Individual Political Behavior Research Articles

Do Political Beliefs Drive Environment Selection?

Scholars interested in understanding if and to what extent social environments influence individual political behavior are plagued by the reality that individuals construct their social environments. Though there is acknowledgement that this construction is determined by homophily – likes associating with likes – the extent to which political beliefs drive environment selection is yet untested. This paper seeks to understand the extent to which political beliefs inform individuals’ decisions on which social environments to select into. To do so, I follow individuals as they select into social environments across their first year in a university setting – first contacting them before they are embedded in a new social environment, tracking their selections into friendships and groups, and observing how their attitudes change over a year and a half period. Results demonstrate that political beliefs can be significant predictors of selection into non-political social contexts, especially for those with the strongest beliefs about politics.

Political party affiliation strength and protest participation propensity: theory and evidence from Africa

ABSTRACT The confluence of political party polarization, interparty conflict, and contentious politics is nearly a universal axiom in Africa. Although the reasons for parties to protest and rally are many, pinpointing who actually participates is rather tricky. Building on previous literature regarding the influential power of political parties on member behaviour, this study proposes political party affiliation strength as metric for identifying whom within political parties is more and less likely to participate in in-person political protests and rallies. Using data on Kenya, Nigeria, and Tunisia, this study finds strong supporting evidence that party affiliation strength effects protest participation propensity mediated by party-government linkages. Those strongly affiliated to political parties that enjoy majority power in government are less likely to protest, and strong affiliates of non-majority power-holding parties are more likely to protest. Preliminary evidence presented here also demonstrates those with non-political party affiliation are significantly more likely to post online about political issues rather than participate in in-person contentious politics. This study’s findings help further bridge the gap between individual political psychology and macro-level political behaviour.

Viewed from Different Engels? Differences in Reactions to “Socialism” as a Policy Label

The supposed popularity of socialism among young Americans has been a trending topic in American political media and campaigns. While evidence from public opinion polls disagrees as to whether socialism is truly gaining in popularity, the use of the term “socialism” has had a profound impact on policy discussions in the media and has featured as a prominent Republican Party strategy in the 2020 election cycle. This gives rise to important questions: How do individuals react to the socialist label? Does the socialist label serve as an ideological or affective signal? Are attacks that frame policies as socialist effective in decreasing policy support? Using original observational and experimental survey data, we find that individuals have strong polarized affective reactions to the socialist label. However, framing popular social welfare policies as socialist is ineffective in undermining popular support. Implications suggest that while framing political policies as socialist may trigger affective polarization, it is likely an ineffective means of political persuasion. As a result, oversaturation of the term in the media may lead to misleading conclusions about both political ideology and individual political behavior.

Can Social Mobility Alleviate Anxiety? An Empirical Analysis Based on the CGSS

With the aggravation of social competition, more and more people fall into anxiety, depression and even suicide. How to alleviate individual anxiety and then avoid the spread of social anxiety? Academic circles have been very concerned about the impact of social mobility on individual political attitude, psychology and behavior. Can social mobility alleviate individual anxiety? What is the underlying mechanism? Based on 17192 samples in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2015 from Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), the paper attempts to study the impact of social mobility on individual anxiety and the mediating effect of Self assessment on family economic status . The ordered probit regression model showed that the increase of positive mobility distance can alleviate individual anxiety to a certain extent, whether it is intra or inter-generational social mobility. Meamwhile, the higher the score of subjective class identification, the lower the degree of anxiety. The results also showed that self assessment on family economic status has a significant mediating effect on the relationship among social mobility and individual anxiety.

Dinasti Politik pada Pemerintahan di Tingkat Lokal

This paper will explore the phenomenon of local politicians who perpetuate power through political dynasties at the local government level. This is important to discuss because Indonesia as a democratic country in an era of transparency and accountability needs visionary leaders who properly represent the people in accordance with their capacities and capabilities. The focus of this study examines the electoral system that occurs at the local level through politicians who build political dynasties in Riau Islands Province. Riau Islands Province was made a study area because there were still phenomena of families becoming politicians in the 2019 general election. To obtain comprehensive data, the authors used research data collection through library research. The results of the study found that political dynasties can occur due to several factors, among others, in the context of a plural or plural society such as Indonesia, individual political behavior will be strongly influenced by the production of social, economic, psychological, historical, political and cultural factors. Second, the absence of periodic restrictions makes candidates who have charismatic and popularity in the community continue to run themselves as a great opportunity for families to participate in electoral politics at the local level.

