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AbstractUnderstanding the formation of and changes in citizens' extreme views on complex public policies is an important task in our increasingly polarized world. Behavioral sciences offer insights on cognitive processes and potential mechanisms to mitigate extremity in policy preferences and develop more realistic models that underprint political attitudes. About a decade ago, Fernbach et al. (2013) offered a simple cognitive intervention to reduce political extremism: Confront people with their lack of procedural policy knowledge such that their overestimation of knowledge is shattered. We conducted three high‐value replications and extensions to examine the applicability of Fernbach's proposed theory among a sample of 5,139 citizens in postconflict Hong Kong. Our results suggest the opposite: Positional extremity is higher when citizens articulate their understanding of policy. Our study, which is larger in scale, draws on different time periods and extended interventions and examines more controversial policy issues has epistemological and cognitive implications for future research on the political psychology of extremism.

Recent literature has underscored the power of digital activism, but few studies have symmetrically examined its impact beyond domestic audiences and among illiberal regimes. The co-occurrence of mass protests in East and Southeast Asia in 2019–2021, when protesters called for help from international communities, offers a valuable opportunity to test the power of digital media. This study uses a data set of 154 million Twitter posts and a time-series model to contrast sets of collective action metrics and connective action metrics with a novel dependent variable—foreign politicians' responses. We then analyze the directional, intensity, and time-lagged effects of the relevant cue-taking processes. We find that the new metrics are more potent in predicting responses from foreign politicians. Agency- and network-centered metrics also outperform number- and intensity-oriented metrics across the three cases. These findings have implications for the roles of opinion leadership and engagement networks in digital activism.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether social trust is associated with more stress symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in six East and Southeast Asia regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: This multi-region study used cross-sectional survey data collected in May 2020. Participants were a probability-based internet sample of adults aged 55 or older. RESULTS: Government trust was negatively associated with stress in Singapore and South Korea. Higher levels of health care trust were significantly associated with less stress in Singapore and Taiwan. Trust in neighbors was associated with a higher likelihood of stress in Hong Kong and a lower likelihood in Singapore. Social trust was not associated with stress in Japan or Thailand. DISCUSSION: Findings suggest the level of social trust in relation to stress substantially varied by region. Interventions to strengthen trust during COVID-19 and other major health crises need to be tailored to fit regions' unique circumstances. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-02847-5.

Does life satisfaction (LS) predict people's likelihood of participating in politics? Although the relationship between LS and political participation (PP) has been widely debated, its correlation and causality remain inconclusive. We contribute to the literature by exploring the moderation effect of post-materialist value orientation. By conceptualizing the conventionality of PP as a continuous spectrum, we suggest a new typology beyond the dichotomous understanding. Seventh-wave data from the World Values Survey in Hong Kong indicate that individuals who are more dissatisfied with their lives are more likely to engage in radicalized actions such as strikes and boycotts. This negative relationship is particularly strong among people with a post-materialist orientation, yet LS is not related to electoral participation and normalized actions, including peaceful demonstrations commonly regarded as 'unconventional' in previous studies. Furthermore, the results of propensity score matching reinforce the causal claim that LS predicts radicalized action negatively.

Gransow, Bettina: Editorial

AbstractAn enduring question with regard to the voluntary sector is how it can nurture civic engagement and provide public goods. A World Heritage listing for Penang highlights this question by revealing a vibrant civil society network that has made heritage conservation an issue for public discourse and policy agenda. This paper discusses how the marginalized trajectory of Penang is related to the development of its civic realm, social cohesion and local identity, which are sources of Penang's voluntarism. It then examines the engagement pattern of the Penang Heritage Trust, a leading association, which has mounted resistance against the state's failure in heritage provision. This bottom-up approach has preserved Penang's cultural heritage and associated identity, and reveals the distinct nature and capacity of Penang's voluntary sector that goes against the general pattern in Malaysia.

This article examines the origins and dynamics of an extraordinary wave of protests in Hong Kong in 2019–2020. Despite lacking visible political opportunities and organizational resources, the protest movement drew resilient, mass participation unparalleled in the city's history and much of the world. Drawing from original on-site surveys and online datasets, we conceptualize the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement as a form of "total mobilization from below." The totality of the mobilization depended on a set of interactive mechanisms: abeyant civil society networks concealed after the 2014 Umbrella Movement were activated by threats over extradition and institutional decay, whereas affective ties developed through conflicts and mutual assistance were amplified by digital communication. The movement's characteristics in terms of protest scale, mobilizing structure, use of alternative spaces, and group solidarity are examined. The spasmodic moments of mobilization are explained by a nexus of network building that took place in an unreceptive environment and at a critical juncture. The roles of threats and emotions in mass mobilizations are also analysed. (China Q/GIGA)

This article examines the Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) Movement and uses claim making and claim transformation as a window to look at ideological struggle in Hong Kong. The analysis recounts the emergence of a specific configuration of movement claims: the supplementation of the moderate "Five Demands" with the abstract slogan "Revolution of Our Times" and other, more radical demands. The development of the configuration is explained by the strategic interactions among movement actors, the state, and perceived political opportunities. The configuration is also treated as symptomatic of the situation in which "One Country, Two Systems" has lost its legitimacy and independence remains a perceived impossibility.