Contemporary American Politics Research Articles

A ‘natcon takeover’? The New Right and the future of American foreign policy

Abstract Donald Trump's capture of the Republican Party enabled a radical questioning of received wisdom within the broader conservative intellectual movement. In particular, it enabled the emergence of a post-Trump, distinctly American New Right. This policy paper examines the American New Right and its visions for United States foreign policy. In the context of contemporary American politics, the New Right is best understood as a rejection of the ‘fusionism’ that has characterized US conservatism since the early decades after the Second World War. The paper argues that there are three major identifiable parts of the New Right: the Claremonters, the post-liberals and the national conservatives. In part because of their ‘big-tent’ character, as well as deft intellectual leadership by Yoram Hazony, the national conservatives have become the most influential group within the contemporary New Right. The article also examines how the New Right has attempted to create an alternative ideational infrastructure, with a clear focus on entrenching itself through large-scale credentialing of personnel deemed to be loyal to the New Right's agenda. There is reason to speak of a ‘natcon takeover’ of traditional conservative institutions. This is particularly the case with the Heritage Foundation, the largest and most influential conservative think tank. While all segments of the New Right ostensibly embrace some notion of grand strategic restraint, the policy paper argues that the rise of national conservatism is likely to accelerate the US pivot from Europe to Asia rather than lead to neo-isolationism, as is sometimes suggested.

Contemporary American Political Discourse: a Study of Content, Structure, and Formation Features

Contemporary American Political Discourse: a Study of Content, Structure, and Formation Features

The Political Psychology of Cancel Culture: Value Framing or Group Identity?

“Cancel culture” has become a prominent phrase in US political commentary, with supporters and opponents relying on different value-based arguments to express their views. At the same time, these camps often fall along predictable partisan political lines. What, then, are the real motivations for promoting and opposing behaviors sometimes labeled as “canceling” in contemporary American politics? We explore this question through survey data from Pew in 2020 and two original survey experiments, conducted on the 2021 CES and a 2023 online sample. We examine how Americans define the term “cancel culture,” to what extent cancel culture is linked to both a range of core democratic values, and the role of partisanship in shaping support or opposition to specific behaviors. We observe a significant range of views about cancel culture and document connections to various political values. From our experiments, we find that partisanship is a potent driver of support for and understanding of cancel culture and that value-based framing has a weaker impact as compared to partisanship. Cancel culture provides an important case study of how Americans process conflicting norms and values, including free speech and political accountability, beyond the typical constraints of the formal political system.

The Gonzo Character of Contemporary American Politics: Media Logics from Donald Trump to Kyrsten Sinema

The Gonzo Character of Contemporary American Politics: Media Logics from Donald Trump to Kyrsten Sinema

A Moving Image of Scepticism: Cavell on Film, Gender, and Gaslighting

This article examines the political themes in Cavell’s philosophy through a reading of the film Gaslight in the context of contemporary American politics. It demonstrates how Cavell’s ideas offer valuable insights into gender politics, fascism, and propaganda in American society. The article proceeds in three sections, first reviewing Cavell’s ontology of film and genre to elucidate his claim that film embodies scepticism. Next, it analyses gaslighting in the film as an enactment of gendered politics of scepticism and explores Cavell’s resources for responding to it. Lastly, it investigates the political implications of gaslighting, particularly in light of its association with post-truth politics, using Cavell’s interpretation as a philosophical framework to understand instances like Donald Trump’s manipulation of America.

Media Frames in an Era of the Local

ABSTRACT: This article offers an analysis of contemporary American politics exploring white working-class Americans’ support for Donald Trump. The article draws on a definition of media organizations as people’s organizations or civil society groups and organizations from democratic populism’s political variant. The definition highlights the significant role that media organizations play in shaping political and social outcomes through choices media organizations make about how to present or frame information. The article contrasts political democratic populism as a general approach to the study of politics and the media with the approach from cultural studies drawing broadly on Marx. Michael Denning’s masterful account of the history of cultural studies provides the basis for discussion of the treatment of the media in cultural studies.

Scientific supremacy: How do genetic narratives relate to racism?

Recent research suggests that contemporary American society is marked by heightened hostile racial rhetoric, alongside increasing salience of White nationalists who justify an ideology of racial hierarchy with claims of biological superiority. Media coverage of such genetics research has often emphasized a deterministic (or causal) narrative by suggesting that specific genes directly increase negative outcomes and highlighting reported genetic differences between racial groups. Across two experimental studies, we examine the effect of the media's portrayal of scientific findings linking genes with negative health and behavioral outcomes on measures of racism. We find that deterministic genetic attributions for health and behavioral outcomes can lead to more negative racial out-group attitudes. Importantly, we also investigate potential interventions in the presentation of genetic science research. Our research has implications for understanding racial attitudes and racialized ideology in contemporary American politics, as well as for framing scientific communication in intergroup contexts.

