The Trump treatment: a natural experiment in German public perception of the US

The accession of Donald Trump to the US presidency has triggered serious discussions within Australia’s policy community over the future of Australia-US security relations and Australia’s role in Southeast Asia. The United States’ withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has led to questions about Washington’s commitment to maintain a viable economic and strategic presence in the Asia-Pacific. Intensified tensions between China and the United States in the South China Sea have also increased Australian concerns that it may be compelled to ‘choose’ between its largest trading partner (China) and its long-term security ally (the United States) in the event of a military clash between these two great powers in Southeast Asia’s critical maritime littorals.

This Essay empirically evaluates the relationship between Donald Trump’s rise to power and the recent increase in reported hate crimes. A number of critics predicted that President Trump’s divisive rhetoric during the presidential campaign and his subsequent election would embolden hate crime perpetrators, thereby contributing to more hate crimes. Media commentators have dubbed this the Trump Effect. We find compelling evidence to support the Trump Effect hypothesis. Using time series analysis, we show that Donald Trump’s election in November of 2016 was associated with a statistically significant surge in reported hate crimes across the United States, even when controlling for alternative explanations. Further, by using panel regression techniques, we show that counties that voted for President Trump by the widest margins in the presidential election also experienced the largest increases in reported hate crimes. Using the data from this study, we offer a novel theory that builds on the existing literature on the causes of hate crimes. We hypothesize that it was not just Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric throughout the political campaign that caused hate crimes to increase. Rather, we argue that it was Trump’s subsequent election as President of the United States that validated this rhetoric in the eyes of perpetrators and fueled the hate crime surge.

State of the Union Addresses (SOUA) by two recent US Presidents, President Obama (2016) and President Trump (2018), and a series of recent of tweets by President Trump, are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their potential implications for the national mood and state of the economy. President Trump's 2018 SOUA and his sample tweets are identified as being more positive in sentiment than President Obama's 2016 SOUA. This is confirmed by bootstrapped t tests and non-parametric sign tests on components of the respective sentiment scores. The issue of whether overly positive pronouncements amount to self-promotion, rather than intrinsic merit or sentiment, is a topic for future research.

State of the Union Addresses (SOUA) by two recent US Presidents, President Obama (2016) and President Trump (2018), and a series of recent of tweets by President Trump, are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they differ, and their potential implications for the national mood and state of the economy. President Trump's 2018 SOUA and his sample tweets are identified as being more positive in sentiment than President Obama's 2016 SOUA. This is confirmed by bootstrapped t tests and non-parametric sign tests on components of the respective sentiment scores. The issue of whether overly positive pronouncements amount to self-promotion, rather than intrinsic merit or sentiment, is a topic for future research.

State of the Union Addresses (SOUA) by two recent US Presidents, President Obama (2016) and President Trump (2018), and a series of recent of tweets by President Trump, are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the messages contained, the degree to which they di_er, and their potential implications for the national mood and state of the economy. President Trump's 2018 SOUA and his sample tweets are identi_ed as being more positive in sentiment than President Obama's 2016 SOUA. This is con_rmed by bootstrapped t tests and non-parametric sign tests on components of the respective sentiment scores. The issue of whether overly positive pronouncements amount to self-promotion, rather than intrinsic merit or sentiment, is a topic for future research.

The 2016 Brexit decision and Donald Trump's election to the US presidency that same year led to a wide variety of social media activity, ranging from visceral anger to unadulterated jubilation. How members of particular fandoms choose to express their emotions regarding a geopolitical event can be filtered through the lens of their fannish enthusiasm. Analysis of Doctor Who-influenced geopolitical engagement on Facebook that uses case studies of both Brexit and Donald Trump's election and 2017 inauguration shows that fans used Doctor Who to cope with emotionally taxing geopolitical events and expressed their anguish through the lens of selected Doctor Who plotlines. This use of social media permits fans to shape a new geopolitical landscape within which they can grapple with their political surroundings as influenced by their fandom.

