Political Attitudes Research Articles

The The Relationship between the Media Agenda and the Public Agenda on the Electability of Presidential Candidates

Facing the 2024 election, two big figures have emerged who have been nominated as Indonesian presidential candidates for the 202-2029 period, namely Anies Bawesdan from the Nasdem Party and Ganjar Pranowo from PDIP. These two figures then became targets of the media by sharing information and activities carried out. Every report in the mass media is essentially a construction of events by the mass media based on the reality that occurred. The ability to construct this discourse will have a major influence on the opinions, decision making and political attitudes of readers. By understanding the work of media reality construction, people will be wise and appropriate in utilizing any information from the mass media. Solopos.com's media agenda setting regarding the two presidential candidates Anies Bawesdan and Ganjar Pranowo certainly greatly influences the level of electability of readers, especially among FISH Univet Bantara students who were respondents to this research. This research aims to determine the influence of the Solopos.com media agenda setting on the electability level of students in the candidacy of Anies Bawesdan and Ganjar Pranowo in the 2024 election and to analyze the influence of the public agenda on the electability level of students in the candidacy of Anies Bawesdan and Ganjar Pranowo in the 2024 election. The method used is a quantitative research approach. Data collection techniques use questionnaires, observation, documentation. Data is measured using a Linkert scale with a range of 5 options. Statistical analysis uses multiple linear regression analysis techniques. The respondents of this research are students of the Communication Science Study Program, Even Semester, Academic Year 2022-2023. The research results show that there is a relationship between the Solopos.com media agenda and the public agenda regarding the electability of presidential candidates. The political situation leading up to the 2024 election is an important moment for the Solopos.com media which is directly or indirectly participating in branding candidates Anies Bawesdan and Ganjar Pranowo as presidential candidates.

Politics, institutional corruption, and their impact on sustainable development: Perspectives from university students in Peru

This research study's principal objective is to explain the relationship between corruption and political attitudes regarding sustainable development, also from the perspective of Peruvian students. The sample consisted of 616 university students who were from the cities of Lima and Piura. They responded to two instruments: The Attitude Scale Toward Politics and the Attitude Scale Toward Corruption. Among the most representative results, it was found that institutional corruption has a highly significant and direct relationship with political attitudes from the perspective of university students (0.720. Sig.0.000). Nine out of ten dimensions of attitudes toward politics achieved highly significant correlations (p = 0.001) with attitudes toward corruption. Among the conclusions, it is observed that attitudes toward politics and attitudes toward corruption show a systematic interdependence of modification. It is necessary implement strategies for political participation without corruption is emphasized to improve the education that sustains the future governance of the country.

'Becoming restrained': Conceptualising restrictive practices in the care of people living with dementia in acute hospital settings.

The use of restrictive practices within health and social care has attracted policy and practice attention, predominantly focusing on children and young people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and autism. However, despite growing appreciation of the need to improve care quality for people living with dementia (PLWD), the potentially routine use of restrictive practices in their care has received little attention. PLWD are at significant risk of experiencing restrictive practices during unscheduled acute hospital admissions. In everyday routine hospital care of PLWD, concerns about subtle and less visible forms of restrictive practices and their impacts remain. This article draws on Deleuze's concepts of 'assemblage' and 'event' to conceptualise restrictive practices as institutional, interconnection social and political attitudes and organisational cultural practices. We argue that this approach illuminates the diverse ways restrictive practices are used, legitimatised and perpetuated in the care of PLWD. We examine restrictive practices in acute care contexts, understanding their use requires examining the wider socio-political, organisational cultures and professional practice contexts in which clinical practices occurs. Whereas 'events' and 'assemblages' have predominantly been used to examine embodied entanglements in diverse health contexts, examining restrictive practices as a structural assemblage extends the application of this theoretical framework.

Support for Partisan Violence among the Political Fringe: The Case of Antifa and QAnon Supporters

ABSTRACT Recent surveys have shown that significant numbers of partisans in the United States harbor violent attitudes towards out-party politicians and out-party members. This finding has corresponded with the increased visibility of political fringe groups, such as Antifa on the political left and QAnon on the political right. Fringe groups such as these take ideologically extreme political positions and defy political norms, including prohibitions on political violence. Are partisan supporters of these fringe groups more likely to hold violent political attitudes? Using survey data from the Understanding America Study (UAS), we test whether Antifa supporters and QAnon supporters are more likely to report violent attitudes compared to non-fringe group supporters. We find supporters of both groups are more likely to wish harm towards out-party members, support violent protest, and support various forms of interpersonal violence towards out-party members. The results hold even when controlling for ideological extremity, personality, and affective partisanship.