Neighborhoods That Matter: How Place and People Affect Political Participation

Well established in the literature is that social context, like the racial or partisan composition of neighborhoods, affects individual political behavior. Less understood is how the design of neighborhoods may also influence these behaviors. This article seeks to improve how physical context is measured and to examine how the built environment subsequently affects individual political participation. Using a nationally representative survey with measures of the frequency of neighbor interaction and individual voter turnout and to which I merged respondents’ census tract information and then used Google Maps images to code respondents’ neighborhood design features, I show how the physical structure of residential places—whether homes have porches, streets are tree-lined, neighborhoods have natural gathering places—promotes neighborly exchanges that subsequently affect individual voter turnout.

If you ask, they will come (to register and vote): Field experiments with state election agencies on encouraging voter registration

We address the frequent critique that voter registration is a barrier to participation in the US. Institutional reforms to voter registration produce only small impacts on participation. We show the registration barrier can be reduced without changing laws or administrative processes using official communication seeking to change individual political behavior. In collaboration with state election agencies in two states, we conducted large-scale field experiments using low cost postcards aimed at increasing registration among eligible but unregistered citizens. The experiments find statistically and substantively significant effects on registration and turnout in subsequent elections. The research partnership with election officials is unusual and important for understanding electoral participation. Further, the population targeted for registration is broader than prior experiments on voter registration in the US. The results provide important insights about voter registration as a barrier to political participation, plus practical guidance for election officials to reduce this barrier.

From Respondents to Networks: Bridging Between Individuals, Discussants, and the Network in the Study of Political Discussion

Much of our understanding of social influence in individual political behavior stems from representative surveys asking respondents to identify characteristics of a small number of people they talk to most frequently. By focusing only on these few close contacts, we have implicitly assumed that less-intimate associates and features of network structure hold little influence over others’ attitudes and behavior. We test these assumptions with a survey that attempted to interview all students at a small university during a highly-salient municipal election. By focusing on a small, well-defined community, we are able to explore the relationship between individuals, their close associates, and also less-immediate associates. We are also able to explore features of network structure unobtainable in representative samples. We demonstrate that these less-immediate associates and network features have the potential to exert important influence that conventional survey approaches would miss.

A comparison of civil religion and remembrance culture in Germany and Japan

AbstractJapan and Germany were allies during World War II, and both countries committed crimes. Even though the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany was unprecedented in history, Japan has also been found guilty of serious misdemeanours. Today, Germany acknowledges the magnitude of its responsibility and strives to deal with this legacy. However, in Japan, we find no consensus on dealing with the matter. Nonetheless, it would be short-sighted to conclude that Germany did a better job than Japan from the outset. In analysing the different approaches to remembrance culture in the two countries, we use the theoretical framework ofcivil religionto assess the impacts of the respective civil religions on the culture of commemoration. We hereby analyzed the structural factors as well as the influence of individual political behaviour. Immediately after the war, neither Germany nor Japan were interested in coming to terms with their past. Both countries were subject to Western integration, and both countries experienced remarkable economic growth. One of the major differences between both countries concerns civil religion. While Germany no longer relied on strong nationalism-based politics and instead pursued European integration, in Japan. Shintôism has continued to influence feelings of national belonging, making it more difficult to establish a critical dialogue with the past. Further differences are apparent: the Western origin of Japan’s constitution, the conflicting international environment in Japan, the late regime change, differences in education and, most importantly, the impacts of generational change in Germany. The 1968 student generation strongly condemned Nazi aggression and demanded that the older generation face responsibility, which strongly contributed to a reappraisal of the past in the public sphere.

Pre-Communist and Communist Developmental Legacies

This article discusses two distinctive approaches for thinking about historical legacies in the post-communist context. The first approach, which builds on the work of Ken Jowitt, emphasizes the distinctiveness of Leninist socioeconomic and political legacies, while the second approach, rooted in the writings of Andrew Janos, highlights the significant and resilient pre-communist, communist, and post-communist diversity of the countries of the former Soviet bloc. The empirical evidence reviewed in this paper suggests that both types of legacies continue to matter after a quarter-century of post-communist transitions. Thus, whereas we can still discern a distinctive and fairly uniform communist imprint in areas such as primary education and the importance of the state sector in the economy, in other areas of socioeconomic development, either communism was unable to reverse longer-term intraregional differences (e.g., with respect to GDP/capita or the size of the agrarian sector) or its initially distinctive developmental imprint has been fundamentally reshaped by post-communist economic reforms (as in the case of the massive increase in income inequality in a subset of ex-communist countries). In political terms, there is an interesting contrast between institutional trajectories (such as regime type), which largely follow pre-communist developmental differences, and individual political attitudes and behavior, where communist exceptionalism generally trumps post-communist diversity.

