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This open access book features contributions from a multidisciplinary team of leading and emerging scholars focused on democratization of risk assessment, management, and communication. The volume identifies and sheds light on key risk governance dilemmas related to public trust, risk perception and public participation. The first part of the book articulates the relationship among science, expertise, deliberation and public values, featuring an in-depth analysis of the concept of 'motivated reasoning,' and the role of trust, values and worldviews in understanding and addressing contemporary controversies over risk decision-making. The volume's second part features eight case studies from three policy fields – energy, genomics, and public health – and a special section dedicated to vaccine decision-making for Covid-19. Chapters analyze the level, nature and mechanisms of public involvement in risk decision-making, assessing its contribution to the effectiveness and legitimacy of decisions. The case studies focus predominantly on Canada, but they draw on global scholarship and are of direct relevance for scholars and practitioners of risk governance in any country.

Reaganism is a discourse of devotion and disqualification, combining a neoliberal negative theology of the market with a neoconservative demonization of opponents. Reagan's personality cult shelters the aggressivity of a war of all against all by representing the market as a moralistic standard of perfection, a representation of goodness and freedom. In literary theory and criticism, a homologous valuative system centered itself on the canon, representing culture as a study of perfection. Paul de Man argued for the displacement of this positive moralistic reference, but his proposals ultimately replace it with a negative moralistic reference to literariness. De Man's premises have been perpetuated in subsequent theory by persistent misrecognitions of dialectic as suspicious hermeneutics, of materialism as reference to materiality, and of demands for democratic equity as identity politics. Tracing this motivated reasoning through misreadings of Eve Sedgwick's critique of conspiracy theory and Edward Said's "secular criticism," we are led back to the unexamined premises of Paul de Man's negative moralism and the opportunistic competition of academic careerism.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Tables -- Preface -- 1: Introduction -- Science versus Policy -- Motivated Reasoning -- Political and Value Orientations -- Methods and Approach -- Attitudes toward Science and Scientists -- Ideology and Value Orientations -- Discussion and Book Plan -- References -- 2: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) -- Introduction -- What Is a GMO? -- Ideology, Values, and GMO Beliefs -- Analyses -- Discussion -- References -- 3: Childhood Vaccinations -- Introduction -- The Controversy -- Vaccine Skeptics -- Ideology, Positivism, and Postmaterialism -- Analyses -- Conclusion -- References -- 4: Climate Change -- Introduction -- Climate Change Science and Impacts -- Direct Impacts of Climate Change -- Climate Change and the U.S. Public -- Ideology, Positivism, and Postmaterialism -- Analyses -- Conclusion -- References -- 5: Teen Sex -- Introduction -- Human Papillomavirus (HPV) -- Plan B-Emergency Contraception -- Abstinence-Only Education -- Ideology, Positivism, and Postmaterialism -- Analyses -- Conclusion -- References -- 6: Stem Cell Research -- Introduction -- History and Politics of ESCs -- Stem Cells, Ideology, and Values -- Analyses -- Conclusion -- References -- 7: Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? -- Introduction -- The Democracy-versus-Technocracy Quandary -- Ideology, Values, Science, and Policy Issues -- Science, the Public, and the Policy Process -- Summary -- References -- Index.

When do users share fact-checks on social media? We describe a survey experiment conducted during the 2019 election in Argentina measuring the propensity of voters to share corrections to political misinformation that randomly confirm or challenge their initial beliefs. We find evidence of selective sharing—the notion that individuals prefer to share pro-attitudinal rather than counter-attitudinal fact-checks. This effect, however, is conditioned by the type of adjudication made by fact-checkers. More specifically, in line with motivated reasoning processes, respondents report a higher intent to share confirmations (i.e. messages fact-checked with a "true" rating) compared with refutations (i.e. messages fact-checked with a "false" rating). Experimental results are partially confirmed with a regression discontinuity analysis of observational data of Twitter and replicated with additional experiments. Our findings suggest that fact-checkers could increase exposure to their verifications on social media by framing their corrections as confirmations of factually correct information.