There is no capitalist conspiracy and the rich are not all‐powerful

Disney Prince Heather Snell They're beautiful, aren't they, the Conways? Their youth, their two little children. The country is falling in love with them. They won't fall in love with us like that, but we have something they don't. We are willing to go one step farther than everyone else. —Claire Underwood, in House of Cards, "Chapter 46" The quotation I have chosen to introduce this editorial comes from an episode in the fourth season of House of Cards, in which the Underwoods' claim on political power is challenged by Governor Will Conway (played by Joel Kinnaman) and his wife Hannah (Dominique McElligott). What the Conways have and the Underwoods do not is a claim on the child, achieved through their possession of youth and actual children: the Conways are roughly twenty years younger than the Underwoods and have two young children. In the context of the show—and indeed, outside of it, in American culture—the figure of the child functions as signifier of purity, goodness, and futurity, not to mention conformity to heteronorms. In such a culture, the childless and middle-aged Francis and Claire Underwood (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright) appear cold and calculating when set beside the Conways.1 While the assumption that childless couples are cold and calculating would typically be an example of spurious stereotyping, the Underwoods do embody these qualities in their demeanour and politics: they are so cold and calculating that Season 4 ends with the two of them looking on unblinkingly as the US hostage they have refused to save in the interest of not wanting to be seen negotiating with terrorists is beheaded.2 The only time the cold and calculating image of the [End Page 1] Underwoods appears to be a front is when the Conways visit the White House with their two children, an event that seems to provoke feelings of envy in Claire for one fleeting moment. As she watches Hannah dealing with her children, it appears as though she could be imagining what it might feel like to be Hannah or, for that matter, Will and Hannah Conway—that is, the enviable and easy-to-love couple that the US public would likely elect. Many might assume that such a couple would do a good job governing the republic, in part because it embodies the very values the public champions. The child—or, in this case, the children—function here to separate the wholesome presidential couple from the unwholesome one. The Conways' children and the Underwoods' lack of children, as well as both couples' attitudes toward children and the parents of children—the beheaded American has a daughter—immediately cast them on opposite sides of the political spectrum. A similar distinction has been emerging in press coverage of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie, on the one hand, and newly elected US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania, on the other, despite the fact that both couples have children. Just as Will and Hannah's carefully cultivated image of warmth and spontaneity contrasts Francis and Claire Underwood's killer detachment, Trudeau and Sophie often function as a convenient foil for Trump and Melania. Notwithstanding the fresh-faced adorability3 of eleven-year-old Barron—the youngest of Trump's children and the only one he had with Melania—the Trumps are being painted as the kind of family that fails to live up to US values and sensibilities, akin perhaps not so much in appearance with but certainly in the spirit of the Underwoods.4 What we might call the "Disney code" separates politicians such as Trudeau and Conway from the Trumps and the Underwoods, investing them with the kind of childishness that "good"—as opposed to "bad"—kings are made of. Indeed, I focused my last editorial on the election of Trump, using Steven Almond's characterization of the new US president as a "child king" to remark on how the figure of the child fuelled US political discourse in the months leading up to and immediately following the election. The focus seemed fitting given how difficult it was at the time to ignore the fear and...

Since his inauguration as President of the USA in January 2017, Donald Trump has ushered in various measures that are widely perceived as anti‐science, such as the infamous travel ban on people arriving from seven Muslim countries. At the same time Brexit, the UK's impending departure from the EU, has begun to worry scientists across the continent and beyond over the potential impact on research. Other events, such as turmoil in the Middle East and the continuing threat of terrorism, have also contributed to a negative mood. There have been some positive developments too, such as the election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France with his pro‐science rhetoric and his promise to act as a counterweight to the USA with the “Make Our Planet Great Again” competition. It could also be argued that one country's loss is another's gain: Canada, for example, has been attracting more graduate‐student applicants at the expense of the USA since Trump's election (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/20/canadianuniversities-post-large-gains-international-applications). ### The impact of international mobility However, such gains may be illusory in a global context, as science as a whole suffers whenever there is any friction over travel, collaboration and exchange of information, especially when it affects the USA as the world's leading power in research. So far, firm evidence on how collaboration and mobility affects science has been lacking, but Brexit and Trump's election in particular have galvanized new efforts to gain more solid data. The US National Science Foundation (NSF), in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness, analysed the impact of mobility on a more clearly defined basis [1]. Not surprisingly, their study showed strong correlations between mobility, collaboration and scientific impact. The study was careful to avoid equating impact factor with quality of research and took account of other factors, such as influence, by mapping mobility to …

