen a growing field of research focused around the idea of political polarization. While authors like Fiorina and Abramowitz have been debating the existence of such polarization, the literature has come to understand that perhaps the root of the issue lies in differing definitions. The never-ending quest for clarity has produced a variety of measures of polarization and, subsequently, theories on why 21st century Americans may be experiencing such polarization. Unsurprisingly, as political science questions what may be causing various trends in 21st century voter behaviors and attitudes, the Internet is often mentioned. With the Internet being a clearly powerful tool for political mobilization, whether or not it is divisive among the public could have politically consequential implications.
Because of its interactive nature, it is difficult to evaluate a person's social media use. This study uses a unique survey to evaluate a respondent's general social media and internet use, as well as measures of political polarization. Using this information, along with analysis of the 2016 ANES, I am able to make associations of various levels of social media activity and political polarization. Using means comparison and multivariate regression, I am able to evaluate social media use controlling for effects of age and other confounding variables and how it relates to measures of political polarization.
The survey results ultimately provide some evidence for the claim that increasing social media use is associated with higher levels of political polarization. Additionally, in an OLS regression model testing the effects of different sources of political news, increases in internet use are highly correlated with an increase in political polarization.Master of Arts
Since the 2016 US Presidential election, there have been increasing concerns over how divided the country is getting. Part of the reason why people feel so polarized is likely being exaggerated by social media and breaking news headlines. While Americans may be closer on the issues than they care to believe, the perception of a divided country may be just as consequential. It is difficult to say to what degree our country is truly polarized, if at all. What we can be sure of is that political activists are able to be heard much louder given the platform of the internet. What motivates people to spend hours of their day scrolling through platforms like Facebook is an individual preference, but it is clear that these companies can directly profit from click-bait news headlines. In order to explore the degree to which different groups are polarized in America, I used an online survey asking respondents about their internet use and political leanings. Using this information, I am able to see what associations might exist between things such as amount of time spent on social media per day and how committed one is to their ideology. These measures themselves are widely debated in political science, so the study also aims to examine in what ways different measures of polarization may be used effectively. The results of the study do find some evidence that increased social media use is correlated with an increase in political polarization. However, other measures of political activity on the internet are seen to be highly correlated with an increase in political polarization.
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Lee, Jae Mook. "The political consequences of elite and mass polarization." Diss., University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3333.
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Is the American electorate ideologically polarized as its representatives are polarized in Congress? How ordinary citizens have responded to growing elite polarization? The goal of this dissertation project is to answer these two questions. I conceptualize polarization here as having multi-dimensional characteristics and distinguish between polarization as a state and polarization as a process. Based on the conceptualization of polarization, I argue here that most existing literature has not only focused on polarization as a presence, but the empirical strategies adopted by previous research are more appropriate for assessing the existence rather than gradual polarization as a process. I assume that the degree of ideological polarization among the mass public would not be dramatic, thus scholars are more likely to be divided regarding the existence of popular polarization due to the less apparent changes in public opinion distribution. Therefore, I propose here using relative distribution method to evaluate a level of opinion polarization developed in the other field of social science. Using the alternative method, we can assess how a comparison cohort of a recent period is more or less polarized compared to a reference cohort of a previous period. I first apply the relative distribution method to congressional roll-call data (DW-NOMINATE) to demonstrate the distributional comparison analysis on quantile bases. Then I analyze the cumulative American National Election Study (ANES) 1948-2008 survey to assess the relative degree of mass ideological polarization. As I analyze ideological preference of individuals, I construct the two ideological measures based on a factor analysis, rather than using a combined single indicator.
In addition to the analysis of mass opinion polarization as a whole, this dissertation also examines some political consequences of ideological polarization both at elite and mass levels focusing on mass political awareness and engagement. In particular, I also test if heterogeneous effects of polarized political environment exist on citizens conditional on their existing levels of political resources such as political knowledge or formal education. Just as many detailed characteristics of distribution might be untapped by summary measures (e.g., mean), behavior of extremists might not be explained properly by the conventional regression analysis based on conditional mean effect. While the ordinary regression analysis focuses on the representative characteristics of a majority in the sample, in polarization analysis we are more often interested in the behavior of extremists placed far from the mean. So I adopt a qunatile regression to account for potentially differential responses of the mass public to polarized politics depending on their positions in the distribution of a dependent variable.
Empirical evidence suggests that polarizing political environment has brought about many significant changes in mass political attitudes and behavior. I demonstrate that the distributional center of measures of political ideology have progressively declined in later periods, though the opinion distribution of the later periods do not dramatically exhibit a text-book style polarized distribution (e.g., bimodal distribution). In addition, I find that the majority of mass public has responded to the changing political environment by becoming politically more aware. Therefore, the overall findings of this project indicate that the electoral link between the elite and the masses became either transformed or is transforming rather than being broken as the mass public assimilate the polarized politics.
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Karim, Jena. "Polarization of political culture : Islam and Pakistan, 1958-1988." Thesis, McGill University, 2004. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=83114.
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This study examines the relationship between Islam and political culture in Pakistan in the four decades following its naissance. It assesses the validity of the argument that a polarity has emerged in the Pakistani political culture, consisting of Islamism and Islamic modernism. In the case of Pakistan, Islamism refers to the use of the primary sources of Islam law, the Qur'an, hadith, and sunnah, in crafting both policy and political institutions. Islamic modernism refers to the systematized use of these primary sources as well as other (external) sources, adjusted for contemporary circumstances. These ideologies, as defined here, are gleaned from the discourse of a Pakistani ideologues, Sayyid Abu'l A 'la Mawdudi and Fazlur Rahman. It examines the thought of Mawdudi and Rahman as the discursive backdrop to the polarity of political culture. It then provides analysis of three regimes which exacerbate this polarity. They include the Islamic modernist regime of Ayub Khan, from 1958 to 1969, the quasi-Islamist regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, from 1971 to 1977, and finally the Islamist regime of General Zia ul-Haq, from 1977 to 1988.
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Fadji, Sama Serena Dean. "What is the True Cost of Mass Polarization? : A Study of the Relationship Between Political Polarization and Trust in Political Institutions in the United States." Thesis, Luleå tekniska universitet, Institutionen för ekonomi, teknik och samhälle, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-79954.
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Democracy is defined by the element of competition. Elite party competition has become one of the most discussed contemporary developments in the United States. Elected representatives from the main parties have become internally homogeneous, deepening the divide of ideologies between one another. This thesis seeks to establish the relationship between mass partisan polarization and the level of trust in political institutions across the United States. What happens when the public trusts the Elites more than Congress? Elite polarization has divided the masses so deeply in the U.S by electing representatives from the two major parties whom carry ideologies so distinct from another that the public begin change their ways of forming opinions. This thesis acknowledges that there is high elite and mass political polarization in the U.S., which is attributed to the heterogeneity in ideologies across the three main political parties (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) and intra-party homogeneity. The elite partisan theoretical framework expounds the relationship such that the public tends to hold a low level of trust towards the U.S. congress because majority of voters’ partisan motivated decision making is influenced by political endorsements. The implication is that the public is more likely to hold a considerable level of trust towards their political parties as opposed to the U.S. congress.
