Liberal-conservative Ideology Research Articles

Moral foundations and political ideology in the UK

Moral foundations theory is one of the most popularised and tested lenses of recent years, with its ability to account for differences in political ideology. For the first time using a nationally representative random probability sample, we assess how the newly refined moral foundation questionnaire may explain differences in political ideology and views on political issues in the UK. We confirm a six-factor model with robust estimates for the moral intuitions of care, equality, proportionality, authority, loyalty, and purity. We then use moral intuitions to predict (a) economic left-right and socially liberal-conservative ideology and (b) the relationship between political ideology and views on salient political issues. We find moral intuitions mostly play a unifying role across a series of issues, with the exception of feelings toward patriotism and Brexit.

A idea de xustiza na ideoloxía liberal conservadora: fundamentos teóricos

galegoA ideoloxia liberal conservadora adoita ser vista como a inimiga do Estado do benestar e incluso da idea mesma de xustiza social. Poren, non e menos certo que o seu discurso inclue diagnosticos e remedios para consolidar unha sociedade mais forte. Este artigo explora os fundamentos teoricos desa proposta, especialmente no que concirne aos dous grandes temas da igualdade e da pobreza, asi como ao papel atribuido ao Estado e ao mercado, para alcanzar unha conclusion moi matizada na que se combinan criticas ao igualitarismo, concesions pragmaticas a certas politicas sociais e apostas mais convencidas a favor de colectivos desfavorecidos. EnglishThe liberal conservative ideology is often seen as the enemy of the welfare state. However, it in fact includes diagnoses and remedies to consolidate a stronger society. This article explores the theoretical foundations of this proposal, particularly in regard to the two major themes of equality and poverty, as well as the role attributed to State and market to achieve a nuanced conclusion, in which criticism of egalitarianism, pragmatic concessions to certain social policies and more convinced bets are combined in favor of disadvantaged groups.

Identity, ideology, and personality: Examining moderators of affective polarization in New Zealand

Affective polarization (i.e., differences in evaluations of the in-party and out-party) has important implications for political outcomes including civic engagement and partisan-motivated attitudes and behaviours. In this study, we add to the burgeoning literature on affective polarization by examining moderators of the effect of in-party support on out-party opposition across the three main political parties in New Zealand. Using a large national probability sample of adults (N = 19,078), we assessed the effects of social demographics, Big-Five personality traits, liberal-conservative ideology, political identity centrality, and weekly news exposure on the relationship between in-party and out-party support. Results show political identity centrality is the strongest and most consistent moderator. The effects of some other moderators (e.g., personality, news exposure) are party-specific.

A Matter of Principle? On the Relationship Between Racial Resentment and Ideology

Though most scholars of race and politics agree that old-fashioned racism largely gave way to a new symbolic form of racism over the course of the last half century, there is still disagreement about how to best empirically capture this new form of racism. Racial resentment, perhaps the most popular operationalization of symbolic racism, has been criticized for its overlap with liberal-conservative ideology. Critics argue that racially prejudiced responses to the items that compose the racial resentment scale are observationally equivalent to the responses that conservatives would provide. In this manuscript, I examine the racial resentment scale for differential item functioning (DIF) by level of adherence to ideological principles using the 1992, 2004, and 2016 American National Election Studies. I find that responses to some of the racial resentment items are, indeed, affected by ideology. However, the problem is largely confined to 2016 and more egregious with respect to ideological self-identifications than adherence to ideological principles. Moreover, even after correcting for DIF, the racial resentment scale serves as a strong predictor of attitudes about racial issues.

What motivates a conspiracy theory? Birther beliefs, partisanship, liberal-conservative ideology, and anti-Black attitudes

Despite the release of his birth certificate, some Americans express continued skepticism over whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. This study examined two possible causes of birther beliefs: that Republicans and conservatives, whose ideological beliefs and policy preferences led to disapproval of the president, might be particularly prone to accepting birther beliefs, and that negative attitudes toward Blacks led some Americans to disapprove of the President and accept foreign birthplace claims. A nationally representative survey of Americans showed that birther sentiments were predominant among conservatives/Republicans and individuals holding anti-Black attitudes. These relations were mediated by disapproval of the president. Hence, it appears that birther beliefs were motivated both by politically-grounded disapproval and racially-driven disapproval of the president.

United States Women and Pornography Through Four Decades: Exposure, Attitudes, Behaviors, Individual Differences

Responding to a call for research on pornography and women's sexuality made by Weinberg, Williams, Kleiner, and Irizarry (2010), this study assessed pornography consumption, predictors, and correlates using nationally representative data gathered from U.S. women between 1973 and 2010 (N = 18,225). Women who were younger, less religious, and non-White were more likely to consume pornography. Women who consumed pornography had more positive attitudes toward extramarital sex, adult premarital sex, and teenage sex. Women who consumed pornography also had more sexual partners in the prior year, prior 5 years, and were more likely to have engaged in extramarital sex and paid sex. Consistent with Wright's (2011a) acquisition, activation, application model of mass media sexual socialization and the theorizing of Linz and Malamuth (1993), liberal-conservative ideology moderated the association between pornography exposure and sexual behavior. Specifically, the positive association between pornography exposure and women's recent sexual behavior was strongest for the most liberal women and weakest for the most conservative women. Cultural commentators and some academics argue that technological advances have resulted in a steady increase in the percentage of individuals who consume pornography. Little support was found for this assertion among U.S. women.

