Elite Perceptions Research Articles

Wither Elites? The Role of Elite Credibility and Knowledge in Public Perceptions of Foreign Policy

Abstract Existing theories of foreign policy opinion formation tend to treat elites as a black-box category for members of the nonpublic. This misses important nuances in public perceptions of elites. We argue that elite vocation serves as an important source cue, signaling elite access to information and elite knowledge that can be brought to bear on that information. We use a survey experiment to evaluate our hypotheses comparing four types of elites: elected officials, academics, career professionals, and members of the media. We find that, even accounting for partisanship, people still evaluate elites as knowledgeable and credible. There are also important differences in public perceptions of elites that should be accounted for in our theories of opinion formation. These findings have important implications for the in vogue death of expertise argument as well as research on public perceptions of foreign policy and public opinion formation.

The Merit of Ascription? Economic Elite Perceptions of Inheritance Taxation.

Inheritance represents a conflict between the individual and society. On one hand, the intergenerational transmission of resources favors the reproduction of privilege. On the other hand, contemporary individualization processes prioritize individual achievement. This paper addresses this conflict through a sociological approach by analyzing perceptions of inheritance taxation based on 32 in-depth interviews with members of the economic elite in Chile. Findings show that the principle of individual freedom in decisions regarding resource use prevails over the redistributive function that controls inheritance and favors personal attainment. In addition, a negative view of inheritance prevails, which is sustained by three major repertoires of evaluation emphasizing its inefficiency, ineffectiveness, economic inconvenience, and lack of foundation, as its purpose or utility is unknown. This last argument is surprising because it does not reject this tax for its design or application; rather, it confronts some crucial ideas with which it is usually linked, namely opportunity levelling at the beginning of a new generation and redistribution of privilege.

Revisiting Elite Perceptions as Mediator of Elite Responsiveness to Public Opinion

Elites forming a perception of what the public wants is an important way in which democratic representation comes about, the assumption holds. Yet very few are the studies that examine the effect of elite perceptions on politician action. This study sets out to revisit the matter, measuring actual public priorities, elite perceptions of public priorities and a wide range of representative actions with regard to a few hundred concrete issues. We find that elite perceptions matter for their representative behavior; elites are much more likely to take action on issues they believe citizens care about. The effect exists across the board; perceptions matter in three different political systems, for different types of political action, and for electorally safe and unsafe, trustee and delegate politicians alike. These results speak to the micro-level factors connecting public and policy agendas, and the conditions under which representatives are attentive to public issue priorities.

Natures of concern: The criminalization of artisanal and small-scale mining in Colombia and Peru

Law enforcement against illegal mining and the formalization of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) share similar challenges, yet research has examined both as separate policy arenas. Overcoming this limitation, I trace ASM criminalization to uncover how this division is drawn. I unpack this process as a frontier moment in resource regime change, relating transformations in ASM governance to the fragile hegemony of large-scale mining (LSM) in Andean states. Drawing from Gramscian and Foucauldian approaches to political ecology, I introduce natures of concern to analyse how environmental degradation hierarchies are created to stabilize crisis episodes. I stress the pace, timing, and legitimacy dimensions to introduce resource regime changes. Colombia and Peru exemplify how elite perceptions of LSM's fragile hegemony underpin the jurisdictional pathways to criminalize ASM. In the first case via an elite boomerang: scale-jumping to circumvent a congressional vote as an urgent matter. In the second, preemptive elite practice: the scalar reconfiguration of national government's attributions preceded by early regulatory transformations. ASM heterotopic imagination subsumes the sector under a hierarchy of environmental damage, leading to improvement projects that reposition LSM as a preferable extraction developer, environmental steward, and territorial authority. Data comes from a year of fieldwork in Colombia and Peru, including 72 interviews with elite and non-elite actors and the documentary analysis of congressional journals, court proceedings, legislation, media, amongst other sources.