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Massengill, William. "The Political and Economic Roots of Corporate Political Activity." The Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1553961091240596.
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James, Alicia Shanti. "The Role of Social Motives in Affective Polarization." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1615216736068656.
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Campbell, Colin S. "Dead Center: Polarization and the Democratic Party, 1932-2000." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2016. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3117.
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Polarization forced massive changes in the institutions of Washington throughout the 20th century, and the Democratic Party played a key role throughout. Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Democratic Party formed the powerful New Deal coalition. The coalition faltered in the turbulent 1960s under the pressures of the Vietnam War and racial unrest. The chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago dealt the coalition a mortal wound. Young voters and activists gained an outsized voice in the party. Several crushing defeats in presidential elections followed as the party chose unelectable candidates who appealed to the passions of left-wing activists and interests. In 1992, Bill Clinton won the nomination and forced the party back to the center. Clinton’s success, however, drove the Republican Party further right as its efforts to destroy Clinton grew increasingly obsessive. The cumulative effect has been an increase in polarization and the weakening of institutions in Washington.
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Holmgren, Embla. "Knowing and Loathing : A quantitative study on political knowledge and affective polarization." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-444151.
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Affective polarization is a relatively new concept that refers to feelings of sympathy towards partisans of a person's own political party preference and antipathy towards those who vote for and identify with opposing parties. This thesis aims to answer the questions if those who know more about politics also are more affectively polarized, and whether there is a difference between knowing about different types of political facts, and the predicted level of affective polarization. Using panel data from 35 different countries from Module 4 of the Comparative Study of Election Systems, I measure the affective polarization on an individual level, and whether answering correctly to different types of knowledge questions predict the respondents to be more or less affectively polarized. The results show that political knowledge significantly predicts higher levels of affective polarization, but that there is a difference between different types of political knowledge. Political knowledge typically learned from the media has a stronger factor in predicting affective polarization.
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Norton, Mike. "Papers on the polarization of Congress." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5ce87b5b-2d2f-403e-b2d4-85f23b2a14cc.
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This dissertation, a collection of independent papers, explores the polarization of the United States Congress through the lens of primary elections, campaign finance, and party structures during a pivotal moment in American political history. Paper 1 focuses on the top two primary format and its potential in producing moderate candidates and legislators, while Paper 2 expounds on the deleterious consequences it poses for the party system as a whole, particularly in this modern era of both high polarization and high fragmentation. Paper 3 examines the Downsian median voter theorem from the perspective of primary election voters, asking if general election wins/losses beget the nomination of more ideological/moderate nominees next cycle. Ultimately, the article illustrates that the parties instead retain consistent records through both election wins and losses, linked to credibility concerns from position changes as well as the inability of members to disentangle from national party identities. Its companion paper, Paper 4, takes that Downsian question to elites in Washington, D.C. Through original interviews with twenty-three individuals including former members of Congress, leadership, congressional staff, and think tank scholars, I describe the electoral and legislative pressures that prevent officeholders from responding to their median voter, especially among those in swing districts most exposed to the risks of partisan behavior. Paper 5, the final paper, brings together the themes of those preceding it by analyzing the ways in which outside interference, specifically political action committees and more inclusive primary elections, propagates legislative caucus fragmentation and weakens official leadership. This work plays one minor role in providing prescriptive steps to improve and empower channels of dialogue in the U.S. legislative brancha - in spite of larger systemic sorting along geographical and partisan lines - and ensure the mediation of ideology between voters and their elected representatives results in policy solutions rather than gridlock.
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Rosenfeld, Sam Hoffmann. "A Choice, Not an Echo: Polarization and the Transformation of the American Party System." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:11666.
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This dissertation offers an intellectual and institutional history of party polarization and ideological realignment in the postwar United States. It treats the construction of an ideologically sorted party system as a political project carried out by conscious actors within and around the Democratic and Republican parties. The work of these activists, interest groups, and political elites helped to produce, by the last decades of the twentieth century, an unpredicted and still-continuing era of strong, polarized partisanship in American politics. In tracking their work, the dissertation also account for changing ideas about the party system over time, starting with an influential postwar scholarly doctrine that cast bipartisanship as a problem for which polarization would provide the solution.History
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Rosander, Jennifer. "The impact of political association : How political association can change attitudes towards non-political clothes." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Psykologi, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-176432.
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According to social identity theory people categorize themselves and others into groups based on political affiliation. The political group identity makes them favor policies and people associated with the political ingroup and disapprove of policies and people associated with the political outgroup. The purpose of this study was to investigate if this effect could extend to attitudes on non-political clothes associated with politicians. 638 Swedish adults partook in an online experimental survey. Participants evaluated pictures of clothes worn by famous Swedish politicians and non-political persons on two occasions. On the first occasion, identity was unknown, and on the second occasion, identity was revealed. When revealing identity, participants rated clothes worn by outgroup politicians less beautiful and clothes worn by ingroup politicians more beautiful. They were also willing to pay more for clothes that they learned were worn by ingroup politicians. Participants were also analyzed by their political left or right placement. Both leftist and rightist participants rated clothes worn by opposite political groups less beautiful. This tendency was stronger for rightists. Additionally, rightists rated clothes worn by rightist politicians more beautiful and were willing to pay more for them when learning about their political affiliation. In conclusion, by associating non-political items with politicians our attitudes towards those items can change, thus political association can affect our attitudes outside of the political realm.
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Greco, Rosalia. "Essays in Political Economy of Redistribution and Immigration." Thesis, Boston College, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:106887.
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Thesis advisor: Hideo KonishiThesis advisor: Alberto Alesina
This dissertation studies the interaction of politicians’ and voters’ incentives and its effect on redistributive and immigration policies. The first chapter ``Redistribution, Polarization, and Ideology'' focuses on the effect of income inequality and party polarization on redistributive policy, both theoretically and empirically. I demonstrate that income inequality and party polarization on social issues push redistributive policy in opposite directions. In particular, when the importance of ideology for the voters rises with their income, polarization discourages redistribution. Using data from the American National Election Study and the Census, I verify that it is indeed the case that the importance attached to ideological issues is increasing in the voters' income. Effects of ``income elastic'' ideology can account for the observed stability of redistribution policy in the U.S. The second chapter, ``Foreign Born U.S. Citizens and Immigration Policy'', studies the impact of immigration on immigration reforms, and decomposes the effects of naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants. Using Census data and roll call votes for the House on 2005 and 2006 immigration bills, we find that immigration affects Democratic and Republican parties differently. While the effect of non-naturalized immigrants can be explained by congressional district's socio-economic characteristics, naturalized immigrants exert an additional effect linked to their ability to vote in congressional elections. Higher naturalized immigrant population increases the probability that Democrats vote in favor of immigration, and decreases it for Republicans, suggesting opposite electoral incentives for the two parties, that can be interpreted in a framework of rational office-motivated incumbents seeking reelection
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Economics
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McCain, Jesse Louis. "Polarization, Incivility and Election Interests: The Constraints of Political Leadership in American Democracy." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/297698.
