External Efficacy Research Articles

Exploring Black parents’ critical consciousness in relation to their engagement with their children's schools

AbstractDespite consensus that parent involvement is integral to children's educational success, Black parents’ involvement remains largely characterized from a deficits‐based perspective. Using critical race and critical consciousness theories, this study explored parents’ analysis of educational inequities and their school engagement. Using interview data from a sample of Black parents (n = 20), emergent understandings of parents’ thoughts, motivations, and actions to engage with their child's school were explored. Findings revealed that Black parents held both critical and traditional views, expressed themes of internal and external efficacy in their motivation, and engaged critically and traditionally in their child's education. Results are consonant with literature on Black parents’ engagement and to the nascent understanding of how parents' beliefs about structural racial oppression within schools impacts how they engage in that space.

The mechanism of internal and external efficacy influences residents' pro-environmental behavior through environmental willingness.

The Chinese government's environmental conservation efforts require the active participation of all society. This study investigated how internal and external efficacy influence pro-environmental behavior with environmental willingness as a mediator. This study employed a structural equation model to analyze the data from 1499 survey questionnaires. The analysis revealed that both internal and external efficacy can enhance individuals' pro-environmental behavior in the private and public spheres. External efficacy has a stronger impact on environmental willingness and public sphere environmental behavior, while internal efficacy more significantly influences private sphere environmental behavior. Additionally, environmental willingness only mediates efficacy and public sphere environmental behavior. The innovation of this study is the examination of internal and external efficacy from the perspective of different sources and the comparison of their differential impacts on pro-environmental behavior. Relevant policies should effectively enhance residents' internal and external efficacy to comprehensively improve their level of pro-environmental behavior.

Political efficacy and the perceived influence of urban and rural residents

AbstractWhile political scientists have long studied citizens' political efficacy as an important indicator of attitudes toward government, less attention has been devoted to the efficacy of rural or urban residents, which is important given the intensifying rural–urban divide in American society. This study fills this gap by analyzing the 2020 American National Election Studies. Using ordered logistic regression, this study finds that (1) city residents tend to believe that small towns and rural areas have too much influence on government; (2) residents of small towns and rural areas demonstrate lower levels of external efficacy than city residents; and (3) people who believe that small towns and rural areas have too much influence tend to demonstrate high external and internal efficacies, a tendency that is clearer in cities than in other community types. These findings reflect mutual in‐group bias and place‐based resentment between rural and urban residents in American society.Related ArticlesPeterson, Holly L., Mark K. McBeth, and Michael D. Jones. 2020. “Policy Process Theory for Rural Studies: Navigating Context and Generalization in Rural Policy.” Politics & Policy 48(4): 576–617. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12366.Shortall, Sally, and Margaret Alston. 2016. “To Rural Proof or Not to Rural Proof: A Comparative Analysis.” Politics & Policy 44(1): 35–55. https://doi‐org.libproxy.usouthal.edu/10.1111/polp.12144.Smith‐Walter, Aaron, Holly L. Peterson, Michael D. Jones, and Ashley Nicole Reynolds Marshall. 2016. “Gun Stories: How Evidence Shapes Firearm Policy in the United States.” Politics & Policy 44(6): 1053–88. https://doi‐org.libproxy.usouthal.edu/10.1111/polp.12187.

Local Alien Enfranchisement and External Efficacy Perceptions: Intended and Unintended Effects on Non-citizens and Citizens

Do citizens and non-citizens perceive themselves as more politically influential in contexts with more immigrant-inclusive local enfranchisement policies? Despite long-standing debates about the unequal responsiveness in the political systems of many advanced democracies, we still know little about whether targeted public policies at the local level can alter perceptions of political representation among residents. Importantly, little attention has been paid to the potential intended and unintended consequences of local electoral policies on external efficacy and research designs that include non-citizen residents. In this paper, we argue and test whether local alien enfranchisement raises external efficacy among non-citizens as a highly effective marker of immigrant inclusivity. Next, considering the potential spill-over effects of alien enfranchisement on citizens, we examine whether such electoral expansion is associated with a perceived increase in competition for political influence and a subsequent decline in citizens’ external efficacy. Empirically, we focus on the Swiss case and exploit local electoral institutions’ sub-national and temporal variation using longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel from 1999 to 2014. The paper adds to earlier work by proposing local policy context regarding non-citizen enfranchisement as one of the predictors of external efficacy on the resident population. Our findings suggest that perceived political influence among non-citizens is higher in municipalities with inclusive enfranchisement. We find no evidence for citizens experiencing lower external efficacy when voting rights are extended, making alien enfranchisement potentially a valuable tool to improve political integration among immigrants in today’s diverse democracies.