Affective Polarization in the 2022 South Korean Presidential Election: Causes and Consequences

In this study, we analyzed the factors that intensified affective polarization among voters during the 2022 South Korean presidential election. We also examined this polarization's effect on their political attitudes, including their satisfaction with democracy, perception of the fairness of elections, and trust in political institutions. We found that the greater the perceived ideological differences between the two parties the People Power Party (PPP) and the Democratic Party ― (DP)―and the more extreme the voter's ideology, the more affective polarization increased. We also found that affective polarization intensified with increasing ideological extremity among all age cohorts except those in their forties. Finally, in contrast to DP supporters, PPP supporters' political attitudes became more negative as their affective polarization increased because the opposing party, the DP, was the governing party. This suggests that affective polarization may polarize support for democratic norms and trust in the political institutions that underpin democracy, depending on one's partisan allegiances.

Personal and Social Worries Associated with the Likelihood of Having Children

AbstractPrevious studies showed that worries about the economic situation and job security are associated with childbearing, but evidence is scarce on whether worries about other personal and social issues are also related to childbearing. Drawing on the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study, this study examined the relationship between worries about various personal and social issues and the likelihood of having children. Based on exploratory factor analysis, worries were categorized into social/environment and economy/safety factors. Cox regression models showed that social/environment worries were associated with a decreased likelihood of having children, even after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, personality traits, and political attitudes. Among specific worries, concerns about environmental protection, climate change, personal health, peace, immigration to Germany, and hostility toward immigrants were linked to a decreased likelihood of having children. Notably, worries about the economy in general were strongly associated with a reduced probability of becoming a parent among childless individuals, with a 25 percent lower likelihood for those highly worried about it. Similarly, childless individuals highly worried about climate change exhibit a 16 percent lower likelihood of parenthood. Our findings highlight the role of other worries in childbearing in addition to economic uncertainty and suggest that fertility decreases when the future is perceived as uncertain.

Social Media Political Communication and Misinformation: A Case Study of the Youth in Kiambu County, Kenya

Social media in recent times has proven to be extremely persuasive in influencing the public’s opinion on political affairs. Since 2007, election campaigns have actively utilized several social media platforms in Kenya for communicating with, mobilizing, and organizing supporters. Politicians and political activists along with their parties make maximum use of it to interact and provide civic education to the public. However, few written materials are available on how Kenyan youth, particularly those who live in Kiambu County, use social media for political engagement. The objective of this research is therefore to explore patterns as well as practices characterizing social media use by young people in Kiambu County and how this affects their political involvement and discourse. This research is guided by Habermas’s Theory of the Public Sphere, which asserts that public political discourse that is free from government interference is important for creating functional democracies. Social media, which acts as a public sphere, can allow the youth to engage in political discussions and other civic activities. The research employs a descriptive research design, utilizing an online survey as the primary tool for data collection, administered via Survey Monkey. The research’s target population includes young people enrolled in institutions of higher learning in Kiambu County who use social media for communication. The sample size was determined based on the number of university students in Kiambu County. It utilized stratified random sampling on a target population of 115,330 to draw a sample of 380 youths using a Survey Monkey online sample calculator with a 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error. Initially, a pilot study was conducted on 10% of the sample, which is 38 respondents, to ascertain the reliability of the research instruments, eventually, from the 342 surveys sent out, 224 were completed and returned. For data analysis, Microsoft Excel was utilized in coding and organizing the data to create tables and graphs. The findings showed that X was the respondents' most used platform for political discourse. Most respondents were aware of and engaged in political discussions on social media, and believed that social media influenced their political attitudes and beliefs. Although most viewed social media as a source of civic education, they were skeptical about its reliability due to misinformation. The study concludes that many youths in Kiambu County are actively participating in political discussions online and therefore it recommends that better education should be provided to help the youth discern credible information from misinformation. Additionally, interventions should be established to curb digital crimes like cyberbullying and online fraud.