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Leadership has and always will be a dynamic part of human society. As social cohesion needs to be reconciled and group decision making manageable, leaders will continue to play a pivotal roll in shaping the world we live in. But understanding effective leadership and how leaders operate requires an examination of context. Leadership scholar Warren Bennis constructs in detail a vision of what he calls the transformational leader, one at the apex of power who embodies a follower-centered approach to leading. Transformational leaders ignite a personal relationship and vested interest among followers in their cause, one that pleases a majority while inspiring action. In the context of social movements we find that this type of leadership can be attainable. Political leaders however face significant constraints in fulfilling the criteria of the transformational leader. Polarization, incivility and election interests function within democracy to limit political leaders from realizing substantive goals. Applying the standards of transformational leadership to politics proves to be unfair. Political leaders will never fully attain the ideals of transformational leadership, as political leadership operates in a completely different context. We should therefore have a different standard of assessment for successful political leadership.
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Sumino, Takanori. "Political sociology of unity and division." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2dcfb15c-ede6-4bda-9766-2123828b43bf.
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Growing economic inequality and cultural heterogeneity has brought increased attention to the issue of 'unity in diversity', that is, the state of being joined together or being in agreement in the presence of actual and perceived differences among people. Despite the growing interest in 'politics in divided societies', many political-sociological aspects of this issue remain largely unexplored. At the heart of this thesis lies an interest in explaining how social forces shape political preferences regarding the tension between unity and diversity in contemporary democracies. More specifically, this research seeks to understand how social (and identity-based) cleavages affect public responses to the idea of solidarity-based welfare provision and the reconciliation of increased ethnic diversity with national unity (including the functioning of the welfare state). Drawing on the institutionalist view that pre-existing policy creates mass politics (policy feedback effect), the study also investigates whether institutional structures condition the association between social forces and political attitudes. Although several chapters put particular emphasis on policy feedback effects (e.g., Chapters 2, 3, and 5), they are still within the general scope of this thesis, that is, the 'social embeddedness of political attitudes'. The thesis consists of two parts: the first assesses the explanatory power of socioeconomic status and social policy structures in predicting public attitudes toward income inequality, redistribution, and taxation policies (Chapters 2 to 4), and the second examines how differences in occupational status and national identity result in differences in reactions to welfare chauvinism and multiculturalism (Chapters 5 and 6). Taken together, the findings of this study underscore the importance of social cleavages, identity, and institutional structures in explaining why and under what conditions people are more likely to sacrifice part of their private interest or particularistic identity for the common good or the general welfare of all individuals in a community, in a situation of growing economic inequality and increased cultural plurality.
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Lankford, Noah D. "The Impact of Political Manichaeism on Conformity." Xavier University Psychology / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=xupsy1594648957493908.
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Dean, Leah M. "Overcoming Health Care Polarization with Interaction: Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Public Opinion in Kentucky." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1554215620088345.
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Wang, Hung Chung. "A Blue-Green Divide? Elite and Mass Partisan Dynamics in Taiwan." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2010. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1218.
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This dissertation aims to investigate the bases of partisan differentiation and degree of polarization since Taiwan's 2000 presidential election. By employing American concepts and theories of partisan polarization, I analyze Taiwan's party politics at both the elite and mass levels. At the elite level, I examine whether inter‐party antagonism has become more intense in Taiwan's legislature and what types of issues contribute most to party conflict since 2000. At the mass level, I examine public perceptions of the parties, analyze whether any political issues divide the Taiwanese public along partisan lines, and explore the social and demographic bases of partisan divisions. The findings suggest that political elites became polarized along partisan lines after 2000, as observed in roll‐call voting behavior in the Legislative Yuan. This resulted from the formation of a divided government and the confrontation of two party coalitions after the 2000 presidential election. Furthermore, this polarization is mainly due to the opposite positions of the two party coalitions on the issue of the relationship with China. The pan‐blue party coalition favors reunification and closer interaction with China, whereas its counterpart, the pan‐green party coalition, favors Taiwanese independence and limited interaction with China. The issues of social reform vs. stability, social welfare vs. lower taxes, and environmental protection vs. economic development are less polarizing and less consistently divisive than the issue of Taiwan's relations with China. Partisan polarization is less evident among ordinary citizens than among political elites. The only issue dividing Taiwanese significantly is the China relationship issue (independence or unification with China). In addition, demographic factors may lead to partisan division among citizens. Nevertheless, this polarization is more moderate than that of political elites because the number of partisan independents is high and has not decreased significantly. In short, partisan polarization in Taiwan is not as intense as some political scientists claim. Taiwan's partisan polarization at the mass level is closer to the concept of "sorting", referring to the process of people gradually affiliating with the party that best reflects their policy preferences, even if those preferences are more moderate than extreme.
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Ingmire, Brock. "Gubernatorial candidates in polarizing times: examining gubernatorial discourse through political interviews." Thesis, Kansas State University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/19224.
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Master of ArtsDepartment of Communications Studies
Soo-Hye Han
The rise of partisan political news over the past two decades has influenced how political candidates discursively construct their image. While there is an extensive literature devote to presidential discourse, little is known about what gubernatorial discourse looks like and how they construct their image. This study examines how gubernatorial candidates discursively construct their image in a hyperpolarized electoral environment. An extensive content analysis of gubernatorial political interviews (n = 94), and specifically the utterances arising from those interviews (n = 1,524), was conducted. Findings show that gubernatorial candidates discursively construct their own image as a savior to the state, while creating their opponent’s and the DC elite’s image as a villain. Additionally, gubernatorial candidates do not adhere to the image bound by their party, and construct an image that is unique to their environment. Consequently, the environment that a gubernatorial candidate is situated influences how they communicate and construct their image and their opponent’s image. By examining gubernatorial discourse through political interviews, this study offers theoretical implications into understanding the influence of polarization, issue ownership, and tone in gubernatorial discourse. Practical implications examine the role of media outlets in gubernatorial discourse. This study contributes to scholarly understanding of gubernatorial discourse in a changing and polarizing political environment.
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SKHIRTLADZE, SOPHIKO. "Essays in Political Economics." Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/7325.