The Effect of External Efficacy on the Moral Courage and Self-Efficacy of Internal Auditors

Purpose: This study investigates the effect of external efficacy (means efficacy and collective efficacy) on internal auditors' moral courage in the Tunisian context. This study also examines the effect of external efficacy on the self-efficacy of internal auditors. Theoretical framework: Previous auditing studies have revealed moral courage as the required tool for internal auditors to overcome their fears, break their silence about management fraud, and guide their ethical behaviors. Based on the social cognitive theory developed by Bandura and the model of the internal-external efficacy of Eden, this study tries to explain the association between means efficacy, collective efficacy, self-efficay, and internal auditors' moral courage Design/Methodology/Approach: 163 questionnaires were collected from internal auditors working in Tunisian companies and a partial least squares–-structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses. Findings: The results reveal a significant and positive effect of means and collective efficacies on internal auditors’ moral courage. Similarly, these variables have a significant and positive effect on the self-efficacy of internal auditors. Research, Practical & Social implications: This study permits to offer practical solutions to professional institutions and organizations (e.g., the Institute of Internal Auditing) that aim to determine what might encourage internal auditors to tell the truth about management fraud and report corruption. Originality/Value: This research fills one of the major research gaps in accounting studies by revealing that the self-efficacy and courageous behavior of internal auditors can be fostered by furnishing the necessary tools and working with an efficacious team.

Only losers use excuses? Exploring the association between the winner-loser gap and referendum attitudes following a local referendum

ABSTRACT Consultative referendums are becoming more widely used as a way of responding to rising public discontent with the workings of representative democracy. Consequently, consultative referendums have become an integral part of democratic decision-making processes across the world. However, how the population reacts to the referendum outcome is expected to differ among the population as referendums, by design, divides the participants into winners and losers. In turn, creating a winner-loser gap with potentially polarizing societal consequences. This study therefore seeks to explore how this winner-loser gap is associated with several types of referendum attitudes following the outcome of a local referendum. Using survey data (N = 3113) gathered after a high stakes local referendum in Finland, the more explicit research purpose is therefore to analyze how individual-level opinions about referendums, turnout thresholds and margin of victory thresholds are related to the winner-loser gap. Additionally, we also control for whether these associations are moderated by external efficacy and political trust. The results clearly imply that the winner-loser gap have consequences for several types of referendum attitudes, contributing to scholarship about the effects derived from the winner-loser gap.

Filipino Youth in Viral and Virulent Times: Unpacking the Predictors of Youth Political Participation in the 2022 Philippine Elections

Conventional political science literature suggests that the economic and political dislocations that accompany disasters, like pandemics, weaken community resources and disrupt social networks, consequently decreasing civic engagement. This paper examines how discontent, demotivation, and fatigue due to the dragging COVID-19 pandemic provided impetus for offline, interpersonal, and online political participation among younger Filipino citizens especially nearing its 2022 presidential elections. Drawing on an exploratory survey of undergraduate students who were constrained to online classes due to pandemic restrictions, we find that pandemic fatigue motivated the youth to explore online platforms as situ of political articulation. The findings also nuance the impact of well-known predictors such as political knowledge, interest, and efficacy on youth civic engagement. In particular, internal political efficacy was found to be strongly related to the three forms of political participation while external efficacy only stimulates online political participation. The study points to the importance of targeting political attitudes in order to shape political interest among the youth and nurture a politically engaged citizenry.

Do they feel like they don’t matter? The rural-urban divide in external political efficacy

Rural areas have often been labelled by the literature as ‘left-behind’ areas or ‘places that don’t matter’, implicitly suggesting that residents of these communities feel neglected by political elites. This article studies the rural-urban divide in external political efficacy, which reflects individuals’ beliefs about the responsiveness of political elites, while also examining if compositional and contextual factors can explain such a divide. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey, the results reveal a significant rural-urban gap in external efficacy, which is partly explained by differences in the sociodemographic characteristics of rural and urban dwellers, but not by disparities in their evaluation of the provision of basic public services. Notably, this rural-urban gap in external efficacy is substantively smaller in those countries with higher levels of electoral malapportionment that lead to an overrepresentation of rural areas in national parliaments.

