Levels Of Political Interest Research Articles

Professores de História e sua relação com a política: uma abordagem comparativa na América do Sul

Este texto apresenta resultados preliminares de uma pesquisa vinculada ao Projeto “Jovens e História no MERCOSUL”, que tem por objetivo oferecer um panorama estatístico e comparado (Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguai e Paraguai) do pensamento de jovens e seus professores sobre a história ensinada e as diferentes formas em que a história se apresenta em suas vidas. Os questionários respondidos pelos professores (288) são o instrumento de pesquisa deste artigo, cujo objetivo é apresentar um perfil dos participantes. Em primeiro lugar, o texto expõe o problema da pesquisa, que se ocupa do pensamento dos professores de História sobre política e utopia. Em segundo lugar, alguns dados sobre o perfil dos professores são apresentados e interpretados: idade, sexo, nível de formação e tempo de experiência profissional. Por fim, algumas comparações preliminares entre o perfil dos docentes e suas respostas sobre sua identificação política são ensaiadas, onde se destaca alto nível de interesse pela política, vinculada ao apreço pela esquerda como opção políticas, junto ao rechaço por posições de centro ou de direita.

Beyond the limits: involvement in illegal political activities

The purpose of this study is to examine the adolescents who cross the boundaries of legality, also including illegal political means in their political action repertoire. The data comprised of questionnaire responses from middle and late adolescents in a Swedish city of around 130,000 citizens. Analyses of covariance, EXACON, and logistic regression were used to examine the extent to which adolescents including illegal political activities in their political activity repertoire compare with their legally oriented counterparts. Adolescents using illegal political activity reported higher levels of political interest and goal-orientation than adolescents involved solely in legal political activity. The major contrasts with legal political activism were that illegal political activism seemed to co-occur with (a) reluctance to accept authority, irrespective of the context (societal, school, or parental) and (b) approval of violent political means. In a simultaneous model, further analysis revealed that reluctance to accept authority reduced the predictive power of illegal political activities with regard to approval of political violence. This suggests that the tendencies to approve of political violence, among adolescents involved in illegal political activities, might be partially explained by challenges toward authority. To conclude, adolescents in illegal political activism seem to have similar resources for political engagement as their legally oriented counterparts. However, adolescents involved in illegal political activity seem more likely to let ends justify the means. Most likely, this position is related to authority challenges.

Investigating the effects of news sharing and political interest on social media network heterogeneity

This research investigated whether the use of social networking services (SNSs) promotes or restricts the likelihood of citizens’ exposure to political disagreement by focusing on two different types of news sharing activities on SNSs – news externalizing and internalizing – and on individuals’ level of political interest. The results show that frequent SNS use may entail higher chances of interacting with heterogeneous others, but the influence is only indirectly exerted through its effects on two news sharing activities. Findings also indicate that political interest and news sharing activities interact with each other in predicting the degree of network heterogeneity. The study is conducted with a nationally representative survey.

Comparative determinants of horse-race coverage

We investigate the levels of horse-race coverage in 160 different European print and broadcast outlets in 27 different countries at three different points in time. We match information on outlets’ content to survey-based information on the average levels of interest in politics and education of outlets’ audiences. We formulate hypotheses concerning journalists’ and citizens’ preferences over the ideal level of horse-race coverage, as well as hypotheses concerning the information content of horse-race coverage in different party systems. After controlling for the composition of each outlet’s audience, we find that horse-race coverage is most frequent in polarized party systems with close electoral contests, and in large markets with professional journalists. These findings challenge the traditional view of horse-race journalism as a ‘low-quality’ form of news.

Politics: interest, participation and education. Comparing the Republic of Ireland with Germany

In order to generate higher levels of interest in politics and participation in political processes, political or citizenship, education in schools must be at the heart of the curriculum and be characterised by active, learner-centred approaches. This paper hypothesises that, when compared with Germany, a more limited form of political education in Irish post-primary schools may be impacting negatively on the extent to which it is achieving such aims. In order to begin to explore this hypothesis, the results for seven items relating to interest in politics and participation in political processes from the most recent (2010) round of the European Social Survey are compared for the Irish and German populations. In addition, the nature and status of political education in the German and the Irish school systems are compared. Conclusions are drawn and the implications for future research in this field and for political education in both countries considered.