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Questa tesi è composta di quattro capitoli, aventi come comune denominatore lo studio dell’economia dei media. Il primo capitolo fornisce una rassegna della letteratura teorica riguardante l’economia politica dei media con maggiore enfasi sulle economie emergenti. Il secondo capitolo analizza il ruolo dell’economia politica di “media capture”. È presentato un modello dinamico d’interazione tra media e audience che contempla la possibilità di compensazioni illecite da parte del governo in carica. Il modello sviluppato produce una serie d’intuizioni interessanti circa la relazione tra caratteristiche dell’industria dell’informazione, “media capture”, ed esiti elettorali. Il terzo capitolo studia come il meccanismo d’incentivazione per i potenziali candidati politici è influenzato dall’industria dell’informazione. È presentata un’estensione del modello cittadino-candidato proposto da Osborne e Slivinski (1997) e Besley e Coate (1997) attraverso l’introduzione di costi eterogenei associati alla candidatura elettorale. L’ultimo capitolo esamina la relazione tra i mezzi d’informazione e concentrazione politica guardando all’introduzione e alla diffusione di internet ad alta velocità agli inizi del ventunesimo secolo negli Stati Uniti. L’evidenza di causalità presentata dimostra come la diffusione di internet abbia aumentato fenomeni di estremismo ideologico negli Stati Uniti nella storia recente da parte dei rappresentanti politici.This thesis consists of four self-contained chapters. The four chapters have the common denominator that they all deal with political economics of media. In the first chapter I review theoretical literature on politics of media with focus on emerging economies. In the second chapter I analyze political economy of media capture. I introduce dynamic model of media and audience relationship with the possibility of side payments from the incumbent government. The model developed here produces a number of interesting insights in the relationship between features of the media industry, media capture, and political outcomes. In the third chapter I study how the incentive mechanism for potential political candidates to emerge and run for the office is shaped by the media environment. I extend the original citizen-candidate model proposed by Osborne and Slivinski (1997) and Besley and Coate (1997) by introducing heterogeneous costs associated with running for the office. The last chapter examines links between media and political polarization by looking at the introduction and diffusion of high speed internet at the onset of the 21st century in the United States. I provide causal evidence that internet diffusion has increased ideological extremism of US representatives in the recent history.
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SKHIRTLADZE, SOPHIKO. "Essays in Political Economics." Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/7325.
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Questa tesi è composta di quattro capitoli, aventi come comune denominatore lo studio dell’economia dei media. Il primo capitolo fornisce una rassegna della letteratura teorica riguardante l’economia politica dei media con maggiore enfasi sulle economie emergenti. Il secondo capitolo analizza il ruolo dell’economia politica di “media capture”. È presentato un modello dinamico d’interazione tra media e audience che contempla la possibilità di compensazioni illecite da parte del governo in carica. Il modello sviluppato produce una serie d’intuizioni interessanti circa la relazione tra caratteristiche dell’industria dell’informazione, “media capture”, ed esiti elettorali. Il terzo capitolo studia come il meccanismo d’incentivazione per i potenziali candidati politici è influenzato dall’industria dell’informazione. È presentata un’estensione del modello cittadino-candidato proposto da Osborne e Slivinski (1997) e Besley e Coate (1997) attraverso l’introduzione di costi eterogenei associati alla candidatura elettorale. L’ultimo capitolo esamina la relazione tra i mezzi d’informazione e concentrazione politica guardando all’introduzione e alla diffusione di internet ad alta velocità agli inizi del ventunesimo secolo negli Stati Uniti. L’evidenza di causalità presentata dimostra come la diffusione di internet abbia aumentato fenomeni di estremismo ideologico negli Stati Uniti nella storia recente da parte dei rappresentanti politici.This thesis consists of four self-contained chapters. The four chapters have the common denominator that they all deal with political economics of media. In the first chapter I review theoretical literature on politics of media with focus on emerging economies. In the second chapter I analyze political economy of media capture. I introduce dynamic model of media and audience relationship with the possibility of side payments from the incumbent government. The model developed here produces a number of interesting insights in the relationship between features of the media industry, media capture, and political outcomes. In the third chapter I study how the incentive mechanism for potential political candidates to emerge and run for the office is shaped by the media environment. I extend the original citizen-candidate model proposed by Osborne and Slivinski (1997) and Besley and Coate (1997) by introducing heterogeneous costs associated with running for the office. The last chapter examines links between media and political polarization by looking at the introduction and diffusion of high speed internet at the onset of the 21st century in the United States. I provide causal evidence that internet diffusion has increased ideological extremism of US representatives in the recent history.
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Axelson, Jacob, and Milena Axklo. "SKA VI PRATA OM DET? : En experimentell studie kring deliberation inom ramen för den kommunalpolitiska arenan." Thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Akademin för ekonomi, samhälle och teknik, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-54831.
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Democracy in Sweden is facing a plethora of serious challenges. The ability of political parties to engage and activate non-political citizens have been greatly reduced over the last 50 years, meanwhile the risk of increased polarization the coming years is prominent and alarming. This essay attempts to combine modern representative democracy with the ideal of deliberative democracy. The aim is to investigate if deliberation can contribute to the solution of these problems. This is accomplished through a study inspired by James Fishkin’s Deliberative Poll. Local politicians in Sweden have been invited to answer a questionnaire after which they participate in deliberation before answering a second questionnaire. The difference in results between the two questionnaires are then compared to show the effect of deliberation. There is a clear visual difference between the politician’s answers in the two questionnaires. Nevertheless, this difference is only statistically proven in one out of the 22 tests that were run. Therefore, this study cannot draw any conclusions regarding the true effect of deliberation. Nevertheless, deliberation among local politicians in Sweden seems to be successful based on a visual comparison of the results from the two questionnaires and further study is deemed desirable.
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Sude, Daniel J. "More than Partisans: Factors that Promote and Constrain Partisan Selective Exposure with Implications for Political Polarization." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu158859060047956.
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Dizor, Taylor J. "Network Heterogeneity and Opinion Polarization| The Effects of Diversity and Discussion on Young American Voters' Political Social Networks." Thesis, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, 2019. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10981266.
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This thesis is a partial replication of a previous study by Lee, Choi, Kim, and Kim (2014). This study was conducted in order to better understand how young American voters ages 18–35 interacted with their political social networks and how those networks influenced their political behavior through the lens of their social network sites—such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Social Network Theory was used as a foundation for this study because it provides a theoretical explanation as to how social networks are formed and how humans typically interact with their networks. The variables Network Heterogeneity, Opinion Polarization, Social Network Site Usage, and Political Discussion were measured. A series of Pearson’s r correlation and stepwise multiple regressions were run in order to ascertain the relationships between the four variables. The major result of the study found a significant relationship between Network Heterogeneity and Opinion Polarization, which potentially indicates that having a diverse social network can lead to polarized political opinions. The results of this study lead to multiple opportunities for future study in both the fields of communication and political science.
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Kinsella, Chad J. "The Little Sort: A Spatial Analysis of Polarization and the Sorting of Politically Like-Minded People." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1318607836.
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Carnahan, Dustin. "Why Motivations Matter: Information-Processing Goals and Their Implications for Selective Exposure to Political Information." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1427123218.