Explaining the ‘democratic malaise’ in unequal societies: Inequality, external efficacy and political trust

AbstractPrevious scholarship suggests that rising inequality in democracies suppresses trust in institutions. However, the mechanism behind this has not clearly been identified. This paper investigates the proposition that income inequality leads to increased democratic distrust by depressing perceptions of external efficacy. Based on time‐series cross‐sectional survey data from the European Social Survey, we find that changes in income inequality have a negative effect on changes in political trust and external efficacy. Causal mediation analysis confirms that inequality affects trust through lower efficacy. Further analyses show that this efficacy‐based mechanism does not depend on political orientation. As a direct effect remains among left‐wing respondents, our empirical results indicate that inequality affects trust via both a mechanism of substantive output evaluation and a process‐based evaluation that measures of external efficacy can capture. These findings highlight the empirical and theoretical relevance of this so far neglected mechanism and provide a potential solution for the puzzle that inequality depresses trust also among those for whom inequality is not politically salient.

Who Feels They Can Understand and Have an Impact on Political Processes? Socio-demographic Correlates of Political Efficacy in 46 Countries, 1996–2016

AbstractWhile recent research has produced robust objective evidence of unequal representation in democracies, there is little evidence about whether this inequality is consistent with individuals’ subjective perceptions of their own political efficacy. To answer this question, we use all available data on political efficacy from the International Social Survey Programme modules for 46 countries (1996–2016) to investigate trends and correlates of external and internal political efficacy. We focus on socio-demographic characteristics that are central to recent literature on unequal representation: gender, education, and income. Our individual-level findings show that education and income are positively associated with both external and internal efficacy while being female is associated with lower levels of internal efficacy but unrelated to external efficacy. We complement these individual-level analyses with a contextual investigation of how descriptive representation contributes to efficacy gaps. Focusing on gender, we show that women feel that they have more of a say in governmental decisions in contexts with a higher level of female representation among elected representatives. We conclude by noting how future research can leverage cross-national data to identify contextual mechanisms that may have an impact upon persistent social gaps in political efficacy across contexts and over time.

How citizen coproducers cope with public value creation conflicts: a survey experiment

PurposeIn coproduction, citizens may be confronted with a conflict between creating user value and a more collective understanding of public value creation. In order to deal with conflicts experienced as trade-off situations, coproducers follow various coping strategies leading to different results. This study aims to gain insight into what drives the choices for coping strategies, which are valuable for understanding the role of citizen coproducers in public value creation.Design/methodology/approachThis article studies the effects of citizens' external efficacy and trust in public servants on citizen coproducers' preferences for coping strategies. The study presents a vignette experiment among n = 257 citizens involved in the temporary use of vacant spaces in Flanders, Belgium.FindingsNo statistically significant effects of external efficacy and trust in public servants on respondents' preferences for coping strategies are found. The results show that irrespective of the level of external efficacy or trust in public servants, citizen coproducers prefer to ask for help from the public servant involved in the project.Originality/valueThis result draws attention to the need for facilitation and guidance from public servants and the servants' organizations to help citizen coproducers balance out these otherwise paralyzing value conflicts. Moreover, the lack of statistically significant effects of trust and external efficacy is a valuable finding for literature. The result shows that, in the drivers of coproduction behavior, there is no consistent relationship between citizen trust in government or external efficacy and coproduction behavior.

Political support through representation by the government. Evidence from Dutch panel data

AbstractResearch on political support demonstrates that satisfaction with democracy is higher among electoral winners than losers, and that it is higher for citizens who are ideologically more congruent with the government. In this paper, I analyze how support for the political system is affected by representation by the government. Expanding on previous studies, I leverage long‐run panel data from the Dutch LISS panel spanning over several electoral cycles. Drawing on various measures that go beyond the distinction between election winners and losers and also measure how close citizens are to the government coalition as a whole, I show that being well represented by the government has a wide‐ranging positive relationship with satisfaction with democracy, external efficacy and trust in political institutions. While this relationship is mostly short‐run, political support can decline substantially if non‐representation persists in the long‐run. This highlights the relevance of long‐run panel data for studying the consequences of representation.

What do pupils learn from bilingual interventions of civic education in foreign language classes?