Individual and Contextual Correlates of Trust in Media Across 44 Countries

Media research demonstrates that audience trust in the news media is a highly consequential factor, shaping audience selection of and response to media, and potentially impacting citizens’ perceptions of the political system at large. Still, our knowledge about the correlates of trust in media is limited. Only a few studies have utilized a correlational design to explore the associations between trust in media and other factors, and almost all of these studies originate in the U.S. context. The current investigation utilizes data from 44 diverse countries ( n = 57,847), collected as part of the World Values Survey, to broaden our understanding of trust in media. The aim is two-fold—to learn about individual-level correlates across contexts and to demonstrate that macro-level factors play a part in shaping such trust. Our findings indicate that levels of political interest, interpersonal trust, and exposure to television news and newspapers are positively correlated with trust in media, while education and exposure to news on the Internet are negatively associated. On the macro level, postmaterialism emerged as a consistent predictor of trust in media. State ownership of the media industry did not have a main effect on trust in media after controlling for other factors. However, an interaction was found between state ownership and level of democracy: state ownership of television is positively associated with media trust in democratic societies and negatively associated with trust in media in nondemocratic societies.

Gender and Leader Effects in the 2010 Australian Election

The impact of voters’ gender on leader evaluations in parliamentary systems has been largely unexplored, while the impact of female leaders on voter attitudes and preferences remains to be fully established. This paper uses Julia Gillard’s historic candidacy in the 2010 Australian federal election to explore how voters evaluated Australia’s first female prime minister, and to test the impact of their assessments on vote choice. The authors also examine whether Gillard’s high-profile candidacy affected women’s levels of political interest, awareness and engagement in what had been largely a ‘man’s game’. Their findings confirm that Gillard enjoyed a gender-affinity effect in 2010 in terms of both leader evaluations and vote choice, and women’s political engagement was significantly affected by the Gillard candidacy.

¿Cada vez más apáticos? El desinterés político juvenil en España en perspectiva comparada

It has been often claimed that the political apathy of Spanish youth is alarming. This study tests that assessment and tries to find out whether political interest among young citizens is different with respect to European youth and if it is worsening in the last years. The levels of political interest among the youth of today are compared with those of people who were young some years ago, as well as with the levels of political interest of the European youth. The hypothesis of the progressive depolitization of the youth is tested following a multivariate analysis. The article concludes that current Spanish youth is only significantly less interested if compared to the youth of the eighties, which constitutes the actual exception to the rule.

The impact of the HEXACO personality model in predicting socio-political attitudes: The moderating role of interest in politics

In this paper, the relationships between the HEXACO personality model and socio-political attitudes were investigated. It was hypothesized that the relationship between Honesty–Humility and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) and that between Openness and Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) were moderated by interest in politics. Three hundred and forty-four individuals participated in the study. Results showed that Honesty–Humility affected SDO and Openness affected RWA more strongly among individuals with a higher level of interest in politics. Facet-level analyses revealed that Humility and Experiential Openness were uniquely connected to ideology. These effects were also moderated by interest in politics.

Internet Use and the Political Knowledge Gap in Spain

Media availability and fragmentation and the resulting possibilities of content selection have risen dramatically with the expansion of new digital media. Previous research has found that this may increase knowledge gaps among citizens with different resources and motivations. This article analyses how Internet use affects political knowledge gaps due to education and to political interest in Spain. As expected, frequent Internet users are more knowledgeable about politics than non-users. Furthermore, Internet use increases knowledge more for the highly educated than for citizens with lower levels of education. Thus, the political knowledge gap related to education seems to be growing with the introduction of new media. However, the knowledge gap between citizens with high and low levels of political interest is smaller for frequent Internet users than for non-users. These findings provide a complex picture and partially contradict the pessimistic theory about the impact of increasing media choice on political knowledge.