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Anspach, Nicolas Martin. "The Facebook Effect: Political News in the Age of Social Media." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2016. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/368181.
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Political SciencePh.D.
This dissertation extends the media effects literature into the realm of social media. Scholars have long known that partisan news contributes to political polarization, but claim that such effects are often limited to those who tune into politics. Social media, however, can filter political information to those typically uninterested in politics. Because social media feature entertainment and political news in the same space, entertainment-seekers may inadvertently see political news that they normally avoid in traditional media contexts. Through a combination of observational research, survey experiments, and field experiments, I demonstrate that social media facilitate personal influence, drawing new audiences to political news. This increased exposure to partisan media contributes to political polarization, regardless of the ideological congruence between source and receiver, or of news- or entertainment-seeking habits of the audience. But the most important contributions of this dissertation are how it demonstrates the need for scholars to use innovative methods that incorporate personal influence into social media studies, and that it draws scholarly attention to inadvertent media effects for entertainment-seeking audiences. Social media bring political news to new audiences numbering in the millions. Political communication scholars would be remiss not to investigate their influence.
Temple University--Theses
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Costello, Paige E. "Prose and Polarization: Environmental Literature and the Challenges to Constructive Discourse." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2012. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/388.
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This work explores how authors employ literary modes to persuade readers towards one side or another of the environmental debate and whether the works promote constructive discourse on environmental issues. It uses two seminal works from each side of the environmental discourse, Silent Spring and The Population Bomb and The Ultimate Resource and The Skeptical Environmentalist, to analyze stylistic differences and similarities, to compare public reception, and to explain the increasing polarization of environmental discourse.
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Hardy, Bethany Blaire. "Jittery Gauges: Combating the Polarizing Effect of Political Data Visualizations Through Uncertainty." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2017. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6640.
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Since the late 1800s, public data visualizations displaying election forecasts and results—such as the red and blue map of the United State—have presented an irreparably divided country. However, on November 8, 2016, the New York Times published a data visualization on their live presidential forecast page that broke over a century of visual expectations, inspiring many to tweet reactions to what popular media has dubbed the "jittery gauges." Not surprisingly, the tweets about this unique and difficult-to-interpret display were mostly negative. This paper argues, though, that the negative feedback indicates that the gauges, while imperfect, represent an important step away from visualizations that support the growing perception of party polarization. The key factor present in the gauges is the data design principle of uncertainty or possibility. If major news outlets were more thoughtful about introducing uncertain elements into visualizations of American politics, perhaps the nation could begin to imagine a political landscape that moves beyond red vs. blue, me vs. you.
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Anderson, Jaqualynn Marie. "When Partisanship is Too Risky: Understanding the Expression of Political Identity." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586528699884244.
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Teichgräber, Martin H. (Martin Hubert). "Political Parties in Central America: A Reassessment." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1994. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc500670/.
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Studies of political parties in Latin America have often been descriptive and not directed to link a theoretical foundation about political parties with qualitative or quantitative empiricism. This was in part because parties in the region were usually perceived as rather unimportant in the political arena. This study attempts to correct this often unjustified proposition by focusing on the development of political parties in five Central American countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The analysis focuses particularly on the relationship between party fragmentation, party polarization, the level of democracy, and socio-economic modernization. The quantitative analysis uses a cross-national longitudinal research design and tries to overcome shortcomings in prior descriptive approaches based on case studies. The overall findings show that party fragmentation and party polarization are positively related to the level of democracy in Central America.
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Barber, Jessica. "Attitudinal Responses to Mixed Evidence: The Role of Attitude Extremity and Political Ideology in Effecting Change versus Resistance." VCU Scholars Compass, 2012. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/327.
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Four studies investigated the effects of attitude extremity and political ideology on the degree and direction of changes in issue attitudes following the presentation of mixed evidence. Based upon previous work, it was predicted that those holding relatively more extreme attitudes would resist changing those views when presented with a mixture of supporting and opposing statements and would potentially adopt more extreme evaluative positions – a phenomenon known as attitude polarization (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979). Evaluative entrenchment or intensification was also expected among more politically conservative participants, based upon prior work describing cognitive rigidity and resistance to change as more characteristic of the political right than left (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). An interaction of attitude extremity and political ideology was also hypothesized, such that liberal individuals with moderate attitudes were expected to demonstrate the least propensity to polarize. Participants’ attitudes regarding abortion rights (Study 1), gun control (Study 2), tax increases (Study 3), and environmental preservation (Study 4) were assessed before and after reading statements that both opposed and supported the issue. Political ideology was also assessed, along with several individual difference factors. Across all four studies, attitude extremity significantly predicted evaluative change, although the pattern of that effect varied. Political ideology did not emerge consistently as a predictor of attitude change; however, significant interactive effects of extremity and ideology were found. In addition, several individual difference factors (i.e., gender, need for cognition, issue importance) were found to moderate the effects of the primary predictors on attitude change, and some divergent result patterns were found when comparing data from a college and non-college sample in Study 4. Taken together, these studies provide evidence that attitude extremity and political ideology influence the degree and direction of evaluative change following the presentation of mixed evidence. In addition, they identify other factors at work in effecting change versus resistance, thereby highlighting the multi-faceted and complex nature of persuasion in a political context.
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Söderberg, Britta. "Inside the echo chamber : A qualitative study on anti-immigration internet media, political polarization and social trust in a fragmented digital landscape." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-31828.
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“Filter bubble” became one of the most topical words of 2016 and it was even included in the Swedish Language Council's list of new Swedish words that was presented at the end of the year. Referring to algorithmically adapted media bubbles, this phenomenon has particularly been discussed in relation to the UK Brexit referendum and the US election as scholars and journalist argue that the phenomenon, in combination with a fragmented media usage, contribute to a political polarization where each side of the political spectrum is encapsulated in “echo chambers” where opinions and beliefs are repeated like an echo rather than contested and challenged. In a Swedish context, filter bubbles and echo chambers have mainly been discussed in relation to anti-immigration internet media (AIIM), such as Avpixlat, Fria Tider and Exponerat, as these, through their critique of established journalistic media's (EJM) reporting, appear to constitute one side of a polarized debate around immigration. Through online interviews with 13 users of AIIM, this thesis is aimed at understanding why people consume such media and if the consumers are affected by echo chambers. Drawing on theories on online echo chambers and radical media critique, the study's findings suggest that even though the respondents’ appear to thrive on a siege mentality where anti-immigration groups are excluded sub-groups with AIIM as their only solution, the respondents' consumption of AIIM (and critique of EJM) is more likely to be based on a combination of a low level of trust in society and strong political (right-wing) beliefs. Furthermore, the study shows that the respondents are likely to be affected by both fragmentation and filter bubbles, but that they are not completely isolated in an anti-immigration media bubbles as they also rely on EJM's reporting in several ways.
