Partisan Environment Research Articles

Justice, Democracy, and Liberation: Ambedkar’s Navayana Pragmatism and the Tortuous Path of Social Democracy

ABSTRACT Democracy proposes the impossible: that each citizen makes community with those they consider opponents or foes. In the increasingly embittered partisan environment animating so many democracies, this paradoxical demand justifies more attention. This article explores the challenges of democracy among polarized and divided groups by engaging the political theory of Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Navayana pragmatism. Ambedkar, an Indian political figure and thinker who felt the crushing oppression of caste discrimination, reshapes the pragmatism of John Dewey to better encapsulate the importance of overcoming divisions and injustices while forging a community of shared interests. Using Ambedkar’s merging of the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity into a pragmatist vision of democracy as a habit or way of life, this article demonstrates that justice can be usefully taken as a balancing of values among agreeing and disagreeing citizens. This also leads to a recognition of the tragedy of democracy, or the fact that attending to the end and means of fraternity places limits on what one group can do to their opponents in the pursuit of freedom or equality.

Intervention in South African municipalities: Dangers and remedies

South Africa’s Constitution guarantees municipal autonomy; at the same time it enjoins the different elements of the state to co-ordinate their efforts through ‘co-operative government’ and, in conjunction with legislation, it under some circumstances permits (or even requires) provincial and national government to intervene in local government affairs to secure effective government and oversight. These powers of intervention, justified by reference to s 139 of the Constitution, range from disciplining errant councillors to the forced dissolution of non-performing municipalities. Some welcome such intervention as a counterweight to local-level corruption and inefficiency, but in a partisan environment, especially where different spheres are controlled by different parties or coalitions accountable to distinctive electorates, these powers of intervention are, we argue, open to political abuse. This abuse is likely to become more prevalent as unstable local coalition governments become more common, providing more pretexts for intervention and opportunities for councillors in political minorities to subvert their own councils in the hope of inviting intervention by higher-tier actors associated with their own party. In line with the 2021 Constitutional Court case censuring the dissolution of Tshwane Municipality by the Gauteng government, we argue for restricting grounds for intervention, especially more radical forms of intervention. As far as possible, the task of removing corrupt and inefficient local councils and councillors should be left to local voters.

Gender and policy persuasion

AbstractAre policy arguments more or less persuasive when they are made by female politicians? Using a diverse sample of American respondents, we conduct a survey experiment which randomly varies the gender associated with two co-partisan candidates across four policy debates. We find strong effects contingent on respondent partisanship and gender, most notably on the issue of access to birth control. On this issue, regardless of the candidate's stance, Democratic respondents, particularly Democratic men, are much more likely to agree with the female candidate. Conversely, Republican respondents, particularly Republican women, are much more likely to agree with the male candidate. We discuss the implications of our findings for the meaning of gender as a heuristic in a highly partisan environment.

Partizanskoe pravosudie na okkupirovannoj territorii Severo-Zapada Rossii (1941—1944 gg.)

The article presents the features of partisan justice in the North-West of Russia during the Great Patriotic War. The article considers the activities of partisans and members of the underground to identify collaborators of the Nazi regime. It is noted that the courts of partisan detachments were one of the most effective forms of restoring signs of statehood in the territory occupied by the enemy. Difficulties in organizing the fight against traitors are revealed. It is shown that even in the most partisan environment, it was necessary to carry out prosecution procedures. Precedents of violations of military order and even crimes in partisan formations are noted, and crime prevention measures are presented.

Media trust and infection mitigating behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis. It is becoming increasingly clear that people’s behavioural responses in the USA during this fast-changing pandemic are associated with their preferred...

Anti-abortion Policymaking and Women’s Representation

To what extent and under what conditions do women in elective office lead the way on conservative women’s interests? The few existing studies find that, contrary to most research on women’s descriptive and substantive representation, legislative activity on conservative women’s issues in the United States is driven primarily by Republican men. This article takes a new look at the heart of conservative policymaking by analyzing the sponsorship of anti-abortion bills in twenty-one state houses, from 1997 to 2012. We find that conservative Republican women stand at the forefront of anti-abortion policy leadership in state legislatures. However, their distinctive leadership is highly constrained; it is most likely to emerge in policy contexts that use women-centered issue frames and within competitive partisan environments. These complex interactions between gender, ideology, issue framing, and partisanship call for new theories and concepts of women’s representation as not only gendered, but also deeply embedded in the strategic interplay of polarized, partisan politics.

