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AbstractStudies of the American public demonstrate that partisans often diverge not only on questions of opinion but also on matters of fact. However, little is known about partisan divergence in factual beliefs among the government officials who make real policy decisions, or how it compares to belief polarization among the public. This letter describes the first systematic comparison of factual belief polarization between the public and government officials, which we conducted using a paired survey approach. The results indicate that political elites are consistently more accurately informed than the public across a wide range of politically contentious facts. However, this increase in accuracy does not translate into reduced factual belief polarization. These findings demonstrate that a more informed political elite does not necessarily mitigate partisan factual disagreement in policy making.

The scientific article presents a study of the ways of expressing manipulation in politics, which is performed in English political discourse by means of language. Carefully selected language units, used by politicians in public speaking, in combination with social factors, can be a powerful instrument for managing public opinion, i.e. manipulation. The authors analyze public speeches delivered by English politicians. Manipulation is an integral part of American political discourse, all speech strategies of which are aimed at one purpose: to influence a recipient, persuade him or her to make a decision that will be beneficial for a politician. The article considers the main strategies, tactics and types of manipulation used in the modern political sphere. An analysis of public speeches of English politicians proves the importance of speech manipulative techniques for successful achievement of political goals.

Public policies sometimes generate "policy feedback effects," reshaping public opinion and political participation among beneficiaries or the public generally, often with the effects of generating supportive constituencies that help to sustain the program. Yet such effects do not always occur; in fact, despite that Americans use more social policies than ever, antipathy to government runs high—evidence of a seeming "government-citizen disconnect." Policy design and delivery matters for policy feedback, as policies that make government's role more visible may make more of an impression on beneficiaries; yet political polarization and distrust in government can interfere with such effects. In addition, those who are most aware of the government's role in social provision often participate least in politics, and vice versa. This article considers strategies that public officials and other civic and political leaders can use to facilitate policy feedback effects.

This article presents a discussion of the conceptualization of "government performance" in the Political Science literature & the way this construct is translated in four international studies by the World Bank, the Central European Bank, the Dutch government & the World Economic Forum. The analysis of the four studies shows the difficulties in the empirical development of some of the conceptualization lines & the trend to use public opinion data & aggregated societal results in sectors such as economic growth, health or education. The concern to pursue an objective evaluation of comparative government performance, understood as quality of public management, can be addressed, either substituting this concept by the administrations pro-activity to adopt some public reforms or producing better comparative data at the level of OECD on key processes in the production of some public services. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines the conflict in Darfur, which has been described by many including the President of the United States, as an ongoing genocide. To this end, I argue that the lack of adequate coverage of the killings in Darfur particularly in US network television evening news, has kept the public in the dark. This lack of information provided to the public has the potential to prolong the plight of Darfurians who have been killed, raped, starved and displaced, because there is little public pressure on policy makers, or outcry from the international community to stop the atrocities. It is also argued here that these television networks have the capacity to influence US foreign relations by mobilizing public opinion on pressing international issues such as the genocide in Darfur. Suggestions of how the news media can improve coverage are offered.

Chile's long term social policy has produced very impressive outcomes in general health indicators, with a national health service established as early as 1952. During the years of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-89) public health institutions were greatly affected, with sharp diminution in financing which affected investment and salaries. The democratic government initiated in 1990 faced a difficult situation, with underpaid staff and decrepit hospitals. The ministry took immediate action to improve salaries and start an ambitious health sector reform including investment in infrastructure, technology, and modern management. Decentralisation and autonomy, changes in payment for service mechanisms, and a public-private mix are the main objectives of this reform, keeping the public role as predominant in the proposed structure. This process has been affected by union unrest and public opinion dissatisfaction, which tend to present obstacles to progress in this complicated issue.

Do parties change their platform in anticipation of electoral losses? Or do parties respond to experienced losses at the previous election? These questions relate to two mechanisms to align public opinion with party platforms: (1) rational anticipation, and (2) electoral performance. While extant work empirically tested, and found support for, the latter mechanism, the effect of rational anticipation has not been put to an empirical test yet. We contribute to the literature on party platform change by theorizing and assessing how party performance motivates parties to change their platform in-between elections. We built a new and unique dataset of >20,000 press releases issued by 15 Dutch national political parties that were in parliament between 1997 and 2014. Utilizing automated text analysis (topic modeling) to measure parties' platform change, we show that electoral defeat motivates party platform change in-between elections. In line with existing findings, we demonstrate that parties are backward-looking.