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Hurst, Kristin Frances. "Identity, Intergroup Relationships, and Environmental Conflict." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/89333.
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This dissertation explores strategies for addressing identity-related barriers to environmental problem-solving through the lens of two social-psychological theories: self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory. Through one theoretical review, two online experiments and one in-lab experiment I explore, integrate and test theoretically grounded strategies for reducing the defensive information processing that can exacerbate intergroup divisions in multi-stakeholder settings. The specific objectives of this dissertation are to 1) integrate self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory into the current knowledge about collaborative conservation (Chapter 2), 2) evaluate ways of tailoring environmental communication to better reach socially and politically diverse audiences (Chapter 3), and 3) experimentally test the effectiveness of an approach, based on self-affirmation theory, to facilitate productive discussion of complex, value-laden issues in group settings. Before presenting the results of this work, I provide a broad overview of the problem of group-based divisions in environmental conflict and the theoretical underpinnings of the dissertation (Chapter 1). Finally, I summarize the results and discuss the broader implications of the research (Chapter 5). The results of this research offer initial insights into how tools grounded in these theories can most effectively be applied to help alleviate identity-based barriers to environmental problem-solving.Doctor of Philosophy
This dissertation explores strategies for addressing identity-related barriers to environmental problem-solving through the lens of two social-psychological theories: self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory. Through one theoretical review, two online experiments and one in-lab experiment I explore, integrate and test theoretically grounded strategies for reducing the defensive information processing that can exacerbate intergroup divisions in multi-stakeholder settings. The specific objectives of this dissertation are to 1) integrate self-affirmation theory and moral foundations theory into the current knowledge about collaborative conservation (Chapter 2), 2) evaluate ways of tailoring environmental communication to better reach socially and politically diverse audiences (Chapter 3), and 3) experimentally test the effectiveness of an approach, based on self-affirmation theory, to facilitate productive discussion of complex, value-laden issues in group settings. Before presenting the results of this work, I provide a broad overview of the problem of group-based divisions in environmental conflict and the theoretical underpinnings of the dissertation (Chapter 1). Finally, I summarize the results and discuss the broader implications of the research (Chapter 5). The results of this research offer initial insights into how tools grounded in these theories can most effectively be applied to help alleviate identity-based barriers to environmental problem-solving.
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Berndtsson, Fredrik. "USA - Ett splittrat land? : En diskursiv fallstudie av politiska polariseringar i USA." Thesis, Försvarshögskolan, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-9632.
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The situation in the U.S. domestic politics has by media been presented that large groups of citizens are divided in the political arena. Today many scholars in the field of international relations tend to describe the political climate in the United States, between democrats and republicans as polarized and towards confrontation. The ongoing situation has heavily escalated due to the fact of the Trump administrations incapability to restore former order in the political system. This makes it easy for radical political groups to follow an agenda which has helped to create a favourable breeding ground for escalating violence, which currently raising large-scale concerns among senior executives, media and citizens. The aim of this thesis is therefore to introduce a perspective that could offer a complementary understanding of some identified elements that affects the current political situation. By using Ty Solomons theoretical framework of emotions this study seeks to identify the fundamental elements of Master signifiers in political contexts. A use of this theory can be a helpful tool for political leaders, when trying to restore balance and unifying people for a common political cause.
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Sietman, Rebecca Michelle Border. "Framing the 2004 Presidential Election: the role of media, political discussion, and opinion leaders." Connect to this title online, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1117641050.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 199 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-199). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center
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Wolken, Samuel. "National Media Systems, Affective Polarization, and Loyalty in Vote Choice: Contextualizing the Relationship Between News Media and Partisanship." The Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1586952294107063.
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Salles, Nara Oliveira. "Do nacional ao local: a polarização entre PT e PSDB na perspectiva dos eleitores." Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF), 2015. https://repositorio.ufjf.br/jspui/handle/ufjf/5486.
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Diante da polarização das eleições presidenciais, protagonizada pelo Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) e pelo Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB) desde 1994, este estudo se propõe a investigar se e em que medida tal clivagem se reproduz nos municípios, estruturando percepções e identidades dos eleitores. Este tema remete a diferentes campos da Ciência Política, como os de partidos e sistemas partidários e comportamento político. A literatura, através de autores como Michels (1982), Kirchheimer (1966) e Katz e Mair (1995), aponta as transformações vividas pelos partidos políticos nas democracias contemporâneas, ressaltando o progressivo distanciamento entre as agremiações e as bases sociais, além da desideologização de seus discursos e ações. Tais mudanças dialogariam com características inerentes ao sistema partidário brasileiro que contribuem, para Lamounier (1992) e Kinzo (1993), para a intensa fragmentação, a alta volatilidade e acentuado regionalismo das disputas. Nesse sentido, umas das consequências seria a desarticulação entre as arenas competitivas, favorecendo a existência da racionalidade política contextual nos municípios, como descreve Lima Júnior (1983). O conjunto desses fatores dificultaria o estabelecimento de vínculos entre o eleitorado e os partidos, segundo Mair (1997), uma vez que eles dependeriam da estabilidade entre as atuações das siglas e de maior enraizamento dos partidos. Contudo, Veiga (2007) e Ribeiro, Carreirão e Borba (2011) indicam que as preferências e as identidades partidárias no Brasil, apesar de reduzidas, não são desprezíveis. A literatura sobre socialização política, por sua vez, aponta fatores determinantes para a constituição de tais laços, como os aspectos socioeconômicos, afetivos e racionais. Assim, interessa descobrir como os eleitores estruturam suas percepções perante um cenário em que há um consolidado bipartidarismo nacional, (des)alinhamentos na esfera local e crescente distanciamento entre indivíduos e organizações partidárias. A hipótese é a de que a reprodução da polarização PT-PSDB nos municípios não se estabelece de maneira automática e homogênea, sendo mediada por atributos dos arranjos locais. Assim, espera-se maior rivalidade entre o eleitorado que se encontra em localidades cuja competição se alinha à nacional do que nos municípios em que PT e PSDB estabelecem alianças. Para verificar tal hipótese, desenvolveu-se uma primeira etapa de investigação, que buscou categorizar os municípios de pequeno e médio porte do estado de Minas Gerais, entre o período de 2000 a 2012, de acordo com as seguintes variáveis: comportamento do PT e do PSDB nas eleições majoritárias, desempenho eleitoral de ambos os partidos, organização partidária local e número de filiados no município. Essa análise permitiu selecionar um caso de aliança plena entre os partidos e outro de polarização alta, onde foram realizados três grupos focais com eleitores neutros, simpatizantes e filiados. Os dados coletados permitiram elaborar duas considerações principais: (1) por mais que a clivagem PT-PSDB se reproduza no nível local, ela é mediada por atributos do arranjo político municipal; (2) a aliança local entre PT e PSDB não garante a inexistência de outro tipo de fragmentação e rivalidade e nem implica na incapacidade de os eleitores elaborarem distinções entre os partidos. Nesse sentido, sugere-se a ideia de polarização contextualizada para compreender tal configuração.
