A Close-run Thing? Accounting for Changing Overall Turnout in UK General Elections
In: Representation, Band 55, Heft 1, S. 101-116
ISSN: 1749-4001
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In: Representation, Band 55, Heft 1, S. 101-116
ISSN: 1749-4001
In: British journal of political science, Band 49, Heft 4, S. 1527-1553
ISSN: 1469-2112
The recent spate of mass public shootings in the United States raises important questions about how these tragic events might impact mass opinion and public policy. Integrating research on focusing events, contextual effects and perceived threat, this article stipulates that residing near a mass shooting should increase support for gun control by making the threat of gun violence more salient. Drawing upon multiple data sources on mass public shootings paired with large-N survey data, it demonstrates that increased proximity to a mass shooting is associated with heightened public support for stricter gun control. Importantly, the results show that this effect does not vary by partisanship, but does vary as a function of salience-related event factors, such as repetition, magnitude and recency. Critically, the core result is replicated using panel data. Together, these results suggest a process of context-driven policy feedback between existing gun laws, egregious gun violence and demand for policy change.
In: The British journal of politics & international relations: BJPIR, Band 19, Heft 4, S. 824-841
ISSN: 1467-856X
Parties' local campaign efforts can yield electoral dividends in plurality elections; in general, the harder they campaign, the more votes they receive. However, this is not invariably the case. Different parties' campaigns can have different effects. What is more, the particular status of a candidacy can also influence how effective the local campaign might be. Analyses of constituency campaigning at the 2015 UK General Election reveal inter-party variations in campaign effectiveness. But looking more closely at how a party was placed tactically in a seat prior to the election, and at whether sitting MPs stood again for their party or retired, reveals distinct variations in what parties stand to gain from their local campaigns in different circumstances.
In: Hartman , T , Pattie , C & Johnston , R 2017 , ' Learning on the job? Adapting party campaign strategy to changing information on the local political context ' , Electoral Studies , vol. 49 , pp. 128-135 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2017.06.005
An extensive literature demonstrates that local campaign efforts in the UK generally pay electoral dividends for parties. As a result, rational parties focus campaign efforts most in seats where the electoral outcome is not pre-determined and where a few more votes either way could change the result. An important indicator of where such constituencies can be found is provided by prior election results, and research has shown that rational parties tend to focus their campaigns most heavily on those seats where the previous election was close and less in seats where in the past they either lost badly or won comfortably. However, much less attention has been given to how local parties react to new information showing how the competitive situation in their area is changing as a general election approaches. We use data from a rare set of local opinion polls conducted in British constituencies in the run-up to the 2015 UK General Election. Although hampered by their generally small size, limited fund-raising capacity, and reliance on volunteers, we find that local parties do respond to new information. Our results indicate that parties tend to put more effort into local campaigns in seats where an opinion poll had been carried out than in otherwise similar seats where one had not. And, the more competitive the poll suggested their race was, the more resources they devoted to it.
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In: British Journal of Politics and International Relations
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Working paper
In: PS: political science & politics, Band 45, Heft 3, S. 449-455
AbstractRecent polls reveal that between 20% and 25% of Americans erroneously indicate that President Obama is a Muslim. In this article, we compare individuals' explicit responses on a survey about religion and politics with reaction time data from an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to investigate whether individuals truly associate Obama with Islam or are motivated reasoners who simply express negativity about the president when given the opportunity. Our results suggest that predispositions such as ideology, partisanship, and race affect how citizens feel about Obama, which in turn motivates them to accept misinformation about the president. We also find that these implicit associations increase the probability of stating that Obama is likely a Muslim. Interestingly, political sophistication does not appear to inoculate citizens from exposure to misinformation, as they exhibit the same IAT effect as less knowledgeable individuals.
In: PS: political science & politics, Band 45, Heft 3, S. 449-455
ISSN: 0030-8269, 1049-0965
World Affairs Online
In: Political behavior, Band 31, Heft 4, S. 537-558
ISSN: 1573-6687
In: Political behavior, Band 31, Heft 4, S. 537-558
ISSN: 0190-9320
In: Political geography: an interdisciplinary journal for all students of political studies with an interest in the geographical and spatial aspects, Band 71, S. 36-46
ISSN: 0962-6298
In: Scottish affairs, Band 28, Heft 1, S. 1-31
ISSN: 2053-888X
Political scientists often debate how much information people have and deploy when making electoral decisions. Some scholars suggest that voters are aware of which party is likely to win in their local constituency at British general elections; however, this might not be the case in situations when there is substantial and spatially varying change in the relative fortunes of two or more parties between elections. That argument is evaluated here using as a case study the 2015 and 2017 general elections in Scotland: at the first, the SNP's vote share more than doubled, and it won 56 of the country's 59 seats, having won just six at the previous contest; at the second, its vote share fell by about a third, and it lost 21 of those 56 seats. Analysis of British Election Survey data collected before and during the campaigns preceding those elections shows that most respondents were aware of the SNP's surge in 2015 and expected their victory in every constituency. In 2017, most voters were aware which of the SNP's three competitors was the biggest threat in each constituency, and that awareness became clearer during the campaign; yet, voters – especially those who identified with the SNP and were contacted by it during the campaign – still (incorrectly) anticipated a local SNP victory.
In: Electoral Studies, Band 49, S. 128-135
In: APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper
SSRN
Working paper
In: Political psychology: journal of the International Society of Political Psychology, Band 35, Heft 2, S. 165-186
ISSN: 1467-9221
We argue that conflict over immigration largely concerns who bears the burden of cultural transaction costs, which we define as the costs associated with overcoming cultural barriers (e.g., language) to social exchange. Our framework suggests that the ability of native-born citizens to push cultural transaction costs onto immigrant out-groups serves as an important expression of social dominance. In two novel studies, we demonstrate that social dominance motives condition emotional responses to encountering cultural transaction costs, shape engagement in cultural accommodation behavior toward immigrants, and affect immigration attitudes and policy preferences. Adapted from the source document.