ABSTRACT What do pupils learn from bilingual interventions of civic education? This paper addresses this question by analyzing survey responses of 301 pupils who participated in a bilingual role-play about a televised debate on the 2022 French presidential election in French foreign language classes. The study shows, first, that the intervention significantly strenghtened the specific interest in the election campaign. Second, both internal efficacy and subjective knowledge increased, as did, third, pupils' actual knowledge about the election. Fourth, it appears that the pupils were able to sharpen their understanding of French political culture. However, it should also be noted that all other constructs that can be attributed to intercultural learning did not experience any changes as a result of participation in the intervention. This is also true for participants’ general interest in politics, basal and advanced participation intentions, and external efficacy. I identify subjective knowledge about the French presidential election, internal efficacy, advanced participation intentions, and pupils’ cultural self-reflexivity as key drivers for strengthening intercultural understanding about the French political culture. Our paper concludes by discussing the limitations of the study and its implications for empirical research and practice in bilingual civic education.

Value orientation and external political efficacy: assessing the relationship between traditional values, progressive politics and political responsiveness

Values are often used to explain phenomena associated with problematic political behaviours. For example, the election of far-right parties is often attributed to traditional values. The ‘Cultural Backlash’ thesis (Inglehart and Norris in Cultural backlash: trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017a) is prominent in this field of research and explains such behaviour by a predominance of progressive issues as the result of Value Change. It is assumed that this causes traditional individuals to perceive the political system as less responsive, which can also be understood as low external political efficacy; however, there is little in the way of empirical research that tests the connection between one’s value orientation and one’s sense of external efficacy (Inglehart and Norris in Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash, 2016; Inglehart and Norris in Cultural backlash: trump, Brexit, and authoritarian populism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017a; Inglehart and Norris in Perspect Polit 15(2):443-453, 2017b). This study aims to fill this gap by examining the effects of traditional values on perceptions of external efficacy, particular attention to the role of predominantly progressive politics. For this purpose, the relationship between values and external efficacy is brought into cross-national context in order to analyse the moderating effect of the degree of progressivity of the respective national political system. To test these assumption with multilevel mixed-effects model, this study uses European Social Survey data from 23 European countries and from the Manifesto Project. The results show that traditional values are negative associated with external political efficacy. They also show that this effect is partially intensified the more progressive the party manifestos are.

Distributing Democratic Influence: External Efficacy and the Preferred Influence of Policy Winners and Losers

Abstract Should those who would be disproportionately affected by a policy change have more influence on that reform than the average citizen? And does it matter whether the affected individuals stand to benefit or lose out from the proposed reform? Despite longstanding debates on proportionality, asymmetry, and affected interests in the democratic theory literature, we know little about public opinion on these questions. This study, therefore, uses an original survey of 3,200 U.S. respondents to explore these attitudes. To do so, it builds on related work highlighting the potential relevance of the type of affectedness as well as individual-level variation in political efficacy, examining (1) the relationship between the preferred influence of negatively versus positively affected citizens; and (2) the role of external efficacy in shaping these preferences. Results suggest that most respondents favor equal influence regardless of affectedness, but that greater external efficacy may increase the preferred influence of negatively and positively affected citizens.

Female Participation in Parliamentary Elections and their Perceptions of Political Efficacy in Angola

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of personality traits and political efficacy on electoral outcomes among selected female parliamentary contestants during general elections in Angola.
 Methodology: It used purposive and snowball sampling methods. Data was collected using the BFI and PES Scales. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participant’s demographic information. A One-way ANOVA was used to examine differences while a Chi-Square was used to examine associations between successful and non-successful contestants.
 Findings: The study found a positive association between external efficacy and electoral outcome χ2 (2, n=42) = 8.04, p = .005. An ANOVA yielded no significant difference in extraversion between successful (M = 4.18, SD = 1.00) and non-successful (M = 0.519, SD = .519) participants (F (1, 40) =.984, p = .327); no significant differences in neuroticism between successful (M = 2.00, SD =.54) and non-successful (M = 1.99, SD =.533) participants (F (1, 40), .005, p = .946); no significant difference in openness between successful (M = 3.89, SD =.563) and non-successful (M = 3.72, SD =.734) participants (F (1, 40), .717, p = 402).
 Conclusion: In conclusion, the study found personality traits and political efficacy judgments as able to determine electoral outcomes. It was evident that external and internal political efficacy associated with electoral success and moderate the effect of personality traits.
 Recommendation: The study proposed that female political aspirants should seek personality assessment and counselling to enhance self-understanding, harness the strengths of their personality trait and manage its weaknesses and they should nurture personality traits and political efficacy judgements that enhance their connection and favor with the electorate.

