Political Cynicism Research Articles

Ambivalent citizenship: political cynicism, community engagement and belonging among youth in Brazil

ABSTRACT This article interrogates the role of urban peripheries in creating political imaginaries and understandings of citizenship among children and grandchildren of insurgent citizens in urban Northeast Brazil. The analysis draws on data collected through 10 ethnographically informed focus groups with youth between 18 and 35. The article argues that, contrary to beliefs that young people are apathetic about politics or enthusiastic to engage in progressive social movements, youth have an ambivalent relationship with the state, informed by everyday encounters with precarious infrastructure, awareness of previous forms of collective action that determines their civic engagement, and feelings of belonging to home communities. The article suggests revisiting the concept of insurgent citizenship considering new socio-political changes that framed the lives of young people living in urban peripheries in the past two decades in Brazil and proposes ambivalence as a productive theoretical angle to make sense of ruptures and discontinuities in political practices.

Algorithmic Dissent: Militarized Platforms and Palestinian Political Imagination in Jerusalem

This article provides an ethnographic account of how young Palestinian Jerusalemites responded to Israeli state surveillance during the summer and fall of 2021. Threading between interviews with social media influencers, long-time activists, and everyday users who broadcast the historic uprising on the internet, the author chronicles how these youth made use of digital platforms to draw unprecedented attention to settler violence in their city in spite of intrusive monitoring and censorship by Israeli authorities. Reviewing a long history of Israeli surveillance and extending ethnographic accounts of political cynicism in Palestine, the author argues that the suspicion many Palestinians exhibit toward social media platforms is an asset. Heightened awareness of how new technologies facilitated dragnet surveillance by Israeli authorities did not silence young Jerusalemites into acquiescence to a repressive status quo. Instead, it inspired them to speak out on their own terms, safeguarding their city while dramatizing the limits of surveillance.

The Influence of Political Marketing Mix on Voting Intention: The Mediating Roles of Brand Image, Political Cynicism, and Brand Engagement

The Influence of Political Marketing Mix on Voting Intention: The Mediating Roles of Brand Image, Political Cynicism, and Brand Engagement

The Structure of Individualized and Generalized Political Trust: A Network Analysis of Data from Two Representative-Sample Studies

This study examined the relationship between generalized (trust in the political system) and individualized (trust in a specific political actor) political trust in two surveys with representative samples from Latvia (total N = 2,001). The results of a regularized partial correlation network analysis of the data from both surveys revealed that variables associated with each level of trust formed separate clusters, which were virtually unrelated in Study 1, and moderately related in Study 2. Across both datasets, political cynicism was the only variable robustly (negatively) related to both levels of trust. External political efficacy was strongly related to generalized political trust, whereas internal political efficacy was unrelated to either level of political trust. Generalized interpersonal trust was only weakly related to generalized political trust and was unrelated to individualized political trust. The findings show that trust in the political system and trust in specific political actors form separate, although related, network structures and are likely determined by a different set of variables, representing different kinds of psychological reasoning. Generalized political trust can be seen as part of a general attitude towards one’s country, whereas individualized trust is based on more situational factors and shaped through the mechanisms of person perception and group perception.

Rejection of the status quo: Conspiracy theories and preference for alternative political systems.

Conspiracy theories introduce a democratic paradox, as belief in conspiracy theories predicts support for both democratic and non-democratic political systems. In this article, we explore whether democratic and anti-democratic attitudes, resulting from conspiracy beliefs, can be mutually exclusive. In Study 1 (United Kingdom, N = 293), we show that belief in conspiracy theories is associated with decreased support for representative democracy, and increased support for direct democracy, anarchism, and autocracy within the same individuals. In Study 2 (United States, N = 302, pre-registered), we experimentally show that the perceived presence of conspiracies is linked to an increased preference for direct democracy, anarchism, and autocracy and decreased support for representative democracy. Mediational analyses suggest that widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo and, less consistently, feelings of political cynicism mediate the relationships between conspiracy beliefs and (anti-)democratic attitudes. In Study 3 (United States, N = 400, pre-registered), we experimentally manipulate (dis)satisfaction with the status quo. Results indicate that rejecting the status quo increases support for direct democracy, anarchism, and autocracy and decreases support for representative democracy. Overall, our findings suggest that people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to favour both democratic and anti-democratic political alternatives, largely attributed to citizens' desire to change the status quo.