In the face of the presidential elections’ polarization, led by the Workers’ Party (PT, in Portuguese) and the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB, in Portuguese) since 1994, the purpose of this research is investigate if and how this cleavage reproduce itself in the cities, arranging the voters’ perceptions and identities. This topic refers to different Political Science’s fields, as the parties and the parties system and the political behavior. The literature, through authors like Michels (1982), Kirchheimer (1966) and Katz and Mair (1995), points the parties’ changes in the nowadays democracies. They emphasize the growing distance between the voters and the parties, beyond the ideology’s reduction in their speeches and actions. These changes are associated to the inherent features of the Brazilian party system that could contribute, to Lamounier (1992) and Kinzo (1993), to the intensive fragmentation, high volatility and strong regionalism in the competitions. Therefore, the disarticulation among the arenas would be one of the consequences of this conjuncture, confirming the concept of contextual political rationality, elaborated by Lima Junior (1983). All these factors would raise difficulties to bond the voters and the parties, according to Mair (1997), because it would depend on the stability between the parties’ actions and their rooting. However, Veiga (2007) and Ribeiro, Carreirão and Borba (2011) show that, despite the low preferences and identities among the voters in Brazil, the rates are not insignificant. The political socialization’s literature, on its turns, indicates determinant factors to this relationship, as the socioeconomics, emotional and rational elements. So, this study intends to understand how the voters organize their perceptions in front of a national bipartisan conjuncture, but with a local (mis)alignment and a growing distance between the voters and the parties. The hypothesis suggests the reproduction of the PT-PSDB’s polarization in the cities is not automatic and homogeneous, but it is mediated by the local arrangement components. Thus, a stronger competition among the voters is expected at the cities where the conjuncture follows the national pattern than at the cities where PT and PSDB are allies. A categorizing and quantitative research was developed to test this hypothesis. In this moment, the small and medium-size cities from Minas Gerais were classified according to the following variables for 2000-2012 period of time: PT and PSDB’ behaviour in the majoritarian elections, their electoral results, local party’s organization and affiliate’s number. This analysis allowed select an entire alliance between the parties and a case of high polarization, where three focal groups were realized with neuters, sympathizers and affiliate voters. The collected data enabled to elaborate two main considerations: (1) even if the PT-PSDB’s cleavage reproduces itself in the cities, it is mediated by local factors; (2) the local alliance between PT and PSDB does not assure the absence of other fragmentation and antagonism and it neither implies that the voters not be able to distinguish these parties. Therefore, this study suggests thinking this conjuncture by the idea of the contextualized polarization.
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Schneiderman, Maya Danielle. "THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCIETAL RESPONSE TO THE HARM OF TOBACCO VERSUS THE HARM OF CLIMATE CHANGE: THE ROLE OF PARTY DISCOURSE ON THE POLARIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION." Ohio University Art and Sciences Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouashonors1528314554965568.
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Ayo, Diego. "The Constituent Assembly and democracy at risk: corporatism, capitalism and rentseeking and political pillars of the new Bolivian Constitution." Politai, 2014. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/92617.
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Did the new Bolivian Constitution of 2009 influence a change on its democratic model? The thesis of the article claims that as a result of how the Constitution elaboration process was carried out on a frame of certain historical conditions, the product elaborated –The Constitution- by the Constituent Assembly had little substantial change in contrast to former Constitutions. Historical constrains of the Bolivian economy and the polarization of the actors involved on the elaboration process of the new Constitution had a great influence to prevent a substantially different new one. Progressive’s elements were introduced as a matter of result of the Bolivian revolution as Human Rights, Plurinationality, and Regional Autonomies, but certain constitutional prerogatives remained unchanged to preserve the status quo. The presence of corporatists, rentist and statist actors has been a trend along Bolivian history, which does allow the reproduction of the internal political relationships of the Bolivian model and inhibits the possibility of a substantial change or re-foundation. Furthermore, the pos-contitutional situation will consolidate a democracy that hardly would break the historical constrains thatrules its hybrid character.¿La nueva Constitución Boliviana del 2009 motivó un cambio sustancial en su modelo democrático? La tesis del artículo argumenta que la poca variación sustancial en el producto elaborado –la Constitución- por la Asamblea Constituyente, en comparación a Constituciones anteriores, fue fruto de cómo se llevó a cabo el proceso de elaboración de la misma aunque se debe resaltar algunas consideraciones históricas. Las constricciones históricas de la economía boliviana así como la polarización de actores en la elaboración de la nueva Constitución tuvieron una gran influencia al impedir una refundación de la misma. Si bien hubo un gran recojo de elementos progresistas fruto de la revolución boliviana como Derechos Humanos, Plurinacionalidad y Autonomías Regionales, aún se mantuvieron ciertas prerrogativas constitucionales a actores que protegían el status quo. La presencia de actores corporativistas, rentistas y estatistas se ha mantenido a lo largo del tiempo, por lo que se permite la reproducción de las relaciones políticas internas del modelo boliviano y se inhibe la posibilidad de su reemplazo o refundación. Esto derivó en una situación posconstitucional que consolidará una democracia que dificultosamente podrá quebrar las ataduras de un pasado que condiciona su carácter híbrido.
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Engvall, Anders. "Poverty and conflict in Southeast Asia." Doctoral thesis, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, Samhällsekonomi (S), 2010. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hhs:diva-1005.
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This is a collection of papers on three Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Thailand. All four studies rely on household survey data for analyzing topics related to poverty and conflicts. Trust and Conflict in Southern ThailandThe insurgency in Thailand’s southern border provinces has caused thousands of casualties since 2004. This paper investigates the impact of mistrust of the government on the violent conflict. I analyze how failure to address local grievances has led to a breakdown of trust and created conditions for an insurgency. Empirical tests are carried out using a survey of individual trust in government institutions conducted at the beginning of violent conflict. It is shown that sub-districts where the population displayed lower levels of pre-conflict trust experienced higher levels of lethal violence during the conflict. Factors influencing trust in government institutions are analyzed using ordinal logistic analysis. Economic and ethno-linguistic factors are identified as the main determinants of trust towards the government. Political polarization in ThailandThe article traces recent political polarization to earlier institutional reforms opening up the political system to increased electoral competition. The increased influence of the rural majority led new political entrepreneurs to introduce welfare policies. The new polices were opposed by urban tax payers, setting off a process of policy driven polarization that drew on underlying cleavages in Thai society. Empirical tests based on voting patterns in the most recent general election using a seemingly unrelated regression model provide support for the hypothesis of policy driven political polarization. The analysis highlights the vulnerability to increased polarization after introduction of institutional reforms that alter the balance of power between different parts of the electorate. Ethnic Minority Poverty in Lao PDREthnic minorities have a significantly higher poverty incidence than the majority in Lao PDR. Based on survey data the determinants of minority poverty are analyzed, the sources of inequality decomposed, and the expected impact of polices to address minority poverty estimated. When economic factors are controlled for, ethnicity does not have any significant effect on poverty. Decomposition shows that unequal access to resources and demographic variables largely explain the majority-minority poverty gap. Rural Poverty in CambodiaCambodia has been growing rapidly over the past few years, but remains one of the poorest countries in East Asia. This paper analyzes rural poverty in Cambodia to identify the factors that explain its occurrence and persistence. The reduction of rural poverty in Cambodia requires (1) improvements in agricultural productivity and (2) the establishment of other income earning opportunities for the rural population. An econometric analysis of the Cambodian Socio-Economic Survey shows that the main causes of poverty differ between landowners and the landless, and between different regions.