Transgressive leadership, especially in politics, can have significant consequences for groups and communities. However, research suggests that transgressive leaders are often granted deviance credit, and regarded sympathetically by followers due to perceptions of the leader's group prototypicality and identity advancement. We extend previous work by examining whether these perceptions additionally play a role in rationalizing the transgressions of a leader and whether deviance credit persists after a leader exits their leadership position. The present three‐wave longitudinal study (N = 200) addresses these questions using the applied context of the 2020 US Presidential election. Across three survey waves administered during and after Donald Trump's election loss, Republicans perceived three transgressive behaviors (sharing false information, nepotism, and abuse of power) as less unethical when committed by Donald Trump than when the same behaviors are viewed in isolation. Perceptions of Trump's identity advancement, but not his group prototypicality, predicted the extent to which Republicans downplayed the unethicalness of his transgressions. Decreases in identity advancement across time were also related to increases in perceptions of Trump's unethicalness. Implications for the social identity theory of leadership, subjective group dynamics, and the broader consequences of deviance credit to transgressive leaders are discussed.

Introduction. The importance of using natural experiments in economic research has been repeatedly proven by scientists. However, only in recent years have natural experiments become an integral part of the analytical toolkit of economists through the efforts of A. Meyer, T. Peters, A. Krueger and other scientists. Natural experiments can pose a serious challenge to the established findings of economic theory, as evidenced by the research of David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens – winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2021.Prupose. Justify the contribution of the Nobel Laureates in Economics 2021 in the development of economics by clarifying the specifics and role of their natural experiments in order to explain the causal relationships in economic phenomena and processes.Methods. During the preparation of the paper general scientific research methods were used: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, graphic method, which contributed to the substantiation of specific analytical toolkit of scientific research used by D. Card, J. Angrist and G. Imbens to identify causal relationships in economic phenomena and processes related to the functioning of labor markets, studying the impact of immigration, education, future income, etc.Results. The research awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics 2021 «for empirical contribution to the labor economy» (D. Card) and «methodological contribution to the analysis of causation» (J. Angrist, G. Imbens), first of all prove the fact the ubiquity of natural experiments, the only problem is to be able to find appropriate conditions for their realization. In particular, the researchers announce that changes in policy that take place in one region but not in another, tax breaks, differences in enrollment of children in schools, duration of study, etc. – these are random events that are unaffected (any artificial intervention) divide people into groups: those to whom changes are applied and those who do not experience them (so-called control groups). In particular, J. Angrist and G. Imbens during a natural experiment found that those who study longer earn more in the future: an additional year of study for a person is affected by an average increase in his earnings by 9%. D. Card, conducting another natural experiment, not only did not confirm, but to some extent refuted the established conclusion of economic theory that there is an inverse causal relationships between the growth of the minimum wage and employment in the labor market. The increase in the minimum wage, according to the results of the experiment, had a positive effect on employment in the segment of low-skilled labor. Examining the problems of immigration, the scientist proved that the economic consequences of entering the country of new migrants are minimal. Nobel Laureates 2021 have «revolutionized» empirical research in the social sciences, significantly increasing the ability to find answers to current economic questions, to identify more reliable causal relationships with fundamentally different research toolkit, such as natural experiments.Discussion. Although causal relationships in natural experiments are difficult to determine, this does not detract from the importance of the results. If the quality of the evidence obtained confirms the certainty effect or indicated intervention in a natural experiment, scientists and those who are making responsible decisions should analyze best use evidence to implement promising practices in economic and social spheres of human life. In order to increase the role of natural experiments in the future, it is important to identify those areas of their application in which the evaluation of the results of natural experiments is of the greatest value. Constructing the «design» of a new natural experiment before its implementation, requires the cooperation of those who will later make appropriate decisions with researchers to develop appropriate methodologies, identify existing data, develop a mechanism for collecting new data to ensure the reliability of future natural experiments and adequacy identified causal relationships in the studied phenomena. The demand for evidence of the real qualitative impact of various programs and policies is growing and will continue to grow, which will require stakeholders and researchers for better understanding the benefits and possibilities of applying the results of natural experiments.