Generalised Trust, Institutional Trust and Political Participation

The main objective of this study is to examine the role of trust as it relates to individual political behaviour. Previous research suggests that social (generalised) trust and political (institutional) trust are associated with the likelihood of getting involved in both informal and formal political activities. Despite the large volume of studies, however, the extant scholarship is not clear on the exact nature of the relationship between trust and civic engagement. Moreover, the existing evidence is largely based on data that consist of Western-developed democracies. This study seeks to contribute to the literature by examining the associations between the two forms of trust and informal (signing a petition, boycotting, protesting) and formal (voting) political activities in the context of Central and Southeast Asia. The data come from AsiaBarometer Survey (2005), which contains cross-national data on probability samples from this region. Hierarchical linear models are estimated to examine the political impact of trust in strangers and confidence in political institutions. Findings show that only institutional trust is significantly related to voting, i.e., formal political participation. On the other hand, both forms of trust are found to be associated with informal political activities. There is also cross-level interaction between institutional trust and level of democracy. In a less democratic country, where individual democratic rights are limited, institutional trust plays a greater role in facilitating political participation.

Individual Political Behavior in Organizational Relationship

This paper attempts to explain individual’s political behaviour in organizations. It also suggests that as organization theory neglects individual political behavior within organizations. So, individual political behavior in organizational context is explored using three key dimensions of political behaviors: internal-external, vertical-lateral and legitimate-illegitimate. A pattern based on these dimensions is proposed thus concluding that individual’s practice politicking for a variety of reasons e.g. power, resources, knowledge, authority and securing their positions.

Conflict and Change

Conflict and Change

What Wins Votes: Why Some Politicians Opt Out of Clientelism

In a context where clientelism is widespread, why do some politicians choose not to condition the delivery of goods and services to citizens on individual political behavior? I argue that the answer to this question lies in the heretofore unexamined electoral costs of clientelism: clientelism decreases support from nonpoor constituents even while it generates votes from among the poor. Taking into account these costs and other factors that shape politician incentives, I posit that the interaction between political competition and poverty will explain variation in clientelism. I test this claim using an original measure of clientelism that assesses mayoral involvement in social policy implementation in Argentine municipalities. The results of statistical analysis suggest that high levels of political competition are compatible with clientelism when poverty is also high. Only when high competition is coupled with low rates of poverty does clientelism decline.

Raça e comportamento político: participação, ativismo e recursos em Belo Horizonte

A discussão sobre raça na política brasileira é mote entre cientistas sociais de diversas perspectivas: seja pelo seu papel na formação do Estado nacional, nos movimentos sociais ou ainda nas políticas públicas voltadas a grupos raciais. Utilizando a abordagem centrada em recursos, argumenta-se que o pertencimento a um grupo racial não afeta de forma substantiva a propensão a atuar politicamente em Belo Horizonte, ao passo que fatores socioeconômicos, como renda e escolaridade, são nitidamente mais relevantes. Esses resultados empíricos, por sua vez, não eliminam o fato de que a abordagem dos recursos apresenta limitações para testar os fatores que levariam à mobilização racialmente orientada no Brasil.

Linking Institutions and Individual Political Behaviour

Linking Institutions and Individual Political Behaviour

Individual Political Behavior in Organizational Relationship

This paper attempts to explain individual’s political behaviour in organizations. It also suggests that as organization theory neglects individual political behavior within organizations. So, individual political behavior in organizational context is explored using three key dimensions of political behaviors: internal-external, vertical-lateral and legitimate-illegitimate. A pattern based on these dimensions is proposed thus concluding that individual’s practice politicking for a variety of reasons e.g. power, resources, knowledge, authority and securing their positions.