A House of Many Mansions: Perceptions of Lebanese Political and Intellectual Elites toward Iran

ABSTRACT Lebanon is believed to be the most religiously diverse country in the Middle East. Lebanese elites play a significant role as identity-makers and parts of regional alliances. The present paper examines Lebanese intellectual and political elites’ perceptions of Iran. To this aim, the author conducted fifteen semi-structured interviews with figures from Lebanese political parties with different political orientations and religious denominations. Using integrated threat theory to analyse the data, the author argues that the Lebanese elite’s view towards Iran illustrates various threat perceptions among members of different religious denominations in conjunction with their political affiliations. It will be discussed that Iran and Hezbollah have turned into an in-group for a particular, albeit a significant portion of the Shia community in Lebanon (mostly affiliated with Hezbollah) and an out-group for many in other religious and political denominations. Accordingly, Iran’s growing regional power is perceived as a realistic and symbolic threat by those who consider Iran (a Shi’ite entity and Hezbollah) the out-group.

The Decline of Indonesia’s Leadership Role in ASEAN: Systemic and Domestic Constraints of Jokowi’s Foreign Policy Alterations

This article addresses how systemic stimuli and domestic constraints, specifically on the perception of foreign policy executives, influence Indonesia’s leadership decline in ASEAN under Joko Widodo’s first presidential term. Through the lens of neoclassical realism, it is concluded that Indonesia’s leadership decline in ASEAN is attributed to the changing geopolitical landscape of Asia, with the assertive rise of China and the need to find other models of grand strategies in facing the regional hegemon. Furthermore, there is a unified perception of the irrelevance of maintaining a leadership role in ASEAN, and how the foreign policy executives of the Indonesian President and the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have concluded to this approach. Implementation of this research is the contribution to the foreign policy framework in facing certain systemic stimuli in the region of Asia, and to understand the role of a unified perspective among foreign policy executives to the actual output of foreign policy. This article contributes to the discourses of; (1) neoclassical realism, specifically on the role of systemic stimuli and elite perceptions as intervening variables in understanding alterations in foreign policy behavior, and (2) empirical analysis of Indonesia’s leadership role in ASEAN during the presidency of Joko Widodo.
 
 Received: 16 August 2021 / Accepted: 25 October 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Речевой образ постсоветской бизнес-элиты

The material is devoted to the description, including on the basis of experimental data, of the speech image of the post-Soviet business elite. The study was carried out in the paradigm of the Lotman’s semiosphere. Three clusters are described – the verbal, the cognitive, and the pragmatic one. The study is based on an integrative methodology for objective speech portraying the personality, who uses hybrid image strategies and tactics due to the ambiguous perception of the business elite in modern Russian public opinion.

دور وسائل الإعلام التركية في تشكيل اتجاهات الرأي العام التركي نحو محاولة انقلاب 15 تموز 201

The present study aims to illuminate the assessment of the Turkish elite of the role of the Turkish media in forming the attitudes of public opinion vis a vis the attempted military coup of 15 July 2016. The authors utilized the survey method of a nominal sample of 315 individuals, equally distributed among the three foremost categories of the Turkish elite, namely: the political academic, and media elite. The foremost findings of the study are that the orientation of the coverage of the Turkish media of the events of the attempt military coup of 15 July, based on the perception and assessment of the Turkish elite, was positive to a high degree; it refuted the news and the inciting information given to foreign media revealed the bloodiness of the rebels who opened fire on innocent civilians, and adopted a media discourse supportive of the national will and the safeguarding of democracy. The Turkish media also urged Turkish political parties to adopt a united stand toward the coup, in a manner different from its positions toward the military coups that took place previously in Turkey. Moreover, it is the view of the elite that the Turkish media contributed to forming the attitudes of Turkish public opinion that are strongly opposed to the annulment of democracy. This helped abort the coup attempt, and this evidenced and proved the strong influence of the Turkish media on society.