The dual economy, climate change, and the polarization of American politics

This article explores two questions. What generates the political division over climate change policy in the United States? How is the division over climate change policy related to the broader polarization of contemporary American politics? I argue that the geographies of America’s dual economy—the knowledge economy and the carbon economy—and exposure to the climate crisis intersect to generate a new axis of conflict, which I call the carbon–climate cleavage. This cleavage produces political division over climate change and provides materialist elements that accompany the sociocultural factors that shape contemporary polarization. I demonstrate the existence of the cleavage and its impact using data on economic geography, political attitudes on climate change policy, and support for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The empirical analysis indicates that carbon economy communities oppose climate change policy and support Trump, while knowledge economy residents support climate change policy and oppose Trump.

Human mobility patterns are associated with experienced partisan segregation in US metropolitan areas

Partisan sorting in residential environments is an enduring feature of contemporary American politics, but little research has examined partisan segregation individuals experience in activity spaces through their daily activities. Relying on advances in spatial computation and global positioning system data on everyday mobility flows collected from smartphones, we measure experienced partisan segregation in two ways: place-level partisan segregation based on the partisan composition of its daily visitors and community-level experienced partisan segregation based on the segregation level of places visited by its residents. We find that partisan segregation experienced in places varies across different geographic areas, location types, and time periods. Moreover, partisan segregation is distinct from experienced segregation by race and income. We also find that partisan segregation individuals experience is relatively lower when they visit places beyond their residential areas, but partisan segregation in residential space and activity space is strongly correlated. Residents living in predominantly black, liberal, low-income, non-immigrant, more public transit-dependent, and central city communities tend to experience a higher level of partisan segregation.

Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic

Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic

Presidential partisanship and regulatory review

AbstractIncreasing partisanship is a well‐studied feature of contemporary American politics, but how that partisanship is reflected in executive‐branch administration is relatively under‐examined. This article addresses this question in the context of centralized regulatory review, exploring existing theories of central clearance as a tool of ideological alignment or as a deregulatory mechanism. I first corroborate Haeder and Yackee's finding that ideological misalignment between the president and promulgating agencies does not affect review outcomes. Additionally, while Haeder and Yackee find that more liberal agencies' rules are changed more often, I instead find that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is more likely to request changes under Democratic than under Republican presidents, complicating the possibility of OIRA review as a deregulatory mechanism. These results suggest the need for new theories of the role of regulatory review in the context of the administrative presidency.

The Counselor Brent Scowcroft and his Role in Achieving the Requirements of the American National Security

Despite the multiplicity of institutions contributing to the decision-making process in the United States of America, they interact to crystallize positions regarding international and strategic situations. The formulation of the national security policy depends on a number of institutions that complement each other in order to achieve an advanced security situation. Thus, the decision reflects the process of interaction of the existing regulatory institutions. This is because the essence of the national security and achieving its requirements also stems from the existence of a coherent system of shared beliefs and principles in the American society. Besides, these elements are the bases for achieving security. Researing about Brent Scowcroft’s role in meeting the requiremnets of the united States’ national security, it has been found necessary to include two pivots to the study. The first pivot disscusses the requirements of achieving the national security of the United States of America, whereas the second pivot tackles Brent Scowcroft’s role, through the mechanisms of the national security council, in achieving the national security requirements in particular within the decision-making process in the history of the contemporary American political system. As for the type of the study, it is a historical study within the axis of contemporary American politics, while the methodology of the study came within the scientific analysis and according to the narrative and descriptive historical approach. This is because the research problem emphasizes the identification of the security and military requirements in order to achieve the integration of the national security of the United States. Finally, the conclusions have verified the National Security Adviser’s prominent role of during the Scowcroft era, in conductng partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the decision-making process. The latter has said to affect the overall foreign policy and achieve the national security requirements of the United States of America at the end of the last century.

Anti-environmentalism and the natural ‘wages of whiteness’

ABSTRACT W.E.B. Du Bois’ theorization of the ‘wages of whiteness’ has factored prominently into recent scholarship examining the roots of Trumpism and resurgent right-wing movements in the United States. How might the ‘wages of whiteness’ shed light on contemporary anti-environmental politics? To provide insight into this question, I put Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction in America, as well as more recent work in whiteness studies, into conversation with environmental and social histories of the mid-nineteenth century frontier. I observe that struggles over access to and control over land and natural resources, and anger over exposure to polluted air and water, were central to class and racial formation during an historical period that continues to weigh heavily on contemporary American politics. I argue that understanding the origins and evolution of the natural wages of whiteness can help us develop strategies for combating anti-environmentalism and mobilizing in pursuit of environmental justice.

The ethics of asymmetric politics

Polarization often happens asymmetrically. One political actor radicalizes, and the results reverberate through the political system. This is how the deep divisions in contemporary American politics arose: the Republican Party radicalized. Republican officeholders began to use extreme legislative tactics. Republican voters became animated by contempt for their political rivals and by the defense of their own social superiority. The party as a whole launched a wide-ranging campaign of voter suppression and its members endorsed violence in the face of electoral defeat. This paper is about how such asymmetric polarization affects everyone else’s obligations. My core claim is that two kinds of relationship – civic friendship and non-subordination – underpin critical democratic norms. Republican misbehavior has severed cross-partisan civic friendships. Their authoritarianism forfeits their claim to non-subordination. The former means that non-Republicans need not justify policy on public grounds. The latter undercuts Republicans’ claim to enjoy minority vetoes when out of power and it gives their rivals reason to disobey the laws that Republicans make when they are in power. More generally, when one political actor contravenes the proper norms of democratic politics, their opposition is not bound by those norms.