Genetic and environmental influences on the stability of political attitudes

It has been established across several contexts that political attitudes are informed by heritable factors. However, it remains unclear how much of the stability we observe in political attitudes can be ascribed to environmental factors and how much of the stability is due to genetics. In this paper we show, using a unique three-wave panel dataset of twins (N = 2471) spanning ten years, that both environmental and genetic influences are important in explaining the stability of social and economic ideology. However, we find that changes in ideology over time are explained by environmental factors for both social and economic ideology. For social ideology, only the shared environment is important in explaining changes over time. For economic ideology, both shared and unique environmental factors influence changes over time. Our results suggest that stability and change in political attitudes is a complex phenomenon that is best understood when examining heritable as well as social factors.

Attraction by pairwise coherence explains the emergence of ideological sorting.

Political polarization has become a growing concern in democratic societies, as it drives tribal alignments and erodes civic deliberation among citizens. Given its prevalence across different countries, previous research has sought to understand under which conditions people tend to endorse extreme opinions. However, in polarized contexts, citizens not only adopt more extreme views but also become correlated across issues that are, a priori, seemingly unrelated. This phenomenon, known as "ideological sorting", has been receiving greater attention in recent years but the micro-level mechanisms underlying its emergence remain poorly understood. Here, we study the conditions under which a social dynamic system is expected to become ideologically sorted as a function of the mechanisms of interaction between its individuals. To this end, we developed and analyzed a multidimensional agent-based model that incorporates two mechanisms: homophily (where people tend to interact with those holding similar opinions) and pairwise-coherence favoritism (where people tend to interact with ingroups holding politically coherent opinions). We numerically integrated the model's master equations that perfectly describe the system's dynamics and found that ideological sorting only emerges in models that include pairwise-coherence favoritism. We then compared the model's outcomes with empirical data from 24,035 opinions across 67 topics and found that pairwise-coherence favoritism is significantly present in datasets that measure political attitudes but absent across topics not considered related to politics. Overall, this work combines theoretical approaches from system dynamics with model-based analyses of empirical data to uncover a potential mechanism underlying the pervasiveness of ideological sorting.

Penanaman Nilai-Nilai Karakter Islami Melalui Program Bina Pribadi Islam

The purpose of this study is to determine the quality of Islamic character through the BPI (Islamic Personal Development) program at SDIT2 Daarussalam. The BPI (Islamic Personal Development) program at SDIT2 Daarussalam aims to instill the quality of Islamic character. This research uses qualitative descriptive analysis techniques known as field research, data collection techniques through observation, interviews and documentation. The findings of this research show that: The purpose of the implementation of the BPI (Islamic Personal Development) Program at SDIT2 Daarussalam is to instill Islamic character values and Islamic habits among students. Students should be consistently inculcated with strong ethical principles that are aligned with Islamic teachings, ensuring they are ready to contribute to society as a highly capable, independent, and pious generation. Intellectually intelligent, independent, and devout to religious or spiritual beliefs. The BPI program is implemented once a week on Friday during school hours. The implementation uses exemplary coaching techniques, coaching with habituation, and coaching with guidance, all of which are contained in the program. The results of the cultivation of these character values are seen in the polite attitude of children, always covering the aurat and getting used to practicing nahi and munkar actions. Keyword : Value planting, Islamic character, BPI (Muslim Personal Development)

Hierarchy and Typology of Political Culture

This article discusses political structure and culture with a focus on several key dimensions, namely the physical structure of politics, the social structure of politics, and various types of political culture. The physical structure of politics refers to the formal institutions and political mechanisms that influence the process of political action. The socio-political structure includes the distribution of power and social hierarchies that influence political dynamics in society. Furthermore, this article outlines the different types of political culture, including a political parochial culture that shows minimal involvement in national political affairs, a political subjective culture that reflects individuals' political attitudes and orientations towards power and political participation, and a political participatory culture that encourage active participation in the political process. Through an analysis of the physical and socio-political structures, as well as various political cultures, this article provides a more accurate understanding of the complexity of politics in modern societies. The implications of this understanding for public policy development and political system development are also discussed in depth.

Causal inference with latent outcomes

AbstractWhile causal inference has become front and center in empirical political science, we know little about how to analyze causality with latent outcomes, such as political values, beliefs, and attitudes. In this article, we develop a framework for defining, identifying, and estimating the causal effect of an observed treatment on a latent outcome, which we call the latent treatment effect (LTE). We describe a set of assumptions that allow us to identify the LTE and propose a hierarchical item response model to estimate it. We highlight an often overlooked exclusion restriction assumption, which states that treatment status should not affect the observed indicators other than through the latent outcome. A simulation study shows that the hierarchical approach offers unbiased estimates of the LTE under the identification and modeling assumptions, whereas conventional two‐step approaches are biased. We illustrate our proposed methodology using data from two published experimental studies.

