Degree Of Partisanship Research Articles

How Alternative Are Alternative Media? Analyzing Speaker and Topic Diversity in Mainstream and Alternative Online Outlets

Alternative outlets can differ in their degree of partisanship, activism, and their opposition to a perceived news “mainstream.” We expect this could lead to diverging contributions to overall news diversity. We assess how mainstream-like, partisan and activist media differ from mainstream reporting concerning migration and refugee policy in Germany. We combine a manual analysis of speaker diversity in 12 mainstream and alternative outlets (N = 1,172 articles) with a computational topic model (N = 34,819 articles) covering 30 outlets to assess topic diversity. Interestingly, we find no significant differences between mainstream and alternative outlets regarding overall speaker diversity. But our data show differences in which parties get cited, and whether outlets focus on experts, civil society speakers, or migrants themselves. While mainstream media offer higher overall topic diversity, alternative media split along the lines of agenda accommodation and more independent agendas of partisan and activist media.

Partisanship & nationalization in American elections: Evidence from presidential, senatorial, & gubernatorial elections in the U.S. counties, 1872–2020

Scholars argue that contemporary American elections are pronounced in their degree of partisanship and nationalization. While much of this work largely uncovers a heightened degree of nationalization in contemporary elections, little is known about how far back these patterns generalize. Given the limited availability of American electoral data, this work also generally focuses on a single office or during a certain segment of the post-war period since 1946. Moreover, this work largely focuses on states as salient units of analysis, masking potential variation found in U.S. counties, the smallest geographical unit constituting panel observations over time and across elections. In this note, we leverage a novel dataset of county-level election returns for President, U.S. Senate, and Governor, to specify a model assessing whether American elections are more nationalized and partisan than during any other period since the Civil War. We find evidence that presidential and Senate elections are more partisan today than any period since the Civil War, while gubernatorial elections are as partisan today as they were during the late 1800s. Our findings have implications for contemporary-based theories explaining the rise of partisanship in American elections and demonstrates the utility of county-level data in assessing electoral changes in America.

Red Economy, Blue Economy: How Media-Party Parallelism Affects the Partisan Economic Perception Gap

Partisan identities do not only shape people’s political attitudes, but also their perceptions of real-world developments. This is evident from the partisan economic perception gap: Government supporters have more positive economic perceptions than opposition supporters, especially when the economic situation is ambiguous. Recent research has shown that the size of this partisan gap varies across different contexts and that the state of the economy and working of political institutions are important moderators. Still, little is known about the influence of another important contextual variable: the degree of partisanship in the media system. Based on a theoretical discussion of partisan-motivated rationalization and the information environment, the paper tests the hypothesis that, due to selective exposure and exposure to more partisan content, people in partisan media systems have more polarized economic perceptions. A multilevel analysis of representative surveys in twenty-six European countries in 2014 shows that the partisan perception gap is, indeed, larger in countries with more polarized media systems, after controlling for other relevant country characteristics. People with the highest level of media consumption are most affected by media-party parallelism. The findings are relevant for worldwide discussions about posttruth politics, as they show that the media environment influences gaps in people’s perceptions of real-world developments.

Avaliando vínculos entre partidos e deputados nas Assembleias Legislativas brasileiras

ResumoEste artigo parte do suposto de que existe expressiva variação nos vínculos estabelecidos entre legisladores e partidos no Brasil e procura explicá-la a partir de estudo realizado em 12 estados brasileiros. A variação é mensurada com o auxílio de um índice de partidarismo, construído com base em um conjunto de perguntas feitas aos representantes eleitos para as Assembleias Legislativas nas legislaturas 2007-2011 e 2011-2015. A variação encontrada é explicada em dois níveis. O primeiro remete a uma das dimensões da institucionalização dos diversos sistemas partidários estaduais: a estabilidade da competição eleitoral. O segundo remete a uma série de características individuais dos deputados, entre as quais se destaca o tempo de filiação ao partido. Ideologia, grau de particularismo no exercício do mandato e grau de progressismo relativamente a temas contemporâneos também apresentam impacto significativo e no sentido esperado sobre a variável dependente - o grau de partidarismo do deputado. As hipóteses aqui apresentadas haviam sido testadas com base em dados relativos à primeira das legislaturas acima. Ao agregar uma segunda legislatura, o presente estudo confirma e dá maior robustez aos resultados encontrados.