ObjectiveAssess Latino support past, present, and future for President Obama and his policies, and the role of the Latino vote in the 2012 election.MethodsExamine Latino voting patterns, administrative decisions and legislation enacted by President Obama affecting Latinos, and Latino public opinion polls to evaluate potential support for Obama by Latinos.ResultsDespite disappointment and anger over immigration policy by President Obama, Latinos still indicate high levels of support for him and willingness to vote for him in the 2012 elections. Obama has demonstrated his commitment to issues salient to the Latino community in addition to appointing a large number of Latinos to top‐ranking government positions. The influence of the Latino vote in 2012 is dependent on voter mobilization in competitive places.ConclusionLatinos in the 2012 election could play a significant role in the presidential race but also in congressional races if they turn out in high numbers in competitive places to ensure their numbers result in influence.

This paper presents a view over the way in which governments adapt to the changes in the social and economic environment related to the digitalization of various aspects of the society as well as trends in policy making and public opinion that challenge traditional governing methods. Three distinct e-governance infrastructure are tackled: Government to Client, Government to Businesses and Government to Government solutions that can use tools and technologies, each with financial implications and relevance from a tax policy stand point. The most significant functional, technical operational implications are briefly explored then the paper then analyses the development of possible E-governance applications for each function of the government in the economy. All such developments manifest both deterrent forces and incentives, but a well-executed system has all prerequisites for good e-governance.

This book offers a comparative study of the political debate on the Euro crisis in the press. In the tradition of Critical Discourse Analysis, it investigates the ways in which discourse produces and reproduces social domination, and demystifies the hegemony of specific discourses. Combining quantitative content-based and qualitative text-based analyses, the book examines the discursive constructions of the crisis in a selection of broadsheet newspapers in Germany, Poland, and the UK, and discloses their ideological foundations. The analysis of the representations of the crisis, social actors and their agency, and legitimating strategies, including the use of metaphors, demonstrates how neoliberalism determined the hegemonic discourse on the Euro crisis. It resulted in ideologically biased discursive constructions that created and legitimised an image of non-agentic social change. The book will appeal to an international audience of discourse and media studies. It will be of interest to university teachers, graduate and undergraduate students and researchers of international and comparative media studies, political communication, linguistics, and politics.

Despite the increase in the number of studies in International Relations using concepts from a role theory perspective, scholarship continues to assume that a state's own expectations of what role it should play on the world stage is shared among domestic political actors. Cristian Cantir and Juliet Kaarbo have gathered a leading team of internationally distinguished International Relations scholars to draw on decades of research in Foreign Policy Analysis to explore points of internal contestation of national role conceptions (NRCs) and the effects and outcomes of contestation between domestic political actors. Nine detailed comparative case studies have been selected for the purpose of theoretical exploration, with an eye to illustrating the relevance of role contestation in a diversity of settings, including variation in period, geographic area, unit of analysis, and aspects of the domestic political process. This edited book includes a number of pioneering insights into how the domestic political process can have a crucial effect on how a country behaves at the global level.

Este artículo tiene por objetivo evidenciar la importancia que tienen las redes sociales en el escenario político actual como herramientas comunicativas fundamentales para la labor del comunicador político, quien debe considerarlas en el diseño y desarrollo de una completa estrategia de comunicación política, es decir, como instrumentos complementarios a los medios de comunicación tradicionales asociados a dicho contexto y a su profesión. Para ello, se utiliza una metodología mixta, descriptiva y exploratoria que se basa en las técnicas de observación, encuesta y entrevista (no estructurada) para poder demostrar la crucial relación que actualmente existe entre las redes sociales y la comunicación política. En este contexto, las redes sociales son un medio estratégico de comunicación y el éxito de una campaña política. Para evidenciar esta relación, se emplearon tres etapas: 1) exploración de documentos y comportamientos ciudadanos en torno al uso de las redes sociales como mecanismo político; 2) análisis de percepciones de expertos en el tema; y 3) correlación de la exploración y análisis anteriores para la generación de resultados y conclusiones. Lo anterior demuestra el interés que existe por este nuevo espacio de contienda electoral que se asocia a la virtualidad, el cual se debe considerar y analizar para comprender el rumbo que está tomando este importante proceso de participación social, así como aprovecharlo para alcanzar el éxito político presente. En este sentido, se concluye que las redes sociales son hoy un medio de comunicación trascendental, el cual se debe articular a las maneras tradicionales de hacer política y tener en cuenta necesariamente en esta nueva realidad ; This article has as its main goal making evident the importance that social networks have in the current political scenario as a fundamental communicative tools for the work of the political communicator, whom is responsible for designing and developing a full political communication strategy, i.e., as complementary instruments to the ...