At the center of this work is the analysis of the consequences of implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as - the Iran nuclear deal) on divergent foreign policy approaches as the main indicators of the mismatch in relations between the United States and the European Union during the administration of the 45th US President Donald Trump. While the US unilaterally withdrew from this agreement, EU member states remained in it. The United States and the European Union, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other, had completely different definitions of their own national security, insisting on their unilateral security, while failing to redefine the problem in the direction of mutual security. However, in addition, the US and EU member states, although both concerned about their own security due to the possible emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, instead of a complementary approach to the issue had a mutually competing one. Using the case study method, as well as the analytical-deductive method and the content analysis method, the author explains the difference in this approach through the concept of the strategic culture of the US and the EU and concludes that they are a consequence of the different understanding of international relations, but also due to the different identity characters of these two actors. The main thesis of the paper is that the US administration of Donald Trump, with its more realistic and Hobbesian view of international relations, and a different understanding of the US national interest in the Middle East, adopted a different approach to curbing Iran's nuclear armament ambitions compared to the approach of the European Union, which is conditioned by a more liberal and Kantian nature of its view on international relations. With unilateral foreign policy actions, Trump's administration risked causing damage and shaking its own credibility in relations with the European Union. On the other hand, the European Union remains committed to multilateralism and the preservation of the Iran nuclear deal. The subject of this research is the direction of the foreign policy actions of the United States and the European Union, in the period from the unilateral withdrawal of Trump's cabinet from the Iran nuclear agreement on May 8th, 2018, until the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on January 3rd, 2020 in the Republic of Iraq. The current state and perspective of contemporary transatlantic political relations in the context of unilateral withdrawal will be taken into consideration. In accordance with its new foreign policy agenda and strategy, and more inclined to a realistic view of international relations, the Trump administration risked deeper conflicts and divergence with the European Union over regional security issues. Thus, there was a threat to limit the further deepening and strengthening of the transatlantic partnership with the leading member states of the European Union, especially with the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the government of the Republic of France. Additionally, the subject of research will be the patterns of behavior, embodied in speeches and foreign policy actions, which are consistent with the different approaches of the US and the EU to the problem of preventing the theocratic regime in Iran from developing its nuclear program. Accordingly, the focus will be on the period of the Trump administration, which, with its political will to break off with the legacy of the Obama administration, began to perceive Iran as a factor causing instability in the Middle East region. The Trump administration did not ratify the Iran nuclear agreement and continued to act under its obligations, solely because of the unfavorable benefits and a large number of shortcomings for the US. Thus, the paper will analyze whether the US administration of Donald Trump had a concrete foreign policy strategy in relations with the European Union and Iran. Also, the paper will try to answer the question of whether a unilateral or multilateral approach to regional security problems is more fruitful, taking into consideration the question of whether the unilateral approach of the only superpower in the world is more effective or, on the other hand, an international coalition of states is needed to suppress the Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Donald Trump's election as president certainly startled many, though not all political observers. In this article, I offer my own observation that Mr Trump's election represents a developmental progression of America's electoral system from a political process to an entertainment process. The effect of the office of the president now is to distract and entertain. I will aim to convince readers that his election as America's president is not an anomaly, but rather represents how the politics of image and representation now work as an everyday event and should be treated as part of a reality that we should now take for granted.

