Suchergebnisse

This article sheds some light on the widely exercised but little understood political activity of the petition and its potential in local politics. It posits the petition as a tool of group politics used by citizens to obtain some favorable policy decision. Among many factors that determine the success of an initiative, three are examined: (1) resources, operationalized simply as number of names collected; (2) media attention, which can raise the salience of the issue; and (3) coherence, operationalized as the number of issues a petition implicates. Hypotheses are tested against evidence gathered from 126 petitions circulated in two municipal regions. Results imply the petition can help facilitate greater citizen involvement in public affairs.Este artículo intenta esclarecer el ampliamente practicado pero poco comprendido ejercicio de las peticiones políticas y su potencial en la política a nivel local. En él se postula a la petición política como una herramienta de la política grupal usada por los ciudadanos para obtener una decisión política favorable. Entre los factores que determinan el éxito de una iniciativa, tres son examinados: (1) recursos, considerados como el número de nombres recolectados; (2) cobertura por los medios de comunicación, que puede aumentar la importancia del tema; y (3) coherencia, considerado como el número de consecuencias que implica una petición. Hipótesis son corroboradas con evidencia recolectada de 126 peticiones puestas en circulación en dos regiones municipales. Los resultados implican que las peticiones pueden ayudar a facilitar una mayor participación ciudadana en asuntos públicos.

Recent studies have shown a significant increase in sovereignty support among Quebec immigrants, and particularly among immigrants' children ('Generation 101'). These observations have led some to conclude that, as a result of linguistic integration, immigrant youths' political opinions and behavior have become almost undifferentiated from those of their francophone counterparts. Our study, based on a survey conducted in early 2006, provides a significantly more nuanced picture of the situation. Our results indicate that, even though young allophones may have become more supportive of Quebec sovereignty in recent years, the actual motivations behind their support are not entirely the same as those of young francophones. Young allophones appear to be very sensitive to values associated with Canadian federalism, and to the economic consequences of sovereignty. On these accounts, their behavior more closely resembles that of young anglophones. Such contrast between francophones and allophones becomes even more striking when we examine answers to a more 'hardline' referendum question that refers to Quebec assuming the status of a 'country.'. Adapted from the source document.

Almost an entire generation of election survey data was pooled together from the United States and Canada to assess the systemic effects of televised debates. Four questions were posed: (1) Is there a general tendency for evaluations of candidates to improve or deteriorate after a debate? (2) Do evaluations of one candidate negatively correlate with changes in evaluations of opponents? (3) Do debates disadvantage incumbents? (4) Do debates advantage less popular candidates? Using "feeling thermometer" items to measure voter evaluations, four patterns are revealed. First, candidates generally gain points.The supposed mudslinging that characterizes a debate appears not to feed into any notion of cynicism. Instead, voters appear to gain an appreciation for the debaters. Second, a candidate's gain is not earned at the expense of those deemed to have "lost" the match. Third, a debate does not disadvantage an incumbent. A candidate with a record to defend stands about as much chance of benefiting from a debate as a challenger.And fourth, any evaluation gaps before a debate become narrower following a debate. This final effect, which is particularly true of American presidential debates, may reflect a debate's ability to raise awareness of less popular candidates.

OBJECTIVES: Increasingly, support for water fluoridation has come under attack. We seek an explanation, focusing on the case of Waterloo, Ontario, where a 2010 referendum overturned its water fluoridation program. In particular, we test whether individuals perceive the risks of water fluoridation based not on 'hard' scientific evidence but on heuristics and cultural norms. METHODS: A sample of 376 residents in Waterloo were surveyed in June 2012 using random digit dialing. We use factor analysis, OLS regression, as well as t-tests to evaluate a survey experiment to test the credibility hypothesis. RESULTS: Perceptions of fluoride as a risk are lower among those who perceive fluoride's benefits (B =.473, p < 0.001) and those whose cultural view is 'egalitarian' (B =.156, p < 0.05). The experiment shows a lower level of perception of fluoride's benefits among respondents who are told that water fluoridation is opposed by a national advocacy group (Group A) compared to those who are told that the government and the World Health Organization support fluoridation (Group B) (t = 1.6547, p < 0.05), as well as compared to the control group (t = 1.891 3, p < 0.05). There is no difference between Group B and the control, possibly because people's already general support for fluoridation is less prone to change when told that other public organizations also support fluoridation. CONCLUSION: Public health officials should take into account cultural norms and perceptions when individuals in a community appear to rise up against water fluoridation, with implications for other public health controversies.

Abstract. An invariant feature of constituency election campaigns is the literature mail drop, usually a one-page leaflet or card left at the door profiling the candidate and appealing for electoral support. In this article, we report on a field experiment designed to assess the effects of such mail drops. The experiment was conducted during the 2007 Ontario provincial election campaign in the constituency of Cambridge and entailed distributing literature for the Green party candidate in that constituency. After randomly assigning constituency polls to treatment and control groups, and delivering the Green candidate's partisan literature only to the selected treatment group polls, we compared the candidate's support levels in the treated polls with those in the control group. Our research detected a modest effect associated with the literature drop. The effect was largely limited to constituency neighbourhoods fitting at least part of the Green party's traditional demographic, that is, those with higher than average socio-economic status.Résumé. Un trait commun des campagnes électorales au niveau des circonscriptions est la distribution de publipostages. Il s'agit habituellement d'un dépliant d'une page déposé dans la boîte aux lettres et donnant le profil du candidat tout en invitant les gens à voter pour lui. Notre article porte sur une expérience que nous avons menée pour évaluer les effets de ces publipostages sur le vote. Au cours de la campagne des élections provinciales de l'Ontario, en 2007, dans la circonscription de Cambridge. nous avons distribué des documents sur le candidat du Parti vert de cette circonscription. Les bureaux de scrutin ont étés divisés, au hasard, en deux groupes, soit un groupe de traitement et un groupe de contrôle. Nous avons distribué les documents seulement aux électeurs du premier groupe. Après l'élection, nous avons comparé les niveaux d'appui au candidat vert dans les deux groupes. Les résultats montrent un effet modeste associé à la distribution des publipostages. L'effet observé était en grande partie limité aux quartiers répondant, en partie du moins, au profil démographique traditionnellement favorable aux partis écologiques, soit les quartiers ayant un statut socio-économique plus élevé que la moyenne.