The Realignment of Political Tolerance in the United States

Studies conducted between the 1950s and 1970s found that the principles embodied in the First Amendment constituted a “clear norm” endorsed by large majorities of community leaders and virtually all legal practitioners and scholars. This consensus has since weakened under the strain of arguments that racist slurs, epithets, and other forms of expression that demean social identities are an intolerable affront to egalitarian values. Guided by the theory that norms are transmitted through social learning, we show that these developments have spurred a dramatic realignment in public tolerance of offensive expression about race, gender, and religious groups. Tolerance of such speech has declined overall, and its traditional relationships with ideology, education, and age have diminished or reversed. Speech subject to changing norms of tolerance ranges from polemic to scientific inquiry, the fringes to the mainstream of political discourse, and left to right, raising profound questions about the scope of permissible debate in contemporary American politics.

Explaining Contentious Energy Policy

The Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline is one of the most polarised examples of contemporary American energy politics. The pipeline policy process has not been stable, so it should be analysed over time via a holistic, historical view of interacting dimensions. Robert Cox’s theoretical notions of the “materials–ideas–institutions” balance are drawn upon to understand how actors’ motivations behind policy development were re-shaped through temporal processes over nearly two decades. A critical feature identified is how such interacting dimensions became significant according to specific US presidential administrations: each, in turn, shifting the direction of decision-making around KXL. The article’s originality lies in operationalising the theory to give an alternative, dynamic explanation for policy motivations around the KXL while also establishing a novel theoretical lens to generally view such policy development.

TRENDS: Diploma divide: Educational attainment and the realignment of the American electorate

The divide between college graduates and non-college graduates is an increasingly important political cleavage. In this paper, I document the rise of the diploma divide on the micro and macro levels. First, I use ANES and CES data to assess the relationships between educational attainment, partisanship, and vote choice. I find that post-2000, educational attainment is an increasingly strong predictor of partisanship and, in turn, vote choice. I demonstrate that differences in racial and culture war attitudes between college graduates and non-graduates drive the diploma divide. I then show that the increasing salience of education at the individual level has reshaped the macro-level political alignment. Between 2000 and 2020, the percentage of a county’s population with a BA is one of the strongest predictors of changes in vote share, with highly educated counties becoming more Democratic and less educated counties becoming more Republican. Finally, I demonstrate that county-level educational context conditions the effect of degree-holding on individual-level behavior. Having a college education is a stronger predictor of Democratic partisanship in counties where a larger proportion of the population holds a college degree. Overall, these results demonstrate the diploma divide is one of the dominant political cleavages in contemporary American politics.

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere: Postmodern “Truthiness” and Civic Engagement

Satire as the Comic Public Sphere: Postmodern “Truthiness” and Civic Engagement

Racialized Pandemic: The Effect of Racial Attitudes on COVID-19 Conspiracy Theory Beliefs

As national and international health agencies rushed to respond to the global spread of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19), one challenge these organizations faced was the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus. Troublingly, much of the misinformation was couched in racialized language, particularly regarding the source of the virus and responsibility for its spread, fostering the development of related conspiracy theories. Media coverage of these conspiracy theories, particularly early on in the pandemic, had negative impacts on individuals' engagement in protective behaviors and concern with the spread of COVID-19. From extant work, racial resentment and white identity have been shown to be deeply woven into the fabric of contemporary American politics, affecting perceptions of public opinion even after accounting for social and political identities. While racial attitudes have been less studied in relation to conspiracy theory belief, we expect racial resentment and white identity to affect compliance with public health behaviors and COVID-19 conspiracy theory belief. Using observational and experimental survey data (N= 1,045), quota-sampled through Lucid Theorem (LT) in the spring of 2020, we demonstrate that framing the virus in racialized language alters endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, contingent upon levels of racial resentment and white identity and find that higher levels of conspiracy theory belief decreased compliance with preventative measures.

(Mis)estimating Affective Polarization

Affective polarization—the tendency of ordinary partisans to dislike and distrust those from the other party—is a defining feature of contemporary American politics. High levels of out-party animus stem, in part, from misperceptions of the other party’s voters. Specifically, individuals misestimate the ideological extremity and political engagement of typical out-partisans. When partisans are asked about “Democrats” or the “Republican Party,” they bring to mind stereotypes of engaged ideologues and, hence, express contempt for the other party. The reality, however, is that such individuals are the exception rather than the norm. We show that when partisans learn that reality, partisan animus falls sharply; partisans do not have much animus toward the typical member of the other party. Our results suggest antidotes for vitiating affective polarization but also complicate understandings of good citizenship.