Electoral volatility, political sophistication, trust and efficacy: A study on changes in voter preferences during the Belgian regional elections of 2009

In this article, we investigate voter volatility and analyse the causes and motives of switching vote intentions. We test two main sets of variables linked to volatility in literature; political sophistication and political disaffection. Results show that voters with low levels of political efficacy tend to switch more often, both within a campaign and between elections. In the analysis, we differentiate between campaign volatility and inter-election volatility, and by doing so show that the dynamics of a campaign have a profound impact on volatility. The campaign period is when the lowly sophisticated switch their vote intention. Those with higher levels of interest in politics have switched their intention before the campaign has started. The data for this analysis are from the three wave PartiRep Belgian Election Study (2009).

Political discontent in new democracies: the case of Brazil and Latin America

Political changes related to globalization apparently produce similar effects on old and new democracies. All over the world, comparative research on democratization has showed that political distrust is a common variable affecting the whole of the State and the relationship between citizens and democracy. Nevertheless, political discontent in old democracies has stimulated citizens to adopt new attitudes and modes of political participation, while in newly democratized countries citizens tend to withdraw from politics as a consequence of institutional distrust. In fact, in many new democracies, although adhering to the normative meaning of the democratic regime, distrust of democratic institutions is associated to citizens’ negative feeling about political efficacy, low levels of political interest and political participation, and also preference for democratic models which exclude political parties and/or parliaments. This paper evaluates the meanings and consequences of the contemporary phenomenon of political discontent in Brazil and Latin America and discusses its implications for democratic theory.

Testing for measurement equivalence of individuals’ left-right orientation

Subjective variables such as opinions, attitudes or preferences cannot be measured directly. Researchers have to rely on the answers people give in surveys, and whenever those answers shall be compared it is required that people answer these questions in the same way. Only then a concept can be used in different contexts. This paper deals with the measurement of the left-right concept: it analyses whether people make a distinction between a scale labelled 0 left and 10 right to one which is labelled 0 extreme left and 10 extreme right and tests whether the instrument is equivalent across groups. Following the three steps of invariance testing, configural, metric and scalar invariance, we find that the left-right response scale is on average equivalent across groups with different levels of political interest and different levels of education. This finding holds also in 23 of the 25 European countries tested, with the exception of the eastern part of Germany, Finland and France. In order to estimate how serious the difference between these two groups of countries is, we compare the observed means (which are affected by the difference) to the latent means (which are free of those effects), and the effect of the observed variable “attitude towards government’s intervention in the economy” on the observed variable “left-right self-placement” with the effect between these variables after correcting for scale difference. It was found that countries’ means can be compared but that the relationship with other variables might not be comparable among East Germany, Finland, France and the remaining countries.

The Search Is On: Googling “Barack Obama” and “Hillary Clinton” in the 2008 Democratic Primary

The 2008 Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was the longest primary campaign in history and one of the most intensive in recent memory. Besides following the campaign through traditional media like newspapers, radio, and television, more Americans turned to the Internet actively searching for information about the candidates. In this article, the author analyzes search traffic data for Obama and Clinton over the course of the primary to revisit the classic “minimal effects” hypothesis about campaigns. This hypothesis, first voiced in the 1940s and 1950s, argues that campaigns have only small marginal effects on citizens vote choices. The author tests a weaker version of this hypothesis, asking whether campaigns positively affect a kind of political engagement that he terms active online engagement. Using a statistical model, he compares online search traffic in the month before an election against the month after. He finds support for the hypothesis that campaigns spark political engagement by an average of about 50 percent over the general level of political interest in a given state. He also finds evidence contrary to the popular wisdom of the 2008 campaign that Hillary Clinton ran a poor race. In fact, the author finds that her campaign had more influence in engaging people online, although the overall levels of search traffic remained below that of Obama. Put simply: Hillary Clinton ran a solid campaign against an unusually popular opponent.

Political Awareness and its Implications on Participatory Behaviour

The analysis in this article centres around three questions: First, how well informed are Naga women voters about politics. Second, whether political interest, media exposure and political discussion have an impact on women’s level of political awareness. Third, whether women’s level of political awareness influences their participation in electoral activities. The results indicate that a majority of the women have moderate awareness about politics. Their level of political awareness is accounted for by their level of interest in politics, pattern of media use and frequency of political discussion. The result also reports a limited impact of political awareness on women’s participation in electoral activities.

