Political Disagreement Research Articles

… nicht so, wie ich es mir erwartete: Der Rom-Aufenthalt Kaiser Franz’ I. von Österreich im Jahre 1819

In February 1819 the Austrian Emperor Francis I left his residence, Vienna, accompanied by his fourth wife Empress Carolina Augusta and a large entourage, for a six-month tour through Italy with stops in Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples. This special journey is well documented in Francis I’s personal diaries, written during the trip. It was Rome that dominated the whole journey. Soon after starting the first preparations for travel, it became quite clear that the visit to the Eternal City would be a delicate matter because of long-lasting disputes between the Papal states and the Habsburg monarchy. Originally Emperor Francis I wanted to celebrate the Easter holidays (Settimana Santa) privately, but ultimately it turned into an official state visit with all the concomitant pomp and circumstance. The monarch completed an intense but diverse program, beginning with the Easter liturgy. Typically for his solid character, the religious solemnity did not impress him at all. More precisely, he found these festivities quite odd and disappointing. Following the traditional Grand Tour pattern, the Emperor enjoyed himself by visiting well-known Roman sights. He entertained himself by studying lesser-known places in Rome’s surroundings and liked to discover the local flora and fauna there. In particular, the Roman ancient buildings impressed him deeply. Meeting the Roman elite and aristocracy, Francis I became the centre of attention on many occasions. Furthermore, he also came into contact with exiled monarchs and met other aristocrats who were visiting Rome, e. g. the Duchess of Württemberg, with whom Francis finalized the marriage contract for his younger brother Archduke Joseph. Finally, numerous personal meetings between Pope Pius VII and Emperor Francis I solved religious and political disagreements, which finally lead to a friendlier relationship between Rome and Vienna.

Effects of politicized media coverage: Experimental evidence from the HPV vaccine and COVID-19.

Although concerns about politicization of health and science are not new, the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified attention to how political disagreement over scientific guidelines and recommendations might influence attitudes and behaviors about the health topics in question and might even spill or carry over to affect other attitudes important to public health. The literature employs differing definitions of politicization—at times referring to controversy in the public sphere, at others referring to the exploitation of the uncertainty inherent in science, and at still others referring to whether the issue enters political discourse—all of which are viewed as distinct dimensions by the public. What is not known is how these different aspects of politicization influence public attitudes about the health topics and or broader attitudes about scientific guidelines, and—assuming adverse effects—what strategies might be effective at mitigating the consequences. This paper draws on a survey experiment of 3012 U.S. respondents fielded in summer 2020 that was designed as a pilot study to assess the effects of different dimensions of politicization. Findings do not suggest that one type of politicization is necessarily more pernicious than the others. In fact, all types of politicization increased negative emotional responses and confusion, both with respect to the health topic in question (HPV vaccine and COVID-19) but also on other domains, although opinions about policy were unaffected. The findings also suggest that inoculation may have potential as a messaging strategy for blunting the adverse effects of exposure to politicization.

The U.S. Healthcare System: In Search of a New Management Model

The problem of finding an effective model for managing the health care system in the United States has always been and remains a topical topic of both scientific discussions and the subject of sharp party battles. The article touches upon the most acute points of existing disagreements that arise between the participants in the events in the last decade. The question of the need to strengthen state intervention in the management of the health care system for the sake of the public good is becoming strategically important. Representatives of the Democratic Party are consistently advancing the course to consolidate the trend of expanding the scope of state health insurance at the legislative level, which affects the financial interests of significant players in the medical services market. The paper shows that despite the inevitability of political disagreements, in the emergency situation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, all warring parties had to look for the most effective solutions for life support and access to medical care for the poor. The author comes to the conclusion that due to the acquisition of experience in the active interaction of all participants in overcoming the crisis, the prospects for partnerships between the state and private companies in the medical field are significantly expanding.

Review on: Aleksander Szklennik. «Wspomnienia o wydarzeniach w Wilnie i w kraju». Dziennik. Wstęp i opracowanie Joanna Gierowska-Kałłaur. Część I. Warszawa: Instytut Historii PAN, 2018. 960 s. ISBN 978-83-65880-36-9; Część II. Warszawa: Instytut Historii PAN, 2019. 1067 s. ISBN 978-83-65880-77-2 / Morfozy społeczne. 18.