The Cultural Effects of Individualism and Collectivism on Social Capital

This paper attempts to identify the cultural effects of individualism and collectivism, which have been widely studied as the central organizing dimensions of culture, on the individual's political attitude and behavior while disentangling the individual and national level effects based on multilevel modeling. It uses the five waves (1981–2007) of the World Values Survey for thirty OECD member countries and attempts to establish a stronger case for the external validity of the findings. The analysis finds that in general individualism and collectivism matter both for the elements of civic culture/social capital. The significant cultural effects show up either at one level or at both

Party Identification in the 2008 Presidential Election

Since Belknap and Campbell tied concept of party identification to political behavior in 1951, party affiliation has played central role in explanations of individual political behavior in United States. Indeed, as Nie, Verba, and Petrocik noted in 1979, in 1950s and 1960s, party identification central thread running through interpretations of American politics, where it was considered a stable characteristic of individual: it was likely to be inherited, it was likely to remain steady throughout citizen's political life, and it was likely to grow in strength during that lifetime (47). However, political scientists also argue that party identification is continually updated to reflect economic performance and presidential approval (Erikson, MacKuen, and Stimson 1998; Fiorina 1981; MacKuen, Erikson, and Stimson 1989). Efforts by Green, Palmquist, and Schickler (1998, 2002) to replicate macropartisanship effect found less influence for economic sentiment and evaluation than MacKuen, Erickson, and Stimson (1989) identified and elicited questions about proper form of time-series model and measurement (Johnston 2006). Johnston (2006) concluded that impact of partisan predisposition on opinion and values, on perceptions of performance and of candidates, and on vote itself is strong, but what is unclear is resistance of PID to external forces. Party identification is important, in part, because of its power to predict presidential vote choice (Barrels 2000). Recent evidence suggests that it has become more important over time. Analyzing data from American National Election Study (ANES) from 1952 to 2004, Bafumi and Shapiro (2009) showed that party identification achieved its highest predictive value in 1996 and 2004. Consistent with that analysis, 2008 National Exit Poll revealed that 9 out of 10 self-identified Republicans reported casting their ballot for Arizona senator John McCain, and 89% of self-styled Democrats sided with nominee of their party (CNN 2008). Moreover, Gallup tracking data revealed that in 2008, the rank-ordering of on Democratic-to-Republican continuum generally follows election results quite closely--Obama won 22 of 23 most Democratic (West Virginia being only exception), and McCain won 17 most Republican states (Jones 2009a). Indeed, strong party attachment predicts straight-ticket voting (Lewis-Beck et al. 2008; Schaffner, Streb, and Wright 2001). The drop in number of citizens reporting strong tie to party, drop that occurred between mid-1960s and mid-1970s and leveled off in late 1970s and early 1980s, did not change fact that most continued to identify with party. But change in partisan affiliation did focus scholars on its change from one election to another. 2004, both National Annenberg Election Survey (NAES) and surveys conducted by Pew Research Center for People and Press showed that gap in self-identified party affiliation between Democrats and Republicans was closing. However, because Republicans turned out in higher numbers than Democrats in 2004, this difference did not produce net Democratic advantage on election day when, for first time since modern exit polling began in 1976, number of self-identified Republicans who voted equaled number of people saying they were Democrats (37% each) (CNN 2004; Pew Research Center 2005). As Kerry-Edwards pollster Mark Mellman observed at 2004 Annenberg election debriefing, In '70s and '80s, Democrats on Election Day had 15-point margins. By time we got to '80s, those were 2 and 3 and 4-point margins. It is right to say that today this was first election where exit polls showed parity (Jamieson 2005). 2000, NAES and ANES observed narrowing of gap (Johnston, Hagen, and Jamieson 2004, 42-43). Since 2004, gap has instead widened. …

From Violence to Voting: War and Political Participation in Uganda

What is the political legacy of violent conflict? This paper presents evidence for a link between war, violence and increased individual political participation and leadership among former combatants and victims of violence, and uses this link to understand the deeper determinants of individual political behavior. The setting is northern Uganda, where rebel recruitment methods generated quasi-experimental variation in who became a rebel conscript and who did not. Original survey data shows that the exogenous element of conscription (by abduction) leads to significantly greater political participation later in life. The principal determinant of this increased political participation, moreover, appears to be war violence experienced. Meanwhile, abduction and violence do not appear to affect multiple non-political types of community participation. I show that these patterns are not easily explained by models of participation based on simple rational preferences, social preferences, mobilization by elites, or information availability. Only ‘expressive’ theories of participation appear consistent with the patterns observed, whereby exposure to violence augments the value a person places on the act of political expression itself. The mplications for general theories of political participation are discussed.