Do ask, do tell, do nothing: the EU Commission and all those copyright consultations

Following the big wave of 1990s-early 2000s EU copyright reforms (Directive 2001/29/EC—the so called InfoSoc Directive—was adopted in 2001), over the past few years the main feature of EU Commission’s copyright policy has probably been consulting with interested stakeholders about the need for further updates or major reforms of the acquis. It is however difficult to think of consultations that have translated to actual reform proposals. The 2008 Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy included a call for comments (there were about 350 in the end) on issues pertaining to exceptions and limitations in Article 5 of the InfoSoc Directive. Nothing changed as a result of this stakeholder exercise, unless you consider the creation of the Content Online Platform, ie a “stakeholders’ discussion and cooperation platform”, an actual step forward for EU copyright reform debate. The outcome of the 2009 Consultation on Creative Content Online was not more encouraging. Despite being aimed at discussing the challenges facing digitization of content and distribution channels, it attracted around 200 responses (which is over 40% less than its 2008 predecessor), and passed unnoticed outside niche—possibly too niche—circles. Switching for a moment away from public consultations, in its 2011 blueprint ambitiously titled A Single Market for Intellectual Property Rights boosting creativity and innovation to provide economic growth, high quality jobs and first class products and services in Europe, the Commission anticipated a number of (minor, I think) legislative initiatives (on orphan works and collective rights management) and—again—a new round of consultations on two topical copyright issues, ie further harmonization of copyright laws of Member States, and re-opening the InfoSoc Directive. While the EU has adopted specific directives on orphan works (Directive 2012/ 28/EU) and collective rights management (Directive 2014/26/ EU), no progress has been made on the front of the two really big policy issues identified in the blueprint. Proof of the above is the most recent Public Consultation on the Review of EU Copyright Rules that ran between December 2013 and March 2014. Again, the Commission asked about deepening the harmonization of the copyright laws of EU Member States and the need for changing/ clarifying/updating key provisions of the InfoSoc Directive with regard to both exclusive rights and related exceptions and limitations. Following the conclusion of this last consultation, there should be (or rather: should have been, considering that current Commission’s term of office will end in October this year?) a White Paper aimed at identifying potential areas for legislative intervention, and an Impact Assessment. Draft versions of both documents have been already leaked, and do not look particularly ambitious. All this creates the impression that—also this time—no real copyright reform will occur. This may not be the worst case scenario though. What is most worrisome is in fact the high—and at times fairly intolerable—degree of partisanship of those involved in the copyright debate and the instrumental use that the Commission itself has made of the instrumental data thus collected. In a recent briefing prepared for the European Parliament and entitled Adapating the EU Copyright Rules to the Digital Transformation, Stephane Reynolds reviewed the implementation, application and effectiveness of EU copyright policy over the past few years. He observed that public consultations have featured prominently and have essentially served to gather and confirm qualitative—rather than quantitative—data. In other words, you were not mistaken in thinking that all those stakeholder exercises looked like sort of a deja-vu: they were. To this add the sudden rise in the numbers of participation: the 2013–14 Public Consultation received 9,500 responses. This was not because Europe has been recently invaded by armies of copyright enthusiasts, but rather because popular stakeholder-driven initiatives such as Fix Copyright!, Creators for Europe and Copywrongs.eu really boosted participation by providing pre-filled response forms. While this is good for creating a copyright culture also among non-specialists, it also strengthens the impression that consultations are bound to become even more repositories of sclerotized data that can hardly be considered economic evidence (apparently the only real, acceptable type of evidence), if evidence at all. Besides well-known refrains on competitiveness and effectiveness of the EU single market, it is still unclear where EU copyright policy is heading. Moreover, it seems that asking repeatedly the same people might not help see the way. The next Commission will hopefully appreciate the actual legacy—if any—of these years spent consulting, as well as the quality of the data used to carry out the most recent (minor) reform agenda. But will it?