Events and Reliability of Measures: The Effect of Elections on Measures of Interest in Politics

This article aims to determine whether elections affect the level of interest in politics. The European Social Survey's (ESS) long fieldwork periods make it possible to compare the change in levels of interest in politics as election time approaches and campaigns intensify, or as elections pass and the attention of the public turns toward other issues. The scope and comparability of the ESS allows for seeing possible effects on a cross-national level. The distance from the last parliamentary election and the distance to the next election are calculated for all cases in the database. The distance is then compared with the change of levels in variables measuring interest in politics throughout the fieldwork period. Additionally, changes in the mean values for each fieldwork month in countries where the ESS was fielded during elections is also compared. Results show that the distance from the last election and the distance to the next election are not correlated with a change in the levels of interest in politics. Furthermore, changes in the mean levels of interest in politics are within the error margins for fieldwork months that coincided with election months.

Explaining change in party identification in adolescence

What are the roots of party identification? Credit (or blame) often falls to parents, who have been shown to play a central role in development of partisan identification in adolescence. Usually in models of parental transmission of partisanship, children are seen as unquestioning recipients of partisan messages. I consider whether this is so, investigating whether differences in young people's levels of political interest, attention, and engagement direct the development of partisan identity. I also explore the effects of factors beyond the household such as the state campaign context in producing partisan instability across a midterm campaign season. I find that the development of adolescent partisanship reflects both the political personality of adolescents and their wider political environment.

Recent Articles in the Field of Public Opinion Research

In this section, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research reviews articles that have recently been published in peer-refereed journals and which broadly relate to the field of public opinion. The intention is not to give an exhaustive overview of a given study but rather to alert our readers to interesting ideas and research in our field. This article compares public attitudes in the 1990s to privatization across a number of different countries and in relation to three industries, electricity, healthcare, and banking. Battaglio's purpose is to test and explain public opinion toward the choice between private and public provision of services, and he notes the paucity of research on public opinion formation in this field, which he considers “striking” given the customer orientation of the policy. His data are drawn from the 1996 International Social Survey Program, and cover 11 countries, all developed market economies. He uses an initial empirical model to examine citizen preferences across countries, measuring opinion direction, certainty, and indecision for conflicted respondents. His findings show differences related both to countries and industries, but individuals are also influenced by concerns about self-interest, party preference, and political values; further, those who declare higher levels of interest in politics are also more certain in their policy choices.

Educational Expansion and Interest in Politics in Temporal and Cross-cultural Perspective: A Comparison of West Germany and Switzerland

Interest in politics is a prerequisite for political participation and political engagement. The promotion of political engagement and the education of citizens to become politically mature were basic concerns of educational reforms in the 1960s. This article examines whether educational expansion since then has had an impact on citizens' political interest. The effects of education, age, period, and cohort on political interest are analysed simultaneously. A cross-cultural perspective is included by comparing these effects in Switzerland, a direct democracy that provides its people with extensive opportunities to participate, and West Germany, a representative democracy with less such opportunities. The data base consists of cumulated data sets (ALLBUS, UNIVOX). Results show that there is a robust effect of education: the more educated are more politically interested. The younger generation is not, as is often suggested, more distant from politics. Taking into account their higher educational level, these younger cohorts show the same level of political interest as the older cohorts did at the same age.

Rocking the Vote and More: An Experimental Study of the Impact of Youth Political Portals

ABSTRACT This study provides a controlled test of the effects of youth-oriented political portals. Based on existing theories of the individual effects of Internet use, we hypothesize that these sites may facilitate political engagement among members of their target audience in a variety of ways, but we also consider the possibility that such effects may be moderated by prior levels of political interest. Observations are drawn from a Web-based experiment administered to undergraduates at a major midwestern university at the height of the 2006 election season. Findings indicate weak to nonsignificant main effects for exposure to youth-oriented political portals on self-reported cognitive engagement with election information, and a pattern of differential effects of exposure on opinion formation and domain-specific political efficacy, based on users' prior levels of interest in politics.