Breaking Barriers With Memes: How Memes Bridge Political Cynicism to Online Political Participation

While numerous studies have explored the participatory benefits of social media use for political participation, the empirical literature on the mobilizing role of political memes is nearly absent. In addition, most of the attention has been on Western democratic contexts. By employing survey data from an Asian context—Singapore—this study scrutinizes the impact of exposure to political memes in the interplay between political use of social media and online political participation. In addition, it investigates the contingent role of political cynicism. First, the results show that political social media use is associated with online political participation and that association is mediated by exposure to political memes. Further, moderation analyses indicate that social media use provides participatory gains only for individuals exhibiting low political cynicism. However, when such social media use facilitates exposure to political memes, it primarily mobilizes those with high political cynicism into active online political participation. The results suggest that memes can mobilize disengaged groups into active participation.

Impression Management and Expectations of Political Cynicism

There are many warnings about growing political cynicism in the news and political science literature. While some people may be truly cynical about politics, for others cynical responses to politics may be a form of impression management—the practice of presenting oneself to others in the way one wishes to be perceived. In three studies, I demonstrate that people report they are cynical in order to avoid giving the impression they do not know much about politics. Political cynicism is not a “socially desirable” characteristic—people do not believe cynicism is normatively good. At the same time, many see value to cynicism in politics, a finding which carries broad implications for the relationship between cynicism and perceived knowledge in political discourse.

Causes And Solutions for Low Turnout Rates in Chinese Local Elections: From A Plebeian Perspective

There have been ample academic efforts discussing prospects of liberalizing the authoritarian regime in China, but most of them primarily addressed possible institutional reforms by the party and to some extent overlooked importance of the mass. Therefore, this article attempts to identify factors that dissuade or refrain Chinese citizens from voting in local elections and devise corresponding solutions, for their political enthusiasm to be improved independently of state sanctions, while the finding may provide a novel theory regarding weak correlation between the level of political freedom and turnout rate in liberal democracies. By considering subjects as economic agents in cost-benefit analysis, the combination of underestimated benefits and overestimated costs of voting is highlighted as one fundamental reason for non-voting, which comprises of antiquated cultural norms, aloof social relations and inappropriately handled class struggles. In response to phenomenon of apoliticism, political cynicism or political inactiveness, this paper suggests eligible voters to keenly defend their interests, for instance studying publicized government information, participating in trade unions and respecting their suffrage, as the prerequisite for becoming genuinely and consistently active in political affairs.

Antecedents of Corruption Perception in Guyana

Regardless of its utility as a measure of actual corruption, perceived corruption is related to many political attitudes and other variables which makes it an important phenomenon to understand. This paper explores demographic variables, ideological orientations, socioeconomic status, interpersonal trust, political attitudes and feelings of resentment as explanations for corruption perception with response styles controlled within a structural equation modelling framework using survey data collected in Guyana where corruption is salient and thought to be pervasive. It finds that the categories of variables jointly explain 31.5% of the variance in corruption perception and that there is explanatory utility for each category of variables evaluated except socioeconomic status with demographics and ideological orientations accounting for the largest changes in explained variance. It also finds that political cynicism attenuates an initial effect of interpersonal trust and concludes that ethnicity appears to function as partisan orientation in its relationship with corruption perception.

When Social Media Attack: How Exposure to Political Attacks on Social Media Promotes Anger and Political Cynicism

Political cynicism is rising in many democracies throughout the world. At the same time, people increasingly use social media to access news and political information. However, much of the political content people see on these platforms is hostile, uncivil, and attacking. This study examines whether exposure to these political attacks on social media is associated with political cynicism and, if so, whether negative emotions like anger and anxiety play a mediating role in this process. Using data from a panel survey of American adults ( N = 1,800) collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, this study examines whether exposure to political attacks on social media is related to both emotions about the state of the country and political cynicism. Data indicate that people who were exposed to more political attacks on social media were more politically cynical. Further, perceived exposure to political attacks on social media was associated with more anger about the state of the United States, which was subsequently related to greater levels of political cynicism. The results provide evidence that exposure to political attacks on social media might contribute to both negative emotions about the country and political cynicism.

The intergroup dynamics of political cynicism: how perceived discrimination, outsiderness, and social capital relate to political cynicism among Moroccan and Turkish Belgians.