The Affordable Care Act and Polarization in the United States

We argue that partisan polarization in public support of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is affected not only by policy design but also by which party makes those decisions. Using an innovative dataset that measures state-level quarterly ACA support from 2009 through the start of the 2016 presidential election, we find that opinions toward the ACA are less polarized in states with misaligned partisan environments where Republican governors support Medicaid expansion. We also find evidence that Republican opposition intensifies when a Democratic governor supports expansion. We do not find consistent evidence of such patterns for governors’ positions on state health insurance exchanges. Our research sheds light on a key aspect of how health policy preferences respond to shifting political contexts in a polarized, federated polity.

Communicating policy information in a partisan environment: the importance of causal policy narratives in political persuasion

ABSTRACT Public opinion is frequently formed in an environment of both partisan signals and other types of policy information. How do people form opinions in such an environment? Much of the literature suggests that most people simply align their opinions with those of their party. We examine a condition under which people may rely instead on a more normatively defensible criterion: policy information. We argue that what people want in terms of policy instruments are effective tools for achieving their desired end-state. When information clearly communicates that a policy will lead to a desirable outcome, we hypothesize that it will be persuasive even in a context where party leaders provide countervailing signals. In two experimental studies, we find support for this hypothesis, and we find some evidence that such information also reduces reliance on partisan cues. We show that causal narratives are central to the opinion formation process and that communicating this information can improve the quality of public opinion.

The Dynamics of Legal Networks: State Attorney General Amicus Brief Coalition Formation

ABSTRACTState attorneys general, the second most frequent and successful class of amici at the Supreme Court, are more successful as coalition size increases. While a large literature examines their amicus activity, scholars know little about how their coalitions form. This presents an incomplete account as broad coalitions are possible only if they are first mobilized. Utilizing social network analysis, I argue attorney general amicus brief coalitions are the product of the broader context. This context is dynamic. In the 1980s and 1990s coalitions are predicted by resources. By the 2000s, an increasingly partisan environment makes ideological similarity the main predictor of coalition formation. These findings draw attention to not only the utility of network approaches to judicial politics, but also the importance of changes in the broader environment in how attorneys general and other actors are able to mobilize coalitions to advance their preferences at the Court.

Think Tanks, Television News and Impartiality

Is the use of think tanks ideologically balanced in BBC news and current affairs programming? This study answers this question empirically by establishing which think tanks are referenced in different BBC programming in 2009 and 2015, and then classifying them according to their ideological aims (either left, right, centrist or non-partisan). We draw on a sample size of over 30,000 BBC news and current affairs programmes in 2009 and 2015 to measure how often these think tanks were mentioned or quoted. Overall, BBC news reveals a clear preference for non-partisan or centrist think tanks. However, when the Labour Party was in power in 2009, left and right-leaning think tanks received similar levels of coverage, but in 2015, when the Conservative Party was in government, right-leaning think tanks outnumbered left-leaning think tanks by around two to one. Overall, our findings add weight to a pattern emerging from a number of recent academic studies that show, despite its undoubted commitment to impartiality, BBC news programming has shifted its centre of gravity to the right. We argue that broadcasters need to be more independently aware of how stories emerge, and how issues and sources should be balanced and explained in an increasingly partisan news environment.

The Local Political Context of Latino Partisanship

AbstractThe question of how partisanship is influenced by exogenous factors has been vigorously debated, yet this debate is less frequently noted in the literature on Latino partisanship. This study analyzes the 2006 Latino National Survey with geographic identifiers to explore how the political context of a county influences Latino partisan self-identification. There are a variety of reasons why the political environment might influence Latinos’ partisan choice. First, a substantial proportion of the adult Latino population in the United States is foreign-born, potentially lessening the influence of parental partisan socialization. Second, increased migration to areas outside the Southwest has exposed Latinos to new and different social, political, and economic environments. Using subgroup analysis, interactive logit models, and regression discontinuity, we find that the local political context influences the party attachment of Latino immigrants in predictable ways. However, for Latinos born in the United States, our analysis does not provide evidence of a causal connection between partisan environment and an individual's partisan identification.

Selective exposure to partisan media: Moderating factors in evaluations of the president

The conditions in which moderating factors – media trust, mediabias, and political ideology – increase or limit the approval ratings of a politician in a partisan media environment were investigated using data obtained from the 2010 Pew survey. The findings show that media trust and media bias intensify negative presidential evaluations among consumers of conservative news programs, whereas these factors do not influence presidential approval among consumers of liberal news programs. The findings also reveal that conservatives tend to choose to be exposed to news messages that are congenial to their ideological orientations, while liberals select a more balanced diet of news messages. This study proposes that moderating factors have different effects on conservative and liberal news consumers.