A review of an edition of the diary of a prominent figure in the Vilna (Vilnius) cooperative Alexander Szklennik, which he began keeping a few months before the German occupation of the city and before the November Revolution in Germany. The manuscript of the diary was donated 15 years after the author’s death by his relatives to the Vilna Association of Friends of Science. Its publication was carried out by Dr Joanna Gierowska-Kałłaur. The published diary is the only such comprehensive and stunningly accurate picture at the disposal of historians of everyday life in Vilna during the German occupation. The picture of the real situation in Vilna and the Vilna region in 1915–1918 remained unclear for a long time, due to the one-sidedness of Polish historiography, the influence of German and Lithuanian historical politics and the myth of the foundation of the Belarusian People’s Republic. For Polish historiography, the most significant factor limiting the possibility of a reliable historical analysis of the situation in Vilna was the lack of access for Polish historians to the sources remaining in «archival dispersal» outside Poland. The diary’s text, replete with details of everyday life in the city and descriptions of political disagreements between the national communities (Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians and Jews), makes it possible to recreate a comprehensive picture of life in the city during the occupation period.

Investigating effects of social endorsements on exposure to and engagement with political disagreement on social networking sites*

AbstractObjectiveSocial networking sites (SNSs) provide users with a variety of opportunities to encounter political disagreement. One important factor of the encounters with disagreement could be social endorsements because SNS users can easily engage with other people's posts via functions, such as liking and retweeting. The goal of this study is to test the hypothesis by examining the relationship between social endorsements, exposure to political disagreement (XPD), and information seeking.MethodsWe use a national survey conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. Ordinary least squares regression models are specified for analysis.ResultsWe find that SNS users who prefer reading political information endorsed by others are more likely to encounter political disagreement. We also find that XPD on SNSs encourages people to search for more information about the counter‐attitudinal posts, especially when the encountered disagreement is perceived to have good arguments and rationales.ConclusionOverall, social endorsement enhances the probability of XPD on SNSs. This in turn facilitates individuals’ search for more information, an important feature in democracy.

Implications of online incidental and selective exposure for political emotions: Affective polarization during elections

The Internet and social media create an environment in which individuals can selectively approach information supporting their political worldviews while also being incidentally exposed to socially shared information that challenges their beliefs. These competing information consumption patterns may help explain whether and how digital media contribute to affective polarization (i.e. affect-based division between political groups). This study examines how pro-attitudinal selective exposure and counter-attitudinal incidental exposure in tandem influence political emotions. Using data from 2, two-wave panel surveys conducted during the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, our findings demonstrate that seeking consonant political information is consistently associated with anger toward political opponents and enthusiasm toward like-minded partisans. In contrast, despite the purported democratic benefits endowed on political disagreement, cross-cutting incidental exposure does not temper political emotional responses associated with pro-attitudinal selective exposure. However, we find little evidence that unexpected exposure to disagreeable information backfires either.

Making cross-cutting exposure more deliberative: The moderating role of the equality rule in online discussions on a gender issue

Contrary to the normative emphasis on the rule of equality in the deliberation literature, little has been known about empirical consequences of the rule of equality, especially when applied in online discussions where political disagreement is prevalent. Given that hostile gender-related discussions have been noticeably increasing in South Korea, we investigated whether applying deliberative rules, especially cross-cutting exposure and equality, can improve gender-issue discussion quality and foster mutual understanding and healthy political engagement. For this purpose, we designed an online experiment involving moderated deliberations on the abolition of the national abortion ban via KakaoTalk, the most popular messenger platform in South Korea. The deliberative qualities of online discussions in terms of rationality and civility were assessed in a more objective and unobtrusive way: a content analysis of actual conversation transcripts. Participatory intention for gender issue-related activities and civic attitudes were also measured. Results indicate the equality rule can help to promote normatively desirable outcomes in discussions with disagreeing others while the positive effects of cross-cutting exposure were found limited. When combined with the rule of equality, hearing the other side meaningfully enhanced the deliberative qualities and participatory intentions of discussants.