AbstractThe effectiveness of and its boundary conditions regarding fact–checking news exposure have significant normative and practical implications. While many of the prior studies have focused on the attitudinal consequences of fact–checking news delivered by neutral third parties such as fact–check organizations, relatively less is known as to the effect of fact–checking news delivered by partisan media. Based on the frameworks of motivated reasoning and the hostile‐media effect, we investigate the possibility of decoupling between attitudinal persuasion and perceptual backfire by fact–checking news by partisan media—that is, exposure to fact–checking news increases bias perception of such news yet nevertheless attitudinally persuades audiences. Based on a series of original experiments conducted in South Korea and in the United States, we find consistent support for our prediction, in that exposure to fact–checking news produces the corrective effects, yet at the same time perceived bias of the fact–checking news systematically varies as a function of the ideological slant of partisan media.

AbstractGovernance preferences influence how public officials process performance data about service providers. Based on motivated reasoning theory, we examine the extent to which local delivery preferences—preferences for contracting with local service providers over contracting with non‐local ones—influence public managers' and politicians' interpretation of performance data. We firstly expect public officials to misinterpret evidence that contradicts their local delivery preferences and we, secondly, hypothesize that politicians are more prone to biases than public managers are. We test these hypotheses by conducting a randomized survey experiment among 4,000 public officials in Belgium. The results indicate that public officials tend to show a bias for local providers, but not for non‐local providers. Yet, we found no significant differences between politicians and public managers. Our study provides new evidence about the influence of governance preferences on the interpretation of performance information, and calls into question its effective use by politicians and public managers.

The pervasiveness of partisan media and the 24/7 news cycle allow ample opportunity for partisan-motivated reasoning and selective exposure. Nonetheless, individuals still frequently encounter out-party media outlets and expert pundits through mainstream news and social media. We seek to examine the effects of cross-cutting partisan outlet cues (e.g. Fox News, MSNBC) and direct party cues (e.g. Republican, Democrat) on citizens' perceptions of ideology, source credibility, and news consumption. Using an experiment that pits outlet cues against direct party cues, we find that cross-cutting outlet and direct party cues lead citizens to perceive pundits as more ideologically moderate. As a result, respondents find out-party pundits on in-party outlets to be less biased, increasing interest in the pundits' perspectives. However, while cross-cutting pundits gain among the out-party, they lose among the in-party. This trade-off holds important normative implications for individual news consumption and the ability of outlets and pundits to appear unbiased while garnering the largest possible audience.

The pervasiveness of partisan media and the 24/7 news cycle allow ample opportunity for partisan-motivated reasoning and selective exposure. Nonetheless, individuals still frequently encounter out-party media outlets and expert pundits through mainstream news and social media. We seek to examine the effects of cross-cutting partisan outlet cues (e.g. Fox News, MSNBC) and direct party cues (e.g. Republican, Democrat) on citizens' perceptions of ideology, source credibility, and news consumption. Using an experiment that pits outlet cues against direct party cues, we find that cross-cutting outlet and direct party cues lead citizens to perceive pundits as more ideologically moderate. As a result, respondents find out-party pundits on in-party outlets to be less biased, increasing interest in the pundits' perspectives. However, while cross-cutting pundits gain among the out-party, they lose among the in-party. This trade-off holds important normative implications for individual news consumption and the ability of outlets and pundits to appear unbiased while garnering the largest possible audience.

When and how does state indoctrination work? Building upon research on motivated reasoning and family socialization, I argue that only those individuals whose parents have connections to political patronage are subject to state indoctrination because their pro-regime biases transmitted from parents induce higher receptivity prior to government messages. Focusing on political education in China, I conduct a quasi-experimental analysis exploiting the sharp variation in textbook content generated by China's most recent curriculum reform. Results based on a national survey show that the new politics textbooks successfully affected only those individuals whose parents had worked for the government. The finding survives extensive robustness checks and falsification tests. I also consider several alternative explanations of the effects: preference falsification, selective attention, parental indoctrination, and educational quality. This paper not only highlights the role of intergenerational transmission in moderating the effectiveness of state indoctrination but also casts doubt on the actual degree to which regimes can change minds by changing educational content.

Do politicians perceive scandals differently when they implicate members of their own party rather than another party? We address this question using a between-subject survey experiment, whereby we randomly assign UK local councillors (N = 2133) to vignettes describing a major national-level scandal in their own party versus another party. Our results show that local politicians perceive a significantly larger impact of this national scandal on the national party image when it concerns their own party (relative to another party). When evaluating the same scandal's impact on the local party image, no similar effect is observed. This suggests that local politicians tone down the local impact of a national scandal more when thinking about their own party. We suggest this derives from a form of motivated reasoning whereby politicians selectively focus on information allowing a more negative view of direct electoral opponents. These findings arise independent of the type of scandal under consideration.