Young populations in young democracies: generational voting behaviour in sub-Saharan Africa

Why do young Africans participate less in elections than their older counterparts? Given Africa's growing youth bulge, this constituency represents a numerically important voting bloc, and their lower participation in elections could undermine the legitimacy of the region's democratic trajectory. We address this question through a multi-level model that relies on individual-level data from the Afrobarometer surveys and country-level data for 19 of the region's more democratic countries. We classify Africa's youth as belonging to two categories, those aged 18–24 and those aged 25–35. We find that key determinants of the youth's voting behaviour include their access to political knowledge and information as well as their perceptions of the electoral context and party system. In the latter regard, the efficacy and fairness of elections and the degree of partisanship increase the youth's decision to vote, while the length of party incumbency is a deterrent to turnout. These findings hold important implications by highlighting that Africa's youth not only need to be exposed to greater fora for learning about the political process and party options but also that political parties in the region need to become more relevant to this constituency.

The ‘silent’ Irish – football, migrants and the pursuit of integration

Much has been written about life and sport in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, such discourse has rarely strayed from the issue of identity politics and all aspects of society appear, even in an era of peace, to reflect some degree of partisanship, including within the realm of association football. In the Republic of Ireland, the emphasis has increasingly been on the growing multiculturalism of that state and at present there exists a real challenge to all aspects of civic society to do more to integrate ‘new arrivals’ into Irish life in a more convincing manner than has been the case to date. And so, this is essentially what this article intends to examine – the role football authorities in Ireland can and do play in utlising the game as a means of integrating ethnic minorities into everyday life. There are examples of impactful work already taking place in this regard – notably on the part of the Irish Football Association’s (IFA’s) innovative World United programme, whilst there also remains shortcomings around the approach adopted both by the IFA and the Football Association of Ireland and these are critically engaged with throughout this article. Finally, in the spirit of finding a constructive way forward, the somewhat recalcitrant and authoritarian approach to granting eligibility to some of the very best young footballers on the island, including those living in the Republic of Ireland’s designated refugee centre north of Dublin, is afforded due recognition.

Electoral Governance Matters

This article provides a systematic cross-national analysis of the role of electoral administration in explaining acceptable democratic presidential elections in 19 countries in Latin America since the year 1980 or the first pivotal, transitional election. The authors provide two alternative measures of election administration, one focused on the degree of partisanship or professional independence and another on formal—legal institutional independence, as well as on other key factors, to test partial proportional odds-ordered logit models predicting the probability of an acceptable, flawed, or failed electoral process. The results show an important positive role for professional, independent electoral commissions on electoral outcomes in Latin America, controlling for other socioeconomic and political factors; formal-legal independence matters when the rules of the game are likely to be respected. In addition, low-quality elections are found disproportionately where incumbents seek reelection and where victory margins are extremely wide rather than narrow.

Os efeitos da migração interpartidária na conduta parlamentar

The objectives of this article were to compare the performance of members of Congress who remain loyal to their original party versus those who desert, in terms of party cohesion and discipline, as well as to measure the effects of changing parties on the migrants' conduct and ideas. The study uses data from records on party changes, roll call votes, and opinion polls. Based on these data, regardless of whether members of Congress had switched parties or not, they showed a high degree of partisanship. In addition, most party deserters adhered to the ideas and voting patterns of their new party. Compared to the Brazilian case, political party migration in the United States differs as to frequency, motives, and impact.

The Coverage of Post-War Election Campaigns: the Otago Daily Times

The paper examines the coverage of election campaigns by the Otago Daily Times for the period 1946-2002. Four aspects of campaign coverage are addressed: the degree of partisanship of editorials, and party balance in news stories and their placement; the presidentialisation of coverage; the relative shares of ‘game’ and substance stories; and the extent to which coverage is national rather than local in focus. The paper finds clear evidence of a decline in both partisanship of editorials since the 1970s and balanced party coverage in other news stories across the whole period. There has been an increase in stories devoted to party leaders and the horse-race and hoopla aspects of the campaign. There has also been an increase in nationally focused stories. However, there remains substantial coverage of parties and their policies, and during the 1990s there was evidence of an increase in local and regionally focused stories. Overall, readers of the Otago Daily Times have significant opportunity to become ‘informed’ voters.