WALKING THE TIGHT ROPE OF DIPLOMACY: ECOWAS APPROACH TO INSTITUTIONAL FORMATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT, 1975 – 1977

Few weeks after the signing ceremony of the Treaty forming the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Lagos, Nigeria on 28 May 1975, the ECOWAS formation treaty was ratified by threshold of member states in June 1975. The charter envisages the immediate formation of the Executive Secretariat to guide the implementation of regional policies and programs and facilitate the achievement of the community integration objectives. However, the ECOWAS institutional formation process was held hostage and delayed for almost two years by some highly political debacles. Using qualitative historical method, this article explores the historical evolution of ECOWAS to highlight the impact of diplomacy on the formation of the Executive secretariat. The finding from the analysis in the study indicates that, the mechanism of diplomatic compromise used to resolve the political disagreements affected the formation process and the structure and function of the ECOWAS Executive Secretariat.

IGAD and Regional Actors in the South Sudan Crisis: A Tale of Interests and Influence

The South Sudan crisis began in December 2013 after a political disagreement between the ruling elites within the SPLM (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement). The SPLM later split into the SPLM-FDS, SPLM-IO, and REAL–SPLM. A few days after the outbreak of the hostilities, some Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) members, such as Uganda, intervened militarily in the conflict, while other IGAD states used diplomatic intervention with the support of the African Union and Troika countries. Effort toward resolving the South Sudan conflict has mainly been centered on regional and international diplomacy. The high-level revitalization talks were initiated by IGAD to bring the warring parties in the country to the negotiation table. Despite the diplomatic negotiations, the agreements signed so far, including the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), have not lasted long because of structural and systemic challenges in their implementation. This article examines the role of IGAD peace diplomacy and conflict mediation in South Sudan by providing a comprehensive narration of the events before, during, and after the signing of the 2018 peace deal, highlighting key challenges that need to be addressed by the stakeholders and opportunities for the effective implementation of the agreement.

Reflective political reasoning: Political disagreement and empathy

AbstractAs political polarization increases across many of the world's established democracies, many citizens are unwilling to appreciate and consider the viewpoints of those who disagree with them. Previous research shows that this lack of reflection can undermine democratic accountability. The purpose of this paper is to study whether empathy for the other can motivate people to reason reflectively about politics. Extant studies have largely studied trait‐level differences in the ability and inclination of individuals to engage in reflection. Most of these studies focus on observational moderators, which makes it difficult to make strong claims about the effects of being in a reflective state on political decision making. We extend this research by using a survey experiment with a large and heterogeneous sample of UK citizens (N = 2014) to investigate whether a simple empathy intervention can induce people to consider opposing viewpoints and incorporate those views in their opinion about a pressing political issue. We find that actively imagining the feelings and thoughts of someone one disagrees with prompts more reflection in the way that people reason about political issues as well as elicits empathic feelings of concern towards those with opposing viewpoints. We further examine whether empathy facilitates openness to attitude change in the counter‐attitudinal direction and find that exposure to an opposing perspective (without its empathy component) per se is enough to prompt attitude change. Our study paints a more nuanced picture of the relationship between empathy, reflection and policy attitudes.

Preferential Roma Representation in the Hungarian Parliament is Obstructed by the Fidesz Government?

In the approach to the 2022 elections in Hungary, ORÖ, the National Roma Self-Government, was supposed to draw up their national minority list but failed to do so before the deadline. This paper argues that this is not just the result of serious political disagreements within the Roma community, but the outcome of different external effects as well. The paper unfolds the two major modes of influence which effect the parliamentary representation of Roma. First, there are institutional constraints hindering the autonomous decision-making processes of the relevant bodies. As the competitive element of elections is pushed down to the level of national self-government, the whole process is more vulnerable to external influences. Second, these institutional weaknesses are complemented by personal bonds and pressures coming from the Fidesz government. Thus, the paper concludes that the system is intended to serve electoral clientelism and as such limits the ‘effectiveness’ of minority representation in Hungary, especially in the case of Roma.