The title of this part of the book—“Discovering Natural Experiments”—suggests a first foundational issue for discussion. The random or as-if random assignment that characterizes natural experiments occurs as a feature of social and political processes—not in connection with a manipulation planned and carried out by an experimental researcher. This is what makes natural experiments observational studies, not true experiments. For this reason, however, researchers face a major challenge in identifying situations in which natural experiments occur. Scholars often speak not of “creating” a natural experiment, but of “exploiting” or “leveraging” an opportunity for this kind of approach in the analysis of observational data. In an important sense, natural experiments are not so much designed as discovered. How, then, does one uncover a natural experiment? As the survey in Part I of the book will suggest, new ideas for sources of natural experiments—such as close elections or weather shocks—seem to arise in unpredictable ways. Moreover, their successful use in one context does not guarantee their applicability to other substantive problems. The discovery of natural experiments is thus as much art as science: there appears to be no algorithm for the generation of convincing natural experiments, and analysts are challenged to think carefully about whether sources of natural experiments discovered in one context are applicable to other settings. Yet, the best way to recognize the potential for using a natural experiment productively is often through exposure to examples. This can generate ideas for new research, as existing approaches are modified to suit novel contexts and questions, and it can also lead researchers to recognize new sources of natural experiments. Part I of the book therefore surveys and discusses in detail existing research, as a way to broach the central topic of how to discover natural experiments.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically examine whether the massive spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, the country with the most advanced medical technology in the world, are symptomatic of leadership failure. The authors posit that when political leaders, such as the President of the USA, in conjunction with a group of state governors and city mayors, employed conspiracy theories and disinformation to achieve their political goals, they contributed to the massive spreads and fatalities of the virus, and they also undermined the credibility of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the health-care professionals in providing the pertinent control guidelines and true scientific-based medical information.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a review of current studies that address the handling of global infectious diseases to build a better understanding of the issue of pandemics. They then employed a theoretical framework to link the massive spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic to political leaders, such as President Trump and the group of obsequious state governors and city mayors, who propagated conspiracy theories and disinformation through social media platforms to downplay the severity of the virus. The authors compared the massive spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA under President Trump to President Obama who handled H1N1, Ebola, Zika and Dengue. More importantly, the authors compared President Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic to other political leaders in advanced countries where there were no concerted efforts to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation about the health risks of COVID-19 pandemic.FindingsThe authors' theoretical analysis alluded to the fact that political leaders, such as President Trump, who are engulfed in self-deceptions, self-projections and self-aggrandizements would engage in self-promotion and avoid accountability for their missteps in handling global pandemic shocks. In contrast, political leaders in other advanced countries did not downplay the severity thus their ability to curtail the spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThe theoretical viewpoints presented in this paper along with the derivations of the spreads–fatalities curtailment coefficients and the spread–fatality upsurge coefficients under Presidents Obama and Trump, respectively, may not be replicable. Given this plausible limitation, future research may need to provide a deep analysis of the amplifications of conspiracy theories and disinformation because they are now deeply rooted in the political economy of the USA. Furthermore, since scientists and medical professionals may not be able to forecast future epidemics or pandemics with pin-point accuracy nor predict how political leaders would disseminate health risks information associated with different pathogens, it is imperative that future research addresses the positive or adverse effects of conspiracy theories and disinformation that are now easily propagated simultaneously through different social media platforms, which are currently protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The multiplier effects of conspiracy theories and disinformation will continue to amplify the division about the authenticity of COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence or reemergence of other pathogens in the foreseeable future.Originality/valueThe authors derived the unique spreads-fatalities curtailment coefficients to demonstrate how President Obama used effective collaboration and coordination at all levels of government in conjunction with medical experts to curtail the spreads and fatalities associated with H1N1, Ebola, Zika and Dengue. They further derived the spreads-fatalities upsurge coefficients to highlight how President Trump contributed to the spreads and fatalities of COVID-19 pandemic through his inability to collaborate and coordinate with state governors, city mayors and different health-care agencies at the national and international levels.