Explaining the United States' Foreign Policy Failure in Southeast Asia since 2008

executive summary: This article examines the impact of changes in U.S. leadership on foreign policy decision-making in Southeast Asia since 2008, assessing the influence of systemic pressures and domestic processes in the form of elite perceptions and political constraints on foreign policy implementation. main argument The Trump administration's "free and open Indo-Pacific" foreign policy strategy showed notable points of departure from the Obama administration's Asia "rebalance." This variation is curious, considering that Washington's interests in preserving the U.S.'s status as a Pacific power largely remained the same. This variation in foreign policy can be explained through an examination of both systemic pressures and domestic intervening variables. A permissive strategic environment increased the array of U.S. policy alternatives in Southeast Asia, allowing foreign policy choices to be more greatly influenced by leaders' perceptions and domestic constraints. The resulting policy outcomes have left the Southeast Asian region in a state of uncertainty. policy implications • Washington's attempts to engage Beijing while challenging China's increasing military power have fostered a permissive strategic environment in Asia. This has prevented a robust U.S. foreign policy strategy from being articulated and implemented in Southeast Asia and allowed foreign policy choices to be driven largely by domestic political constraints. • The Biden administration faces an increasingly restrictive strategic environment in Asia, which presents an opportunity for a more robust foreign policy in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific. • To be successful in this, the Biden administration will need to bolster the credibility and consistency of U.S. policies toward Southeast Asia. If it does not do so, the region is at risk of falling further under China's influence.

Elite perceptions about power-sharing in Nigeria

This article examines the perceptions of the elite about the practice of power-sharing in Nigeria. It looks at the range of meanings the elite attribute to power-sharing, their assessment of its effectiveness, and how the practice can be modified. Elite perceptions of power-sharing in Nigeria were investigated through a series of interviews with selected federal legislators. The article observes that the elite interpret power-sharing in institutional and communal terms, although the communal perspective appears more widespread. The study also found that there is a strong feeling among the elite that power-sharing is working. This belief is based on the claim that power-sharing has effectively widened the scope of political representation in Nigeria, eliminated uncertainty and tension in political competition, and inspired the people to easily converge around political institutions and organisations. The study notes that power-sharing is however limited by its tendency to discourage the application of merit in the recruitment of political office holders while over emphasising communal and sectarian differences among Nigerians.

The View from Above: Framing of Digital Privacy in Post Cambridge Analytica Congressional Hearings

How do policy and technological elites talk about privacy? Increasingly, researchers call for a multidimensional and contextual view of privacy as an object of study. Such calls have advanced both conceptual and empirical understanding of how citizens think about privacy and enact privacy-related behaviors in networked environments. At the same time, scandals such as Cambridge Analytica (CA) reveal gaps in perceptions of privacy held by the users vs. those in positions of power, who design and regulate information networks. Yet, studies of privacy perceptions of elites remain scarce. The current project contributes to filling this gap. Conceptually, our research builds on two main bodies of literature. First, we leverage research that distinguishes between vertical and horizontal dimensions of privacy. The former refers to privacy relationships of an individual vis-a-vis institutions, while the latter refers to privacy relationships vis-a-vis their peers. Previous studies suggest that information technology users prioritize horizontal thinking about privacy. Second, we build on framing literature, which suggests a link between frames in communication and frames in thought, as a way to systematically unpack elite discourses as representing their perceptions of privacy. Studies leveraging framing for privacy research suggest that internet policy deliberations harbor vertically oriented views of privacy. Empirically, we focus on US Congressional hearings following the CA scandal as a moment of explicit deliberation of privacy among policy and technological elites. We conduct a quantitative content analysis of the April 10, 2018 joint session of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where 44 Senators questioned a single witness - Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s CEO). We develop and validate a dedicated coding scheme for the analysis of privacy discourses, and apply this scheme to systematically analyze 91 distinct interventions in the hearing. Our preliminary analysis suggests an overall dominance of vertical privacy framing, with institutions held responsible for both privacy infringement and privacy protection. While Mr. Zuckerberg had more references to horizontal privacy relationships among Facebook users, this behavior did not amount to statistically significant differences compared to the Senators. When taking into account the distance of privacy relationships, Republican Senators had significantly more references to primary relationships between Facebook and its users, while Democratic Senators focused on secondary information flows between Facebook and institutional third parties. Other emerging trends suggest that the Senators are more likely to view privacy as a right, compared to Mr. Zuckerberg. At the same time Republican Senators tend to view privacy more as a commodity compared to their Democratic counterparts. Currently, two main insights are emerging from this research. First, the dominance of vertical privacy framing in this elite discourse stands in stark contrast with earlier findings about the dominance of horizontal framing among the users of information technology. Second, it brings to surface the political nature of privacy as a vessel for normative perspectives and ideological positions. The full paper will draw a more nuanced picture of those dynamics, offering avenues for future research and policy considerations aimed at both designing and communicating privacy regulations.