‘Let’s agree to disagree’: political disagreement with contact ties and non-electoral political participation

‘Let’s agree to disagree’: political disagreement with contact ties and non-electoral political participation

How political disagreements undermine intrafamily communication: the case of the anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong

abstract Cross-cutting communication among people of differing political views is essential because it embeds opportunities for deliberation in everyday life. Prior research indicates that people tend to avoid cross-cutting communication because of the potential for interpersonal conflicts. However, political disagreements can be more comfortably expressed between people with strong ties, such as family members, without concern for damage to the ties. Nevertheless, in societies that have witnessed extreme levels of political polarization, political disagreement can reduce intrafamily communication and make deliberation unlikely. In this study, we analyzed survey data collected during the increased political polarization that followed the Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong in 2019. We found that political disagreement within families undermined political discussion, more general communication among family members, and family gatherings during the 2020 Chinese New Year. These findings raise an interesting dilemma, because even though previous research indicates that political disagreement is a precondition for deliberation, our results indicate that this precondition makes deliberation unlikely when a society is politically polarized. They also implied that intrafamily political disagreements can damage bonding social capital by suppressing culturally significant family gatherings.

Social Media and Political Dissent in Russia and Belarus: An Introduction to the Special Issue

The special issue focuses on the roles of socially mediated communication in expressing, aggregating, and shaping political dissent and discontent in Russia and Belarus at the borderline between the 2010s and 2020s. Lately, these post-Soviet countries have demonstrated the growth of restrictive trends in both politics and the public sphere reciprocated by increasing street protest and online polarization. The six papers of the special issue come from the Seventh Annual Conference “Comparative Media Studies in Today’s World” of April 2019. They address the differences between autocracies and democracies in the impact of social media on protest participation, appearance of critical publics, and new media-like gatekeepers on YouTube, Instagram, VKontakte, and other platforms, and cumulative patterns in socially mediated deliberation. The papers demonstrate various manifestations of political disagreement, critique, and moral struggle, including politicization of the mundane, accumulation of self-criticism, and alternation of media consumption habits, thus uncovering the post-Soviet public spheres as vibrant and diverse, even if polarized and constrained.

Propaganda in the Guise of News

Abstract In the late 1940s, conservative radio commentator Fulton Lewis Jr. was embroiled in controversy after publicly criticizing consumer cooperatives for taking advantage of a federal tax loophole. Coinciding with the Federal Communications Commission’s reconsideration of its Mayflower doctrine—a ban on broadcast editorials—the dispute served as fodder for New Deal–era progressive media reformers. This article unpacks Lewis’s mostly forgotten role as an unwitting catalyst of progressive media regulations through reconsidering the FCC’s 1948 Mayflower hearings, which resulted in the fairness doctrine (1949–87). This doctrine mandated that broadcasters present controversial issues of public concern in an ideologically balanced manner. Lewis’s news-breaking thus became framed as a problem in need of federal regulatory solution by reformers who sought to sublimate radio into an idealized liberal public sphere. These reforms, however, framed political disagreement as an epistemological crisis and, in doing so, unintentionally bolstered a conservative critical disposition toward the mainstream press, exemplified in the “liberal media” trope.

Israel's Periphery Doctrines: Then and Now

AbstractOne of Israel's first political strategies was its establishment of relations with non‐Arab states through its “periphery doctrine.” As a means of balancing pan‐Arabism and outflanking its hostile Arab neighbors, the strategy served to enhance Israel's security and economic ties, and reduce regional isolation. Today, Israel operates under a “reverse periphery doctrine,” having recently formed or improved ties with several Arab Gulf states and Eastern Mediterranean countries. The basis for the current Israeli strategy is the understanding by the involved parties that, despite specific political disagreements, they share certain security and economic interests for which an alliance can provide concrete, mutual benefits, especially countering the growing regional influences of Iran and Turkey. In both peripheries, Israel's diplomatic efforts were largely related to the relative power of Iran and Turkey, countries with which Israel had allied itself in the initial periphery. Their present‐day power is the reason Israel is aligned against them in the reverse periphery. As the United States continues to recede from the Middle East, members of the reverse periphery will be further emboldened to work together in managing shared threats.

