Suchergebnisse

People who take part in acts of civil disobedience or political violence are discontented about something. That is a truism. The interesting research problem is to identify particular kinds of discontent that are associated systematically with aggressive political behaviour-discontent that operates as a 'precondition' of aggressive behaviour in contrast to discontent that is peculiar to particular groups at particular times and places and serves only as a 'precipitant' of aggressive behaviour.

The incumbent vs. system affect distinction is basic in the conceptualization of political support. It is based on the premise that system affect is a more important antecedent of aggressive political behavior than incumbent affect. The data reported here show that it is possible to distinguish incumbent from system affect empirically, and also theoretically important to make the incumbent-system distinction. Measures especially sensitive to incumbent affect correlate differently with ideology than does a measure especially sensitive to system affect. Byvariate correlations between measures of incumbent affect and a measure of aggressive political behavior are shown to be either spurious or indirect, due to the fact that incumbent affect is correlated with what appears to be a more powerful and direct antecedent of aggressive political behavior, namely, system affect. The theory behind the incumbent-system distinction is expressed in four propositions. In general, the data conform to it, but each prediction is qualified according to whether ideology and community context are inhibitory or facilitative.

ABSTRACTAn important manifestation of freedom of assembly is the right to organize and participate in peaceful public demonstrations. Data from representative cross‐sectional surveys of the adult population of seven European countries and the United States show that mass support for this right cannot be taken for granted in Western democracies. Education, age, and political value priorities are three explanatory variables that can be expected to affect the likelihood of a person opposing any attempt by government to forbid public demonstrations. The strength, form, and nature of the relationship between disapproval of a ban on demonstration and the explanatory variables are compared cross‐nationally.