Linking the impacts of perception, domestic politics, economic engagements, and the international environment on bilateral relations between Indonesia and China in the onset of the 21st century

ABSTRACT China and Indonesia have undergone extreme changes throughout their relationship in the modern era. While China’s rise created both opportunities and challenges, Indonesian decision makers have experienced constant pressures from domestic and international influences when dealing with China. This article examines Indonesian-Chinese relations in the last two decades through four factors: perception, domestic politics, economic engagements, and the international environment, based on data from official documents, news, journal articles, and direct observation. This framework portrays significant development of the two countries’ partnership but not without problems. Internal factors (e.g., perceptions of elites, domestic politics) have become increasingly relevant in determining bilateral relations while international pressures filtered. China has provided many opportunities over the years, but economic and strategic relations seem to have relied more on Indonesia’s favorable domestic factors than regional and global developments. In particular, the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia variously promoted and hindered the relations. Chinese cultural diplomacy also expanded and involved a wide range of actors beyond government officials to influence Indonesian domestic factors by moderating negative sentiments about China and the Chinese. This study contributes to understanding on Indonesia’s foreign policy in the last two decades and China’s relations with its neighbors.

Aid, Peacebuilding, and Human Security: Japan’s Engagement in South Sudan, 2011–2017

The article examines the case of Japan’s peacebuilding in South Sudan from 2011 to 2017 and asks how Japan’s shift towards a more proactive defence posture affects the place of human security in its foreign policy agenda. Using the framework of neoclassical realism, the article argues that human security remains a critical element of Japanese foreign policy despite changes in its strategic orientation because, international predicaments notwithstanding, Japan’s foreign policy decision making is still significantly constrained by domestic variables such as state–society relations, elite perceptions, elite consensus, and domestic institutional arrangements. Changes in Japan’s overall foreign and security policies do not diminish the importance of human security. Despite the shift to a more assertive foreign policy, Japan still retains the essential features of its diplomacy. External variables influence policymakers’ decision making, but domestic variables constrain policy choices and outcomes.

Nationality, Authenticity and Food: A Revisiting on the History of Chop Suey

In the early twentieth century, the authenticity of chop suey was challenged by mainstream American media, as journalists could not find evidence of the dish in China. This caused a decline in the availability of chop suey in the American restaurants. However, chop suey was simultaneously recognized as a Chinese food by educated Chinese elites such as Liang Qichao, who raised no concerns about its authenticity. This article examines the difference between Chinese elites and the American media and discusses the relationships among food, authenticity and nationality. It argues that despite the different perceptions of Chinese elites and the American media, they both used a single standard to determine whether chop suey was “Chinese food” and failed to realize the close relationship between the Chinese community and American society. Both were influenced by a common perception of Chinese communities as isolated within American society and separate from other groups and close contact with China.

Congruence-building on multiple fronts: Indian elite perceptions of EU rule promotion in India during the EU-India FTA negotiations (2007–2013)

How does the European Union export its rules and regulations to its partners during free trade negotiations? While the research fields on EU foreign policy promotion abroad and external perceptions seem to have settled on the notion that the success of EU rule export increases with the internalization of the negotiation partner’s wants, this article challenges this academic consensus. Scrutinizing the EU-India free trade negotiations (2007–2013) where the perception of EU norms turned from positive to inherently negative, the article shows that the Commission successfully constructed the notion of congruence between European and Indian standards on multiple (international, bilateral, regional) fronts during an initial “honeymoon phase” (2007–2011). Yet, once the negotiations’ focus shifted to hard bargaining over core interests, the notion of congruence gave way to tensions and discrepancies, so that perceptions turned negative over the “cooldown” (2011–2013). Analysing claims made by EU and Indian policy officials in four Indian English-speaking quality newspapers—Times of India, Hindustan Times, Hindu Business Line and the Business Standard—the article suggests that the discursive construction of congruence with the local context, however successful, cannot prevail against battles over core interests. Hence, this article provides starting points for new academic junctures in that it introduces a more nuanced understanding of the EU’s approach to rule promotion abroad.