Ideology and vote choice in the 2004 election

This paper examines the impact of liberal-conservative ideology on voting behavior in the 2004 presidential election, using data from the CPS National Election Study for that year. The empirical results show that there was widespread recognition of the candidates' and parties' ideological positions. However, liberal-conservative identifications exerted no direct impact on voting choices within the 2004 electorate. On the other hand, liberal-conservative identifications did show an indirect effect which operated through their influence on the more proximate determinants of electoral decisions. These findings clarify the role of ideology in the 2004 presidential election. They also conform very closely to the basic theoretical structure laid out in The American Voter. This paper examines the role of ideology as a determinant of recent voting behavior in the American electorate. The analysis uses data from the 2004 CPS National Election Study, and the empirical results suggest a somewhat complicated interpretation. On the one hand, liberal-conservative orientations had no direct impact whatsoever on citizens' voting choices. On the other hand, mass perceptions and evaluations of the candidates, issues, and conditions within the external environment were clearly structured along ideological lines. And, the latter did influence electoral decisions. Therefore, liberal-conservative ideology exerted an important, but completely indirect, effect on citizens' 2004 voting choices. These findings have important implications, not only for understanding the role of ideology in American elections, but also for theories of voting behavior.

A New Partisan Voter

The American electorate today is different from that described in The American Voter. Both the 1950s era of ideologically innocent party voting and the subsequent period of partisan dealignment are over. Some political scientists began to describe the New American Voter as a new partisan evolution occurred. What has not been fully appreciated in the twentieth/twenty-first century history of voting studies is how partisanship returned in a form more ideological and more issue based along liberal-conservative lines than it has been in more than 30 years. This is visible in the strength of partisan voting, in the relationship between partisanship and ideology, and in the strength of the relationship of partisanship and self-reported liberal-conservative ideology to the public's economic, social, racial, and religious attitudes and opinions. Not only has the public responded in a striking way to changes in politics and its context, but the current transformation has also appeared to be strikingly enduring and...

Partisans without Constraint: Political Polarization and Trends in American Public Opinion.

Public opinion polarization is here conceived as a process of alignment along multiple lines of potential disagreement and measured as growing constraint in individuals' preferences. Using NES data from 1972 to 2004, the authors model trends in issue partisanship-the correlation of issue attitudes with party identification-and issue alignment-the correlation between pairs of issues-and find a substantive increase in issue partisanship, but little evidence of issue alignment. The findings suggest that opinion changes correspond more to a resorting of party labels among voters than to greater constraint on issue attitudes: since parties are more polarized, they are now better at sorting individuals along ideological lines. Levels of constraint vary across population subgroups: strong partisans and wealthier and politically sophisticated voters have grown more coherent in their beliefs. The authors discuss the consequences of partisan realignment and group sorting on the political process and potential deviations from the classic pluralistic account of American politics.

The Liberal-Conservative Ideology of U.S. Senators: A New Measure

Responding to widespread concerns about how scholars typically measure legislators' ideologies, we propose, implement, and test the efficacy of a novel measurement approach. We employ formal content analysis of the news coverage of U.S. Senators' initial campaigns for office to create an ideology scale for members of the 101st Congress. We also offer systematic tests of reliability and of convergent and discriminant construct validity for this scale and for conventional, indirect measures of Senator ideology using interest group ratings and residualized analyses measures. This newspaper content analysis procedure produces ideology scores that demonstrate high reliability and validity and that are superior for theory-testing purposes to commonly used surrogate or indirect measures of legislator ideology.

Ideology and Candidate Evaluation in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections

This article examines the role of liberal-conservative ideology in the process by which members of the mass public evaluated presidential candidates in the 1984 and 1988 elections. Data are taken from the 1984 and 1988 American National Election Studies conducted by the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. We analyze voters' formation of preferences for president, expecting those with different levels of conceptualization to vary in their use of liberal-conservative ideology. Our general expectation is that progressively more ideologically sophisticated voters will integrate their ideological and party identifications and their positions on policy issues in a more consistent and predictable manner than their less sophisticated counterparts. Specific hypotheses derived from this general expectation are confirmed. In addition, there is some evidence that the Republicans' apparent strategy in 1988 to appeal to ideological identification directly paid off among those voters at the lowest level of ideological sophistication.

Sex-role attitudes, identities, and political ideology

This study examines whether sex-role identities and attitudes toward sex roles are part of a more general liberal—conservative dimension of political ideology. Survey data are analyzed from two independent random samples of Indiana University students in 1974–1975. Sex-role attitudes are measured by two scales, dealing with evaluations of the traditional sex-based division of labor and levels of sex-stereotyping of various tasks. The Bem Sex Role Inventory is used to measure respondents' sex-role identities. Those who score more liberal or flexible on each measure of sex-role attitudes are also very likely to hold liberal political attitudes. These correlations are strong and consistent enough to indicate that sex-role attitudes fit into a more general liberal—conservative ideology, at least among college students. Correlations between sex-role identities and political attitudes are much weaker. Among men, liberal political attitudes are associated with a more flexible (androgynous) sex-role identity; among women, in contrast, liberal political attitudes are related more consistently to a more traditionally masculine sex-role identity.