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Wilson, Traci Lynn. "The direct electoral connection in the European Union." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1196cdcf-c933-4ada-99bd-34a3e2482abb.
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The European Union is often criticized for having a democratic deficit, and most often cited are the shortcomings in citizen inputs. The complex institutional structure, in particular the dual channel of representation (supranational and intergovernmental), contributes to these concerns. This thesis thus examines what impacts the linkage between citizens and their elected representatives in the direct channel of representation. I refer to this linkage as the "electoral connection" and outline three related input criteria: Competent Citizens: Citizens can competently assign policy responsibility and hold their representatives to account; Meaningful Choices: Citizens have meaningful choices at election time; and Substantive Representation: Elected officials are representative of their constituents. The theoretical framework of the electoral connection is based in substantive representation, and focuses on the mandate conception of representation but also includes a discussion of accountability. I utilize European Election Studies (EES) voter, media, and candidate studies from 2009, EES voter and candidate studies from 1994, and a novel expert survey on EU responsibility (2010). The analyses of responsibility attributions and vote choice are conducted using multilevel modelling to assess individual- and contextual-level determinants. I test the effect that information and political attitudes, specifically extreme attitudes have on the first two criteria of the direct electoral connection. The role of information is tested at the individual level through political sophistication, and at the contextual level through the politicization of the EU issue. The first criterion is tested by comparing citizen and expert attributions of responsibility. For the second criterion, two chapters which examine perceived party positions and issue-cross pressure assess how this impacts the electoral connection. The final empirical chapter is a descriptive analysis of congruence on policy priorities and preference for governmental responsibility to assess substantive representation. If there is some understanding of responsibility, and citizens have selected parties that align with their preferred policy positions, then we should expect government to be representative of its constituents. One contribution is defining an expanded definition of the electoral connection. In addition I show that political sophistication and issue politicization have a positive impact on the electoral connection, while attitude extremity generally has a negative impact. Furthermore, the European Parliament is quite representative of its constituents. Concerns about democratic deficit and lack of representation in the European Union are overstated.
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Taylor, James Benjamin. "Do Wedge Issues Matter?: Examining Persuadable Voters and Base Mobilization in the 2004 Presidential Election." unrestricted, 2009. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04172009-110253/.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2009.Title from file title page. Sean Richey, committee chair; Richard Engstrom , Jason Reifler , committee members. Description based on contents viewed July 22, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-41).
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Rouby, Eric. "« Une voix et un écho » : Analyse des interactions entre le Tea Party et le système politique américain (2009-2013)." Thesis, Bordeaux, 2018. http://www.theses.fr/2018BORD0043/document.
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Début 2009, alors que les Etats-Unis étaient au coeur de la crise économique la plusimportante depuis plus de soixante-quinze ans, Barack Obama prenait place à la Maison-Blanche etmettait en place ses premières mesures sous le mot d’ordre « Hope and Change ». L’opposition à sonaction s’est alors rapidement cristallisée autour du mouvement Tea Party. Le premier objectif de cetravail de thèse consiste à expliquer le succès remporté par ce mouvement, en soulignant le rôle dequatre facteurs issue de la « structure des opportunités politiques » : l’ouverture du système partisanaux challengers, la stabilité des alignements politiques, l’existence de forces relais et, enfin, lastructure du conflit. Ces éléments constitutifs nous donnent aussi les clés nécessaires pour comprendrecomment et sous quelle forme s’est construite l’idéologie du mouvement. Dans un second temps, ilsera question d’analyser les effets du mouvement Tea Party sur son environnement politique. Nouschercherons à comprendre dans quelle mesure et selon quels mécanismes ce mouvement est parvenu àinfluencer le système politique américain dans un contexte marqué, depuis les années soixante-dix, parune polarisation de la politique américaine. Pour cela, nous aurons recours à l’étude comparée desdiscours produits par le Tea Party, le Parti républicain et le Parti démocrateIn 2009, while the United-States were suffering from the worst economic crisis in more thansixty-five years, Barack Obama entered the White House and began implementing the first measuresof his “Hope and change” agenda. Opposition to his actions quickly crystallized around the Tea Partymovement. This PhD thesis aims firstly to explain the sudden success of the Tea Party by pointing therole of four factors linked to the “political opportunity structure”: access to the party system and policydecisions, the political alignments stability, the alliance structure, and finally the conflict structure.Those four elements can also help us understand the way the movement’s ideology was shaped. Asecond part is devoted to analyzing the effects of the Tea Party on its political environment. We intendto show to what extend and in which ways the Tea Party was able to influence the American politicalsystem, in a context marked, since the seventies, by a growing political polarization. To do so, weproceed by resorting to the comparative study of the Tea Party, the Republican Party, and theDemocratic Party discourses
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Roghult, Madeleine. "Tolerance or truth? : The good, the bad and the political in the discourse of the American Family Association." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-82444.
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This master’s thesis conducts a discourse analysis on a political organization within the New Christian Right (NCR), the American Family Association (AFA). The purpose of the study is to analyze the conditions of possibility for a politics that aims to prevent progress for LGBT rights and does so by analyzing the political terrain where operations of power produce particular and meaningful political practices. As analytical tools the study relies on a theory of the political by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who together with Michel Foucault also provide an elaborate theory of power. Theoretical work by Wendy Brown provides insights into how politics can be expressed when social antagonisms are prevented from engaging in political contestation. Results of the discourse analysis trace social antagonisms in AFA discourse to a dislocation of the social where new articulatory practices have established new relationships between elements of discourse and thereby also changed the nature of social intelligibility and interaction. AFA discourse articulates family values based on the privileged signifiers of freedom, democracy and rights, which is utilized both for a separatist politics of discrimination and an inclusive politics of social assimilation. AFA discourse shows many points of antagonism and organizes an enemy in postmodernism. Freedom as a mode of governmentality conditions the political demands that are and can be made which can be traced to a hegemonic neoliberal articulation. AFA discourse challenges neoliberal hegemony through the process of separatism, yet is intimately bound to the hegemonic way of making political demands in order to gain discursive strength and legitimacy.