The participation of Red Army soldiers in the providing of complete collectivization in Podillia

The purpose of the article is, based on the analysis of archival sources, general and special literature, to shed light on the participation of Red Army soldiers in the providing of complete collectivization in Podillya. The research methodology is based on the principles of objectivity and historicism using both general scientific and special research methods: problem-chronological, historical-comparative, critical analysis method. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the disclosure of an insufficiently studied problem in Ukrainian historiography, designed to clarify the role and place of the Red Army in the establishment of the Bolshevik totalitarian regime in the Podilsk village. Conclusions. The Red Army, from the moment of its creation, was considered by the Bolsheviks as one of the institutions of the implementation of the communist regime. Being 2/3 peasant in terms of social composition, it was to become a school of political education and cultural enlightenment in the spirit of communist ideas for former peasant owners. The strengthening of such work is observed at the end of the 1920s, when the regime's attempt to resume the "military-communist assault" ran into desperate resistance from the peasantry and became a threat to the existence of the communist government. From that time, the Bolshevik leadership not only set specific tasks for the Red Army, but also tried to systematically control the political and moral attitudes of the Red Army. One of the important directions of the work of military units was to assist the authorities in the process of socialization of one-person peasant farms. In the conditions of complete collectivization, the army was entrusted with tasks not only of an educational and propaganda nature, but also of direct participation in the collectivization of the village. In particular, the military units stationed in Podilla were involved in: training personnel for collective farm construction; taking over the villages that were transitioning to complete collectivization; sending groups of Red Army soldiers to collective farms to perform specific tasks; admission to collectives by whole divisions; organization of special Red Army collective farms. By carrying out extensive educational and propaganda work, applying methods of ensuring military discipline and practicing selective repression among the commanding and rank-and-file staff, the Bolshevik authorities managed not only to overcome oppositional sentiments in the army, but also to turn it into an obedient tool of the communist dictatorship.

Evolution vs. Creationism in the Classroom: The Lasting Effects of Science Education

Abstract Anti-scientific attitudes can impose substantial costs on societies. Can schools be an important agent in mitigating the propagation of such attitudes? This article investigates the effect of the content of science education on anti-scientific attitudes, knowledge, and choices. The analysis exploits staggered reforms that reduce or expand the coverage of evolution theory in U.S. state science education standards. I compare adjacent student cohorts in models with state and cohort fixed effects. There are three main results. First, expanded evolution coverage increases students’ knowledge about evolution. Second, the reforms translate into greater evolution belief in adulthood, but do not crowd out religiosity or affect political attitudes. Third, the reforms affect high-stakes life decisions, namely, the probability of working in life sciences.

Hidden nationalism: the nature and configuration of Spanish nationalism

ABSTRACT Spanish nationalism has been a controversial issue among scholars, to the extent that even its existence has been questioned. In this study, the characteristics of Spanish nationalist feeling are analyzed. We use content analysis of newspapers during the ‘Catalan challenge,’ a period of open conflict between the Catalan pro-independence political forces and the Spanish State. During the ‘Catalan challenge’, the characteristics of Spanish nationalism became more visible, making this period an opportunity to carrying out this analysis. The results point to a nationalism with unique characteristics, that we have called Hidden Nationalism. These findings could have key implications for the analysis of political attitudes in Spain.

From Narratives to Monuments: Symbolic Transformation of the Cultural Landscape of the Kaliningrad Region

The article is based on the materials of field research conducted in the Kaliningrad region in 2022–2023. The authors proceed from the idea of this region as a frontier emerged due to redefinition of jurisdiction of the territories of East Prussia after World War II and geopolitical transformations after 1991. Currently, the region is surrounded by EU countries, and this predetermines its perception as a civilizational frontier – a space of comparison between Russian and European ways of life, and intensified the politicization of local historical memory. The aim of the article is to examine the narratives underlying visual transformation of the cultural landscape of the Kaliningrad region since 1945, their relation to the tasks of de-actualization of the region’s past, appropriation of German heritage and its integration into the Russian cultural space. Cultural landscape is defined both as a product and environment of human activity saturated with a variety of artifacts, and as a sign system that forms, preserves, and controls a certain vision of the world. The use of the semiotic paradigm allowed us to consider monuments as its long-term semantic accents. We also took into account the multiplicity of actors influencing the organization and reorganization of the cultural landscape, the variability of the correlation of political forces and opportunities, and the participation in the transformation processes of both power institutions that limit the possibility of alternative perception of reality, and society that resists ideological programming. The evolution of semantic dominants of the cultural landscape we analyzed in the context of shifts in the ideology and attitudes of regional society. We conclude that the compromise tactics of appropriation of the region’s past, developed over time, are based on countering the challenges of the time and solving practical problems, rather than on political attitudes.