This study examines how intergroup dynamics shape political cynicism among Belgians of Turkish and Moroccan descent. Concretely, we examine whether perceptions of discrimination, feelings of ethnic outsiderness and social capital (in terms of associational membership) can explain minorities' belief that political elites are selfish, incompetent, and immoral. We analyse data from the Belgian Ethnic Minorities Election Study 2014. Arguing that political cynicism includes blame attribution towards the political establishment, we distinguish between perceived group discrimination by the government, on the labor market, and in everyday life. As expected, political cynicism is closely related to perceptions of government discrimination, with no observed correlation with discrimination in the other domains. Next, we show that perceived ethnic outsiderness is also strongly related to increased feelings of political cynicism, further reinforcing the argument that cynics are concerned with their ethnic group's excluded status and position in society. Finally, associational membership is only related to lower political cynicism when it is generated exclusively within ethnic boundaries; there was no relationship with cross-ethnic social capital. Our findings show that intergroup indicators are highly relevant for understanding minorities' political cynicism, but that the intergroup dynamics operate in complex and nuanced ways.

Types and archetypes of carnival political culture

Political carnival is understood as a distorted world in which the three main demons rule – lies, evil and amoralism. They create a perverted view of objective reality. Carnival figures look at the world with tightly closed eyes and do not see what everyone easily contemplates. Political carnival is evaluated as devaluation of political values, as deviation of ruling elite groups, and as a destructive force capable of destroying a political system in crisis. The world of political carnival is a world of absurdity, falsification and hypocrisy. It is a facade brought to political cynicism. Its crooked mirrors reflect the vices of human nature, such as: vanity, corruption, hypocrisy, sanctimony, pride, etc. All these vices are not hidden, but, on the contrary, they are praised and cultivated. It is as an aggressive advertisement of vices that we appreciate the essence of political carnival. It is a world where each keeps the other on the hook of compromise. They easily adopt the psychosis of the other. The madness of one becomes the madness of all. At any moment they can pretend to be anyone. In this sense, the political carnival is an epidemic of amoralism. And this existential threat is something that humanity is constantly confronted with. In the structure of such evil, certain types and archtypes of carnival political culture are constantly reproduced. It is to the analysis of these types that the present study is devoted.

Streaming audiovisual audiences: analysis of the feelings of efficacy, alienation and cynicism in millennials and centennials in Spain and Mexico

In recent years, censorship of streaming movies and series have gone hand in hand with social movements that pressure large audiovisual production companies, distributors and OTTs through digital networks, in the context of a growing «woke culture», especially among the younger generation. This study aims to examine the psychosocial feelings of efficacy, alienation and political cynicism in the millennial and centennial generations in Mexico and Spain, the two Spanish-speaking countries with the highest rates of streaming audiovisual content consumption. For this purpose, a national survey was applied to 998 participants in both countries. Among the main results, it is highlighted that centennials feel a higher level of political efficacy, considering valid that the opinions in social networks should serve for audiovisual production companies to take into account the wishes and expectations of audiences. Regarding alienation, both generations, but especially centennials, consider that changes in the plot or story of a series or movie due to social pressure are due more to a clientelistic vision of the production companies than to the empowerment of the viewer. Finally, about political cynicism, millennials in both countries believe that audiovisual production companies respond more to political agendas interests than the idea of «responsible entertainment».

Aging in contemporary India: A qualitative inquiry

ABSTRACT India is aging. The growth of India’s older population has increased our concerns about their well-being. While it is critical to explore the diverse needs and aging experience of older Indians, their voices are largely missing in the aging literature. In this context, data was collected from 63 community-dwelling and OAH residing older men and women of Delhi NCR to understand their aging experience, views about old age and perceived need for government intervention in old age care and support. Reflexive thematic analysis of their aging experience and perception of old age generated five themes and six sub-themes: The aging body encompassing three sub-themes “the older we become the more diseases we have”, “the ointment called positive thinking”, “women’s quest for self-care”; Psychological gains and social losses; Affiliation, distraction and anticipation; The aging parent and the adult child comprising three sub-themes “filial relations—quality and quantity”, “children these days and their mobile phones”, “our daughter shows us more love and care”; and A time for religious and spiritual devotion. Lastly, the analysis of their perceived need for government support in old age care generated five sub-themes – Political cynicism, I was a private employee but am I not a part of this country? Government or Private Hospitals: A no-win situation, Everyday life and Reforms in OAHs. The present findings highlight the multidimensional and multidirectional experience of aging and the diverse needs of older persons in the Indian context.