Clarifying the “People Like Me”: Racial Efficacy and Political Behavior

Political efficacy, or a sense of confidence that “people like me” can understand politics and receive responsiveness from government, is central to the study of political behavior. However, the reference group that respondents view as “people like me” is not always immediately clear. This limits our ability to infer how efficacy informs political participation. We propose a specific concept and operationalization of racial group efficacy, and we distinguish this concept from racial identity, group consciousness, and conventional efficacy measures. Analyses of data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey reveal that for white, Black, Asian, and Latina/o Americans, racial efficacy is a more consistent and robust predictor of political participation than standard internal and external efficacy measures. Further, we show that racial efficacy exhibits associations with conventional and unconventional forms of participation that distinguish whites from people of color. We conclude by discussing how people’s racial efficacy informs their engagement in politics, from voting to protests.

Uninterested, disenchanted, or overwhelmed? An analysis of motives behind intentional and unintentional news avoidance

Abstract In the light of a vast political information ‘buffet’, so-called news-avoiders stay away from the news for indefinite periods of time. Recent research suggests that news avoidance can be intentional or unintentional. However, research has mostly focused on one form of news avoidance or has not differentiated at all. Based on survey data, this study (a) identifies and compares motivations for intentional and unintentional avoidance and (b) investigates drivers of different news avoidance motives. Findings suggest that, overall, avoidance is rooted in the preference for other pastimes, with intentional avoiders also being tired of news and seeing it as too negative, biased, and unreliable. Further, different motives are driven by specific characteristics: Political knowledge and internal efficacy relate to ‘cognitive’ motives, empathy, and being negativity-prone to ‘emotional’ motives, while external efficacy relates to ‘political’ motives.

What Motivates Action for Gender Equality among Emerging Adult Women? The Importance of Critical Reflection, Efficacy, and Feminist Identity

The present study investigated whether critical consciousness (CC) and feminist identity help explain emerging adult women’s participation in actions to reduce gender inequality. CC is an applied tool marginalized and oppressed youth can use to combat inequality. It is conceptualized as three components: Critical reflection, critical efficacy, and critical action. Youth who have reflected on inequality are theorized to act against injustice if they have critical efficacy. However, empirical support for connections among components is mixed and questions remain concerning the contexts in which and people for whom CC serves as a resource. For instance, CC has rarely been examined as a tool to reduce sexism. Furthermore, researchers theorize that social identity is related to CC, yet little empirical evidence exists testing these associations. Finally, CC is typically examined within samples of children and adolescents, although advances in cognitive development and identity suggest emerging adulthood is an ideal time to use CC. To begin to fill these gaps, we investigated whether the components of CC in association with feminist identity could predict when emerging adult women act against sexism. A serial mediation model revealed reflection may lead to action for women who identify as feminist and who report greater internal efficacy. The pathway through external efficacy was not significant. Findings suggest CC together with feminist identity may be tools women can employ to transform unjust social conditions and improve their lives. Applied applications of findings are considered.

Efficacy information in Government's initial responses to Covid-19 pandemic: A content analysis of the media coverage in Indonesia

Inevitable uncertainty conditions during the Covid-19 crisis resulted in an extension of the inadequate information and knowledge shared about the pandemic. The media plays a significant role in reporting and communicating risks related to the global Covid-19 outbreak. People can respond well to the risk of coronavirus if they understand the impact of the pandemic through efficacy information about the pandemic. However, a previous study revealed that media organizations lack quick action and response to Covid-19. Furthermore, no study was found to understand how media provides efficacy information on the government's early response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The study aims to examine and analyze the external efficacy information of the government's initial responses during the early stage of the outbreak in four national online newspapers (Kompas.com, Tempo.co, Republika.co.id, Tirto.id). The articles were classified based on themes derived from the keywords search—effect/impact, response/action, policy/restriction on the Covid-19 pandemic, and assessed the pandemic's most prominent external efficacy information within the local, national, and global context in each article in the four media. From 704 articles analyzed, our study revealed dominant-negative tones on the impact of the pandemic, including inconsistent actions and policies taken to prevent the transmission of the virus. Our study suggests that increasing positive efficacy information and improving media engagement are vital communication goals to better educate the public about the coronavirus and minimize uncertainty during the pandemic.