Perceptions of candidate spouses in the 2012 presidential election: the role of gender, race, religion, and partisanship

ABSTRACTThe wives, and more recently, the husbands, of presidential candidates have taken on vital roles in campaigns, acting as surrogates for their partners, mobilizing voters, fundraising, and making high-profile speeches as well as appeals to targeted groups of voters. Despite their importance, presidential candidate spouses represent an under-investigated set of political actors. This project draws on American National Election Study data to analyze public perceptions of the 2012 presidential candidate spouses, Michelle Obama and Ann Romney, and explore how these perceptions compare to attitudes about previous presidential candidate spouses going back to 1992. Since these two spouses represent historic firsts, with Michelle Obama the first Black presidential candidate spouse and Ann Romney the first Mormon presidential candidate spouse, our analysis pays particular attention to the role of gender, race, and religion in public evaluations of these two women. This study also explores how and why candidate spouses are able to remain quite popular even in today’s highly partisan environment. Our results provide insights into key areas of stability and change in the public’s views and expectations for would-be first ladies.

Libtard gungrabbers and #PewPewLife: Multiple realities in a political issue-centric forum

Abstract The image-sharing social media platform Instagram has become a site for political discourse that combines visual and textual elements. These political conversations often take place in the form of memes or popular graphic sentiments intended for redistribution. Scholars have identified memes as markers of subcultural knowledge that may be used to reinforce beliefs and norms, define social boundaries and disparage outgroups. Gun rights activism in the United States has intensified in an increasingly partisan environment. We examined memes shared via Instagram to popular gun culture hashtags between June 2016 and February 2018. Insofar as memes act as vehicles for subcultural beliefs and values, here they may be seen as representing multiple realities from the perspective of Second Amendment enthusiasts: descriptions of their perceived reality, justifying the need for guns and conservative political positions; the construed reality of what the meme creators and sharers believe to be liberal attitudes; and the aspirational reality of a world that offers unobstructed support for their priorities. In other words, these memes can collectively be said to represent both the truth about the world, as seen by these users, and cultural messages to set power differentials and identity boundaries with Others.

The Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between the Constitution and a Political Party. Edited by Julia R.Azari, Lara M.Brown, and Zim G.Nwokora. Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. 247 pp.

The Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between the Constitution and a Political Party. Edited by Julia R. Azari, Lara M. Brown, and Zim G. Nwokora. Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. 247 pp. The Presidential Leadership Dilemma's collection of new research tackles a timely and compelling question: can presidents reconcile their national and partisan responsibilities lead effectively? Members of the other two branches must also weigh their constitutional and institutional duties with attachments specific constituencies, but the president's version of this plays out in full public view daily. While the Constitution largely puts the executive branch in this precarious position, has plagued all presidents in one or another, Julia R. Azari, Lara M. Brown, and Zim G. Nwokora argue in their introductory chapter that this tension seems push and pull with greater force in the contemporary era (p. 4), due high expectations for presidential power over the past century and the intensely charged partisan environment. If one agrees with the editors' premise that is the essence of the presidency (p. 4), then it is indeed important that scholars sort out the endogenous (individual) factors in presidential success, such as the power of persuasion (Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt Reagan [Free Press, 1990]), from exogenous (historical and electoral) constraints, such as time (Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams George Bush [Belknap Press, 1997], p. 30). Four of the book's chapters examine the electoral and legislative coalition-building challenges that dot these presidential minefields. Nwokora's contribution creates a typology of nomination pathways, illuminated by miniature case studies, assess which route places a candidate in the best position navigate the leadership (p. 35). Brown examines the challenge facing presidents as they endure and absorb their first congressional midterm election. Through a model of third-year leadership choices, Brown argues that presidential opportunism is key short- and long-term success in reframing the president's national or partisan legacy (p. 64). Lilly J. Goren examines the leadership dilemma in coalition-building through a history of the automatic base closure process, highlighting how President Bill Clinton's aggressive third way leadership style contrasted with the more subdued roles of his predecessors and successors in the process (p. 114). Benjamin A. Copeland and Victoria A. Farrar-Myers focus on another side of domestic military policy in the history and repeal of ask, don't tell (p. 139). In addition the obvious shift in public opinion over 17 years, they conclude that President Barack Obama has led the military and Congress toward his preferences more skillfully than did President Clinton. Two contributions the volume concentrate on the leadership dilemma in the exercise of formal executive power. Daniel E. Ponder operationalizes the public opinion and institutional ingredients of presidential leverage. Ponder argues that to understand a president's place in the system, one needs understand how that 'place' situates the president in relation public perception and trust in the government as a whole (p. 106). Christopher S. Kelley, Bryan W. Marshall, and Deanna J. Watts look at how unified and divided government shape the underappreciated rhetorical signing statement that comes from executive agencies and political advisors (as opposed the constitutional signing statement, largely forged in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department). …