‘A Strange World of Fantasy’: The Radio Propaganda of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation, 1964–1970. 1

This article uses transcripts of Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation radio programmes to investigate the development of political attitudes in Rhodesia during the UDI era. In order to do this it engages with a number of key themes relating to both the international position of the rebel colony and the domestic situation. It argues that Rhodesian radio played an important role in developing the key myths of the UDI era, providing (white) listeners with comforting narratives which downplayed the crisis in which they found themselves. It shows that there were several central tenets to this. The first argument was that key Western powers, namely Britain and the USA were led by naive fools who, unlike the Rhodesians, had little understanding of Africa, and lacked the conviction to challenge communism. The second was that, as part of this, Rhodesia was being victimised. This led onto the third key theme: That the Rhodesians, supported by the public in Britain and America, were taking up the mantle that Western politicians had discarded. By reconstructing these ideas this article is able to show the diet of political thought that white Rhodesians were imbibing during this period, a process which enhanced their motivation and sense of identity.

Personality Aspects and Attitudes About Animal Welfare Legislation

ABSTRACT The US Supreme Court recently debated and upheld a significant piece of farmed animal welfare legislation, Proposition 12, which was broadly supported by Californian voters. The goal of this study was to determine how individual differences in personality are related to attitudes about this legislation. We examined how ten lower-order aspects of the Big Five personality traits were related to Proposition 12 in an American sample (n = 802). The Openness aspect of Openness to Experience, the Withdrawal aspect of Neuroticism, and trait domain Agreeableness were consistently related to support for Proposition 12. Effects were not moderated by political orientation, region, gender, or age. Our results show that personality traits are not only an important factor in general political attitudes about animal welfare, but that they can predict people’s attitudes about particular pieces of animal welfare legislation. Results also highlight the importance of considering lower-order aspects for predicting animal welfare attitudes.

The secular voter: Secularism and political attitudes in the United States

AbstractAs America grows more secular, secularism is increasingly relevant for American political attitudes and behavior. In this article, we contend that secularism—conceptualized as the affirmative embrace of secular belief and identity—is distinct from nonreligiosity, which is simply the absence of religion. We also argue that, at present, secularism is primarily a psychological, and not a social, orientation. Secular belonging and behavior are quite rare and generally unimportant politically, but secular belief and identity are far more prevalent and politically relevant. We examine the relationships that secular belief and identity, secular behavior, and nonreligiosity have with political orientations. Secular belief and identity have a much stronger and more consistent political connection than do secular behavior or nonreligiosity. Then, operationalizing secularism simply as secular belief and identity, we assess its connection to contemporary conspiracy beliefs and to support for democratic values. We find that secularists disavow most conspiracy theories and support the core democratic values of participatory democracy, freedom of expression, and political tolerance. Secularism's connection to political tolerance and support for freedom of expression is quite interesting because it is very different from those of liberal ideology and Democratic partisanship.

New Media's Influence in Shaping Political Awareness, Attitudes and Behaviours: The Media Literacy as a Moderator and Peer Influence as a Mediator

This comparative study delves into the intricate dynamics of new media's influence on political awareness, attitudes, and behaviors among university students in China and Malaysia. It examines how various factors, including media literacy and peer influence, moderate and mediate the relationship between new media consumption habits and political education outcomes. Through a mixed-methods approach, data were collected from Chinese and Malaysian university students, exploring their engagement with different types of new media platforms, content delivery methods, frequency of exposure, perceived credibility of sources, and the influence of peer networks. The study identifies significant challenges and opportunities posed by the evolving digital landscape in both countries, addressing issues such as misinformation, echo chambers, commercialization, digital divide, and disparities in access. Findings reveal nuanced differences in the impact of new media on political education between the two cultural contexts, highlighting the importance of context-specific interventions and educational strategies.