© 2020 Owner/Author. How can social media platforms fight the spread of misinformation? One possibility is to use newsfeed algorithms to downrank content from sources that users rate as untrustworthy. But will laypeople be handicapped by motivated reasoning or lack of expertise, and thus unable to identify misinformation sites? And will they "game" this crowdsourcing mechanism in order to promote content that aligns with their partisan agendas? We conducted a survey experiment in which =984 Americans indicated their trust in numerous news sites. To study the tendency of people to game the system, half of the participants were told their responses would inform social media ranking algorithms. Participants trusted mainstream sources much more than hyper-partisan or fake news sources, and their ratings were highly correlated with professional fact-checker judgments. Critically, informing participants that their responses would influence ranking algorithms did not diminish these results, despite the manipulation increasing the political polarization of trust ratings.

Abstract
This study investigates whether partisanship influences the cognitive processing of statements made by President Rodrigo Duterte. It adopts a pre-test/post-test design and involves 254 college students from Metro Cebu and Metro Manila Philippines. Findings suggest that partisanship significantly influenced the cognitive processing of statements attributed to President Duterte. Political support was significantly and positively associated with belief. Supporters were more likely to express belief in attributed statements. Even when informed that the statements were false, their political support did not significantly decline. Non-supporters were less likely to believe attributed statements and more likely to change their minds when shown information that the statements were false. "Motivated reasoning" or "expressive responding" may explain these findings but there is not enough data in this study to establish this. The implication is that fact-checking may have a limited impact on changing the minds or diminishing the political support of the strongly partisan.

This paper helps to understand how beliefs form and determine attitudes towards policies. Using a new survey and official households' survey data, we investigate the case of carbon taxation in France in the context of the Yellow Vests movement that started against it. We find that French people would largely reject a Tax & Dividend policy, i.e. a carbon tax whose revenues are redistributed uniformly to each adult. However, they also overestimate the negative impact of the scheme on their purchasing power, wrongly think it is regressive, and do not perceive it as environmentally effective. Using information about the scheme as instruments to robustly identify causal effects, our econometric analysis shows that if we could rectify these three biased beliefs, it would suffice to generate majority approval. Yet, only a small minority can be convinced by new information and revisions are biased towards pessimism. Finally, if overly pessimistic beliefs cause tax rejection, they also result from it through motivated reasoning, which manifests what we define as "tax aversion".

This paper helps to understand how beliefs form and determine attitudes towards policies. Using a new survey and official households' survey data, we investigate the case of carbon taxation in France in the context of the Yellow Vests movement that started against it. We find that French people would largely reject a Tax & Dividend policy, i.e. a carbon tax whose revenues are redistributed uniformly to each adult. However, they also overestimate the negative impact of the scheme on their purchasing power, wrongly think it is regressive, and do not perceive it as environmentally effective. Using information about the scheme as instruments to robustly identify causal effects, our econometric analysis shows that if we could rectify these three biased beliefs, it would suffice to generate majority approval. Yet, only a small minority can be convinced by new information and revisions are biased towards pessimism. Finally, if overly pessimistic beliefs cause tax rejection, they also result from it through motivated reasoning, which manifests what we define as "tax aversion".

This paper helps to understand how beliefs form and determine attitudes towards policies. Using a new survey and official households' survey data, we investigate the case of carbon taxation in France in the context of the Yellow Vests movement that started against it. We find that French people would largely reject a Tax & Dividend policy, i.e. a carbon tax whose revenues are redistributed uniformly to each adult. However, they also overestimate the negative impact of the scheme on their purchasing power, wrongly think it is regressive, and do not perceive it as environmentally effective. Using information about the scheme as instruments to robustly identify causal effects, our econometric analysis shows that if we could rectify these three biased beliefs, it would suffice to generate majority approval. Yet, only a small minority can be convinced by new information and revisions are biased towards pessimism. Finally, if overly pessimistic beliefs cause tax rejection, they also result from it through motivated reasoning, which manifests what we define as "tax aversion".