Programming Presidential Agendas: Partisan and Media Environments That Lead Presidents to Fight Crime and Corruption

This article examines how media and partisan mechanisms of accountability influence presidential agendas in Latin America. The authors argue that responsiveness increases in powerful presidential systems when opposition parties and free media help citizens hold presidents accountable between elections. Where presidents must contend with a cohesive, ideological opposition and effective constraints to their power, they turn to valence issues with broad appeal and over which they have greater control. A free media—one without significant economic, legal, or political constraints—pressures the president to respond to the electorate's concerns, which include crime and corruption due to the incentives that motivate news content and the media's agenda-setting powers. Analyzing more than 50 presidential terms across 18 countries, the authors show that when Latin American presidents face either free and competitive media or strong legislative oppositions, homicide rates and the level of perceived corruption tend to be lower. Thus, this study proposes that efforts to improve media or partisan environments, or both, would help address Latin America's accountability deficit and promote good governance in the region.

The Polarizing Effect of a Partisan Workplace

AbstractThe workplace provides an exceptional outlet for citizens to encounter different viewpoints and discuss politics with people with whom they may disagree. In Washington, DC, however, many people work in partisan environments where like-minded coworkers rarely encounter alternate points of view. Group polarization theory suggests that these environments push individuals to the partisan and ideological extremes. This study tests this hypothesis by comparing opinion change among interns who worked in a partisan workplace with that of interns who were employed in less-partisan environments. The results suggest that partisan workplace environments foster opinion polarization, especially among Republicans.

Legislative Gridlock and Nonpartisan Staff

This essay explores a recent proposal to reduce Congressional gridlock by using nonpartisan committee staff. It first describes past and present practice to have such staff serve the committees and a number of legislative support organizations. It then presents and tests a theoretical case of nonpartisan staff reducing gridlock that is premised on such staff having an expertise distinct from that of partisans and sufficient influence to affect legislative outcomes. The essay shows that the meaning of “nonpartisan” is somewhat nebulous and incomplete, which may make it difficult to identify, select, and retain persons with the attributes necessary to support the theoretical case. Staff incentives during Congressional service may further undermine the existence of those attributes. Finally, the essay suggests that the two components of the theoretical case — a distinctive expertise and sufficient Congressional influence — may to some extent be incompatible with one another. If nonpartisan staff must be “neutral” on policy issues in order to maintain their influence in Congress’s partisan environment, they may, in effect, be forced to surrender some of their expertise — their ability to analyze and persuade (in a manner different from partisans) why certain policy options are preferable to others. This “muted” expertise may impair their effect on reducing gridlock.

The President’s Role in the Partisan Congressional Arena

Models of presidential success have sometimes focused on the importance of political capital and sometimes looked at the partisan environment of Congress. We develop time-series models of success that refine and integrate these perspectives while reframing the matter in terms of research on congressional parties. Measures of the ideological and partisan makeup of Congress are used to explain presidential success from 1953 to 2006 but the approval of the president’s base is important as well. We also show the electoral consequences to congressional parties of presidential success—congressional parties gain and lose seats based on the battles won and lost by the president. This gives legislators (not) of his party an incentive to see his agenda implemented (defeated). Studying both the causes and consequences of presidential success in Congress is meant to integrate theories of the two institutions along with extant theories of party behavior.

Para una sociología de los entornos y de las redes partidistas

This paper advocates for a societal analysis of political parties studied in the context of democratic regimes. Instead of emphasizing the autonomization of political parties, it proposes to appeal to social networks analysis in order to capture the blurry frontiers that characterize the social milieu on which political parties rely on. The objectivation of networks is not an easy task. For this reason, the present work insists on the necessity of developing localized and comparative analysis of political parties, exemplifying this proposal with the case of the Frssqench Socialist Party. Keywords : Partisan environment - social networks - societal analysis of political parties - localized analysis of politics - French Socialist Party.