Discourse Network Analysis on Delaying Elections in President Joko Widodo's Era

The postponement of elections became an issue that was widely discussed during President Jokowi's presidency, resulting in increased public distrust of politicians and politics itself and created political cynicism. Meanwhile, public distrust and political cynicism greatly influence public policies created by political leaders. Through discourse network analysis, this study wants to see the relationship between the discourse on postponing elections and the relationship between discourse and public policy. The novelty of the previous research on postponing elections lies in the theory of political cynicism which is very relevant in explaining the process of forming policies on this issue. This research looks at during (January-April 2022), the issue of postponing elections produces conflict discourse, this also explains that conflict discourse often occurs in controversial policies. This controversial policy conflict brought the public to a high level of distrust, directly proportional to the political cynicism that occurred. Finally, the neutral discourse that was present reminded political leaders to focus more on urgent problems because the impact of political cynicism also made it difficult for political leaders to make decisions.

Reassessing Provincial Political Cultures: Evidence from Five Decades of Canadian Public Opinion Surveys (1974–2019)

AbstractIn 1974, Richard Simeon and David Elkins published an influential analysis of provincial political cultures. Nearly half a century later, their results still operate as the baseline against which new studies compare their own results. In this article, I re-examine their conclusions, combining five decades of Canadian public opinion survey data (1974–2019). The article replicates their analysis by focusing on three dimensions of political culture examined by Simeon and Elkins: political cynicism, internal political efficacy and external political efficacy. It also expands on their work by accounting for contextual factors that can potentially drive or hinder provincial differences in political culture. The results suggest that Simeon and Elkins’ interpretation of Canadian provincial political cultures needs to be updated, as the patterns they found differ markedly from those identified in this article.

El consumo de información y de conversación política interactiva en las actitudes y la participación política de los jóvenes en la zona metropolitana de Monterrey, Nuevo León, México. Escenario preelectoral 2018

Traditional media (print media, radio and television) or those represented by the digital age (Internet and social networks) are suitable channels for the process represented by political communication; in turn, this is a factor that impacts on political attitudes and political participation of citizens. In correlation to the above, the main objective of this research is to determine the explanatory level of the consumption of political information and interactive political conversation against the political attitudes and participation of young people. The research design is quantitative, since an opinion poll was applied in the pre-electoral scenario 2018 in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. The main results indicates that the consumption of political content online is the variable that has a higher level of explanation about the interest in the policy of the participants of the study, There is also evidence that could bring the results of the research closer to the theories of political mobilization. On the other hand, in relation to political attitudes there is a very important contrast since there is a political interest and a feeling of openness of the relatively high political system in opposition to a very marked political cynicism on the part of young people.

Political cynicism and political efficacy: reflections on political representation and participation with students from a Brazilian Public University

Political cynicism and political efficacy: reflections on political representation and participation with students from a Brazilian Public University

Understanding Australian Voters’ Reactions to Allegations of Political Party Misconduct: The Role of Party Identification

ABSTRACT Relationships between an organization and its key strategic publics form a central construct of study in strategic communication and public relations literature. The present study draws upon strategic communication, consumer psychology, and political science literature to explore a relatively understudied phenomenon, i.e., publics’ relationship dissolution intentions, specifically in the context of political party-voter relationships. This study examined the roles of party identification and political cynicism in predicting individuals’ relationship dissolution intentions with their political party upon learning of misconduct allegations against their political party. An online survey was conducted in February 2019 among Australians to examine the linkages between their political cynicism, party identification, distrust and perceived moral inequity, and attendant relationship dissolution intentions. The results revealed that individuals’ strength of party identification mitigated their negative evaluation of the alleged misconduct, whereas political cynicism increased it. Perceived moral inequity was found to positively impact voters’ distrust of the political party, which increased their relationship dissolution intentions. Implications for strategic communication and political communication are discussed.

Populism in Peru: Populist attitudes and perception of the populist offer and its relationship with political cynicism and attitudes toward democracy.

Populism is a phenomenon that is gaining attention in Political Psychology. The goal of the current study was to determine the relationship between populist attitudes, based on the populist demand and the perception of the populist offer, and several indices of political cynicism and attitudes toward democracy in Peru. To do this, a quantitative correlational study including 391 participants from diverse Peruvian locations was carried out. Both populist attitudes and critical perception of the populist offer are found to be directly related to Political Cynicism in its dimensions of Political Distrust, Political Hopelessness, and Political Moral Laxity, and inversely related to the dimension of Political System Change. Similarly, both dimensions of populism are directly related to Democratic Support and inversely related to Democratic Satisfaction. The findings support the notion that populist attitudes emerge in the context of distrust of the system and express an ambivalent relationship with democracy. Furthermore, the various approaches developed by the social sciences to address the populist phenomenon are discussed in terms of their strengths and limitations.