Suchergebnisse

Specialized journals examine the teaching and learning of the social sciences in Higher Education . These include, for example, the highly regarded Teaching Sociology, or, more recently the Journal of Political Science Education, Journal of Legal Education and International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, to name but a few. These journals capture a significant amount of knowledge and experience. However, there is little coherence in terms of research and a lack of a well-developed academic sub-discipline around Higher Education in the social sciences. Furthermore, most of the discourses within the cited journals.

Does the consumption of ideologically congruent news on social media exacerbate polarization? I estimate the effects of social media news exposure by conducting a large field experiment randomly offering participants subscriptions to conservative or liberal news outlets on Facebook. I collect data on the causal chain of media effects: subscriptions to outlets, exposure to news on Facebook, visits to online news sites, and sharing of posts, as well as changes in political opinions and attitudes. Four main findings emerge. First, random variation in exposure to news on social media substantially affects the slant of news sites that individuals visit. Second, exposure to counter-attitudinal news decreases negative attitudes toward the opposing political party. Third, in contrast to the effect on attitudes, I find no evidence that the political leanings of news outlets affect political opinions. Fourth, Facebook's algorithm is less likely to supply individuals with posts from counter-attitudinal outlets, conditional on individuals subscribing to them. Together, the results suggest that social media algorithms may limit exposure to counter-attitudinal news and thus increase polarization. (JEL C93, D72, L82)

The social sciences are predominantly seen by their practitioners as critical endeavours, which should inform criticism of harmful institutions, beliefs and practices. Accordingly, political attacks on the social sciences are often interpreted as revealing an unwillingness to accept criticism and an acquiescence with the status quo. But this dominant view of the political implications of social scientific knowledge misses the fact that people can also be outraged by what they see as its apologetic potential, namely that it provides excuses or justifications for people doing bad things, preventing them from being rightfully blamed and punished. This introduction to the special issue sketches the long history of debates about the exculpatory and justificatory consequences of social science and lays the foundations for a theory of social scientific apologia by examining three main aspects: what social and cognitive processes motivate this type of accusation, how social theorists respond to it and whether different contexts of circulation of ideas affect how these controversies unfold.

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the United States, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, a simultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropology for inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to social sciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of the nature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably as preached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find a theoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm. This article examines this development while also exploring the complex ways cultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recent years.

The title of this presidential address reflects the happy conjunction of my particular interest in social networks and the network structure of the Social Science History Association. My talk will be brief, because I want to reserve most of this "presidential picnic" for the panel that the program chair, Donna Gabaccia, organized. Last year's president, Eric Monkkonen (1994: 166), in his history of the institution of the SSHA, called our meetings "a venue for scholars from different disciplines to learn to talk to one another." That we have this annual opportunity for conversations is due to the work of our networks that organize the sessions that attract us to the meetings; to program chairs—this year, Donna—who create a program from these sessions; and to our executive director, Erik Austin, whose ability and diligence keeps the organization going from year to year.

THE NEW BRITISH GOVERNMENT THAT WILL TAKE OFFICE IN 1997 FACES THE DIFFICULT TASK OF RE-ESTABLISHING THE CREDIBILITY OF THE PEACE PROCESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND. IT MUST DO SO AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF INCREASED POLARIZATION BETWEEN THE PROTESTANT COMMUNITY, WHICH LARGELY FAVORS CONTINUED UNION WITH BRITAIN, AND THE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY, WHICH GENERALLY WANTS CLOSER LINKS WITH THE IRISH REPUBLIC. INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS ARE WAITING TO SEE IF A COMBINATION OF THE NEW WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT, THE SECOND CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, AND THE IRISH GOVERNMENT FORMED AFTER THE REPUBLIC'S 1997 GENERAL ELECTIONS CAN PERSUADE THE PARTIES IN NORTHERN IRELAND TO REACH A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT THAT WILL ENSURE LASTING PEACE.

We analyze the relationship between accountability and polarization in the context of the COVID crisis. We make three points. First, when voters perceive the out-party to be ideologically extreme, they are less likely to hold incumbents accountable for poor outcomes via competence-based evaluations. Knowing this, even in the context of major crises, incumbents face weaker incentives to take politically costly measures that would minimize deaths. Second, there is a partisan asymmetry whereby the additional government intrusion associated with effective COVID response can be more politically costly for the right than for the left, because it undercuts the ideological distinctiveness that drives the base-mobilization strategy of the right. Third, this asymmetry generates incentives for politicization of COVID mitigation policies that ultimately lead to partisan differences in mitigation behavior and outcomes. To illustrate this logic, we provide preliminary evidence that COVID death rates are higher in more polarized democracies, and that in one of the most polarized democracies—the United States—COVID deaths have become increasingly correlated with partisanship.