Cuba, United States and fight against drug trafficking: ups and downs of a necessary cooperation

Given the geostrategic importance of Cuba for the entire American continent and the increasing complexity of the nature of security as such, and accordingly, of the mechanisms of ensuring it in the modern world, the problem of drug trafficking is rather high on the agenda of the U.S.-Cuban relations. The article examines the issue of combating drug trafficking in the context of bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States in order to assess the prospects for joint efforts on this track. The author presents a retrospective of mostly unilateral initiatives by U.S. presidents that did not lead to real tangible results, in particular due to the prevailing erroneous approach of militarization in the fight against drug trafficking. The new century requires new forms and a qualitatively higher level of interaction. With a noticeable warming in the dialogue with Cuba under Barack Obama the situation has changed in many respects, and quite a few initiatives of bilateral nature began to bear fruit. Nevertheless, with Donald Trump’s rise to power, there is an obvious setback in the rapprochement, in proof of which the author gives examples of specific destructive steps, although this position of the administration met if not open criticism, then proposals for alternative scenarios of the development of contacts between the states. The potential that exists in both countries for cooperation in this area can be realized provided that the interests of common security prevail over political disagreements and state channels of cooperation are strengthened, with the dynamics of this process being reflected in the situation in the region as a whole.

The Description of the Contemporary Islamic Movement as Kharijites: A Critical and Analytical Study

<p>This study aims at addressing the extent of proximity and relationship between the contemporary Islamic movements and the Kharijites. Many contemporary scholars, regardless of their motives and trends, describe modern Islamic movements as Kharijites, due to their advocacy for radical social and political reform in many of the Muslim countries. Therefore, there is a need for addressing the genuineness of this description, especially when it is generally attributed to the whole contemporary Islamic movements across the Muslim nations, as it is the case in the view of the Madkhalists. Indeed, the misplacement of this description on some Islamic movements opens the door of political oppression and leads to the justification of shedding the innocent blood and the persecution of the righteous Muslims, based on the political disagreement, as it is the case in many Arab and Muslim countries, i.e., Egypt. So, this study discusses the historical background of the contemporary Islamic movements and their relationship with the Kharijites in order to figure out the range of correspondence between the principles of Kharijites and contemporary Islamic movements. The qualitative method is being applied in the study by adopting a historical, inductive, and analytical approach. It reveals that the contemporary Islamic movements can be loosely categorized into two major groups, one of which cannot be described as the Kharijites in all perspectives, while the other one can be described as the Kharijites due to the tight closeness between their trends and ideologies and the principles of the Kharijites. Likewise, their unjustifiable and terrorist acts against innocent people permit the ascription of the name to such groups among the contemporary Islamic movements.</p>

Cooperation without Consensus: Midwives’ Collaborations across Political Distance

AbstractWhat happens when people not only talk to one another but collaborate closely and form strong relationships in conditions of political heterogeneity? This article analyzes data from ethnographic research in seven states with homebirth midwives who, reflecting the “strange coalition” of feminists and traditionalists that analysts have long described in this community, self-identify with a wide range of partisan political affiliations and with divergent positions on the key issue of professional midwifery licensure. Results show that this community’s use of a shared model of care as a boundary object to facilitate collaboration without consensus relies upon a focus on sameness and a bracketing of the ideological commitments that undergird practitioners’ investment in the model of care. When difference is directly engaged, collaboration across political difference becomes difficult to sustain. I argue that bridging ideological divides using boundary objects is politically costly. Collaborative relationships and coalitions are made precarious and risk depoliticizing shared concerns when they are bound by a weakly structured, network-level object whose use demands the allocation of attention to sameness and the bracketing of difference and political disagreement.

Effects of news sharing and discussion network heterogeneity on incidental exposure to counter-attitudinal political information on Facebook

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the mechanism underlying the process where individuals come across political disagreement in online communication networks. For that, this study focuses on two potential factors affecting incidental exposure to counter-attitudinal information (IXC) on Facebook: (1) news sharing behavior and (2) discussion network heterogeneity. A two-wave national survey was conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaigns (Wave 1: Sept. 27– 13 October 2016, N = 1,623; Wave 2: Oct. 27– 8 November 2016, N = 637). The results indicate that news sharing and discussion network heterogeneity are both positively associated with IXC on Facebook, showing the critical roles played by these two variables in incidental exposure to political disagreement on social media. More importantly, news sharing and discussion network heterogeneity were found to sequentially mediate the positive relationship between overall use of Facebook and IXC, providing a more detailed mapping of the underlying mechanism in the basic relationship between general Facebook use and IXC. Implications of the findings are discussed.