Politics

Publisher:: Sage Publications, Inc.
Publication date:: 2021-09-06

ISBN:: 0263-3957

Issue Number

Latest documents

Ideologically consistent, but for whom? An empirical assessment of the populism-elitism-pluralism set of attitudes and the moderating role of political sophistication
Scholars who study populism from an ‘ideational approach’ consider populism as a set of ideas based on a moralised anti-establishment thinking and a strong people-centrist view of politics. From this perspective, at a theoretical level, populist attitudes have the following two main contrasts: pluralism and elitism. In this article, we investigate the ideological consistency of the populism-pluralism-elitism set of attitudes among voters. Analysing data from Flanders (N = 1444), we make three main contributions. First, we show that there indeed exists an internally consistent relationship between populism, elitism, and pluralism among voters. Second, we demonstrate that this consistency only holds for the most politically sophisticated citizens. And third, we show that the relationship between populist and elitist attitudes is much more nuanced than often assumed. We show that it is possible to empirically distinguish between ‘expertise elitism’ and ‘anti-populist elitism’, two forms of elitism which relate differently to populist attitudes.
Who wants COVID-19 vaccination to be compulsory? The impact of party cues, left-right ideology, and populism
Vaccine hesitancy is one of the major obstacles for successfully combating the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve a sufficiently high vaccination rate, calls for compulsory vaccinations have been discussed controversially. This study analyses what drives citizens’ attitudes towards compulsory vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we are interested in the impact of party- and expert cues on public attitudes. We further expect populist attitudes to be an important indicator of the rejection of compulsory vaccination due to their scepticism towards science. To test these expectations, we rely on a cueing experiment conducted on a sample of 2265 German citizens. We test for the effects of in-party and out-party cues as well as public health expert cues. We find evidence for in-party cues, meaning that respondents adjust their position on this issue in the direction of their most preferred party. Similar results can be found for public health expert cues. However, there is no evidence for out-party cues. Further analyses reveal that support for compulsory vaccinations is not affected by left-right placement directly. Instead, only the combination of right-wing attitudes and populism negatively affects support for compulsory vaccination.
Decolonising quantitative research methods pedagogy: Teaching contemporary politics to challenge hierarchies from data
Decolonisation of the curriculum in higher education is a radical, transformative process of change that interrogates the enduring Eurocentric and racist narratives surrounding the production of academic ‘knowledge’. Our key argument is that it is essential for students of politics to understand the authorities and hierarchies exerted through quantitative data. In this article, we show that (1) quantitative methods and data literacy can be an explicit tool in the endeavour to challenge structures of oppression, and (2) there is a need to apply decolonial principles to the teaching of quantitative methods, prioritising the historical contextualisation and anti-racist critique of the ways in which statistics amplify existing micro and macro power relations. To explain how this can be done, we begin with a commentary on the ‘state of decolonisation’ in higher education, its relevance to the subdisciplines of politics, and its application to quantitative teaching in the United Kingdom. We then suggest some guiding principles for a decolonial approach to quantitative methods teaching and present substantive examples from political sociology, international political economy, and international development. These suggestions and examples show how a decolonial lens advances critical and emancipatory thinking in undergraduate students of politics when it is used with quantitative methods.
The problem of asymmetric representation: The marginalisation, racialisation, and deservedness of Roma in Slovenia
Special rights (such as a right to representation) are often used to address under-representation of minority and marginalised groups in political institutions. The case of Roma community in Slovenia is no different. Using a framework of social and political marginalisation, our article outlines asymmetry and exceptionality in the existing minority protection provisions for Slovenian Roma. We argue that the existing provisions are a consequence of majority’s perception of Roma as racialised, marginalised, and undeserving group. We show that the limited access to special rights for Roma is not an oversight in the Slovenian democratic institutional design but a result of deep-rooted stereotypes and racialisation that this marginalised group is subjected to. More broadly, the case of Slovenian Roma demonstrates how principles of racialisation and marginalisation can help us understand absences of different marginalised minority groups from frameworks of special protection.
Institutional listening in deliberative democracy: Towards a deliberative logic of transmission
This article explores the role of institutional listening in deliberative democracy, focusing particularly on its contribution to the transmission process between the public sphere and formal institutions. We critique existing accounts of transmission for prioritizing voice over listening and for remaining constrained by an ‘aggregative logic’ of the flow of ideas and voices in a democracy. We argue that formal institutions have a crucial role to play in ensuring transmission operates according to a more deliberative logic. To substantiate this argument, we focus on two recent examples of institutional listening in two different democracies: Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the United States’ Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. These cases show that institutional listening can take different forms; it can be purposefully designed or incidental, and it can contribute to the realization of deliberative democracy in various ways. Specifically, institutional listening can help enhance the credibility and visibility of minority groups and perspectives while also empowering these groups to better hold formal political institutions accountable. In these ways, institutional listening helps transmission operate according to a more deliberative logic.