The local elites perception of “Hamemayu Hayuning Bawana” philosophies in the Green Village Program in Yogyakarta Province

This article explains the philosophy of “Hamemayu Hayuning Bawana” as the local wisdom of Yogyakarta Province, which is a fundamental value in the green village program to cope the climate change. The teaching of the value of caring for the environment has been widely recognized by society, however, it has been eroded by modernization. To overcome the gap in cultural understanding with low implementation and realization, then this research focuses on how philosophical values are imbued in the green village program based on the perception of the local elite? The survey result of 118 local elites had been distributed across 45 villages were processed using SPSS, in form of descriptive statistics. The applicative understanding of these values is not yet detailed and technical. Thus, the implementation of philosophical values for green village development planning is still limited. In order to enhance the inspiration and realization of the philosophy, it is necessary to develop the spirit, innovation, creativity, applicability, participatory and proactivity of the local elite. We prove that the local elite must be able to change the philosophical concept within real behavior to build a sustainable green village.

Business Establishment Opposition to Southern Ireland’s Exit from the United Kingdom

After more than a century of political and economic integration, Southern Ireland exited the United Kingdom in 1922. By identifying the leading business firms of the era and the political and religious allegiances of their owners, this paper explores the perspective of the Southern Irish business establishment on the issues involved. While the mass of the population was Catholic and by 1918 favored secession, the business elite is shown to have been predominantly Protestant and strongly supportive of continued integration. Business elite perceptions of the consequences of exiting the United Kingdom are explored, and post-independence economic and business developments assessed in light of the concerns expressed at the time. The paper also charts the post-independence fate of the leading former unionist firms and the erosion and eventual disappearance of the sectarian divisions then prevalent in Irish business life.

Explaining elite perceptions of legitimacy in global governance

Elites are central in creating, operating, defending and contesting international organisations (IOs), but little research is available about their attitudes toward these bodies. To address this gap, this article offers the first systematic and comparative analysis of elite perceptions of IO legitimacy. Building on a unique multi-country and multi-sector survey of 860 elites undertaken in 2017–19, we map and explain elite legitimacy beliefs toward three key IOs in different issue-areas: the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Integrating public opinion research and international relations theory, the article advances an explanation of elites’ legitimacy beliefs that emphasises their satisfaction with the institutional qualities of IOs. We contrast this argument with three common alternative explanations, which respectively highlight utilitarian calculation, global orientation and domestic cues. The analyses show that elites’ satisfaction with institutional qualities of IOs is most consistently related to legitimacy beliefs: when elites are more satisfied with democracy, effectiveness and fairness in IOs, they also regard these IOs as more legitimate. These findings suggest that the prevailing debate between utilitarian calculation, global orientation and domestic cues approaches neglects the importance of institutional satisfaction as an explanation of attitudes toward IOs.

Comprehending Brunei Darussalam’s vanishing claims in the South China Sea: China’s exertion of economic power and the influence of elite perception

Under the lens of Neoclassical Realism, this article aims to comprehend the vanishing claims of Brunei in the South China Sea, by considering systemic stimuli and elite perceptions as major factors...

The Legitimacy of International Institutions among Rising and Established Powers

AbstractThe expectation that state voice drives perceptions of the legitimacy of international institutions is a common theme in academic scholarship and policy discourse on global power shifts. This article tests this expectation empirically, using novel and unique survey data on legitimacy perceptions toward eight international institutions among political and societal elites in six countries, comprising both rising and established powers. The article finds only limited support for a link between a state’s voice in an international institution and elite perceptions of legitimacy. Differences in formal state representation are only partly reflected in patterns of perceived legitimacy across the six countries. In addition, there is no evidence at the individual level that assessments of state voice shape elites’ perceptions of institutional legitimacy. Instead, considerations of good governance best predict whether elites perceive of international institutions as more or less legitimate. These findings suggest that only institutional reforms which are seen to favor general qualities of good governance, and not narrow demands for state voice, are likely to be rewarded with greater legitimacy.