Whose autonomy? Conceptualising ‘colonial extraterritorial autonomy’ in the occupied Palestinian territories
The notion of ‘Palestinian autonomy’ has occupied a central position in Israel’s post-1967 strategic planning in occupied Palestinian territories. Despite that, the notion remains understudied in relation to the regular understanding of political autonomy and its conceptualisation and application in theory and practice. One striking aspect of Israel’s envisioned autonomy for the Palestinians is that it does not resemble any existing model of autonomy implemented around the world today. This article seeks to bridge this conceptual gap by proposing the term ‘Colonial Extraterritorial Autonomy’ as a peculiar mode of colonial governmentality that has been developed in the aftermath of Israel’s 1967 occupation to resolve the territory/demography question in favour of Israel colonial ambition for ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians’.
Looking forward and looking backward: Economic evaluations and regime support in China
It is widely acknowledged that the economic situation is of vital importance for the stability of an authoritarian regime, but it is rarely known how the public’s economic evaluation contributes to such outcomes. This study examines the effects of citizens’ retrospective and prospective evaluations of their household economic situation and the national economy on the level of regime support in China. The findings show that the national economy outweighs household economic conditions in its effects on the public’s support of the regime. However, the gap between evaluations of the national economy and individual economic situations debilitates regime support. The population in different age cohorts has distinct patterns of relationships between retrospective and prospective economic evaluations and regime support. This study elucidates the political-psychological mechanism of the public’s economic evaluation affecting regime support, and the ruling strategy in authoritarian regimes of manipulating this evaluation.
Institutional listening in deliberative democracy: Towards a deliberative logic of transmission
This article explores the role of institutional listening in deliberative democracy, focusing particularly on its contribution to the transmission process between the public sphere and formal institutions. We critique existing accounts of transmission for prioritizing voice over listening and for remaining constrained by an ‘aggregative logic’ of the flow of ideas and voices in a democracy. We argue that formal institutions have a crucial role to play in ensuring transmission operates according to a more deliberative logic. To substantiate this argument, we focus on two recent examples of institutional listening in two different democracies: Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the United States’ Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. These cases show that institutional listening can take different forms; it can be purposefully designed or incidental, and it can contribute to the realization of deliberative democracy in various ways. Specifically, institutional listening can help enhance the credibility and visibility of minority groups and perspectives while also empowering these groups to better hold formal political institutions accountable. In these ways, institutional listening helps transmission operate according to a more deliberative logic.
Left politics and popular culture in Britain: From left-wing populism to ‘popular leftism’
This article analyses the cultural traction and media visibility yielded by left-wing ideas and people during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as British Labour Party leader (2015–2019), while also offering some more general reflections on the relationship between left politics and popular culture. I begin by noting that the cultural and media aspects of Corbynism have largely been neglected in the scholarly literature. I then go on to caution against the temptation of subsuming the cultural aspects of Corbyn-era left politics under the label of ‘left-wing populism’. Instead, I defend a conception of ‘popular leftism’ as distinct from ‘left-wing populism’, via an engagement with Stuart Hall’s classic essay ‘Notes on Deconstructing the Popular’, as well as Sarah Banet-Wesier’s recent work on popular feminism. The second half of the article maps key features of ‘popular leftism’ as a distinct cultural/political formation that has emerged ‘in and against’ neoliberalism. In particular, it focuses on media visibility, affective tenor, and tactical and intellectual dynamics. While popular leftism’s entanglement with neoliberalism has proved problematic for its transformative capacity, I nonetheless conclude that its emergence is testament to the importance of popular cultural production and consumption in shaping recent iterations of left politics in Britain.
The promiscuous public? Exploring public opinion and why it matters to political actors
Political actors often cite public opinion to provide support for public policy decisions. This process is made more challenging with diverse demands and perspectives of the public. How then do political actors decide which opinion gets heard? In this article, we go beyond the assumption that the practice of political representation is indistinguishable across various levels of political actors and ask, why do political actors value public opinion and how does it then influence the way in which they apply this information? Developing a multi-level approach, we employ semi-structured interviews with a wide range of political actors, including politicians, pollsters, and community activists. We find that motivations for defining and applying public opinion differs according to the hierarchy of political actors, demonstrating that the relationship between public and political actors is more nuanced and complex than what is often depicted. In particular, we find that minority views play just an important view in policymaking.