Political Expertise Research Articles

The Distribution and Determinants of Socially Supplied Political Expertise

Recent work on social influence has highlighted the importance of socially supplied political expertise, crediting it with strengthening attitudes, resolving ambivalence, and encouraging political participation. However, in focusing on the consequences of socially supplied political expertise, scholars have made the implicit assumption that citizens have equal access to this resource and have largely ignored its distribution. Given that individuals are constrained by their social contexts, we are particularly troubled by this oversight, and thus use two nationally representative data sources to explore the distribution of expertise among and throughout the social networks of citizens. We find consistent evidence that existing resource inequalities reinforce the unequal distribution of expertise in social networks—a gender-moderated pattern that involvement in civil society may help remedy.

Expertise and Bias in Political Communication Networks

Citizens minimize information costs by obtaining political guidance from others who have already assumed the costs of acquiring and processing political information. A problem occurs because ideal informants, typically characterized by the joint presence of political expertise and shared viewpoints, are frequently unavailable or rare within the groups where individuals are located. Hence, individuals must often look beyond their own group boundaries to find such informants. The problem is that obtaining information from individuals located beyond their own groups produces additional costs. Moreover, the availability of ideal informants varies across groups and settings, with the potential to produce (1) context‐dependent patterns of informant centrality, which in turn generate (2) varying levels of polarization among groups and (3) biases in favor of some groups at the expense of others. The article's analysis is based on a series of small‐group experiments, with aggregate implications addressed using a simple agent‐based model.

The Dynamics of Participation and Organisation in European Digital Rights Campaigning

The paper examines the participation characteristics within internet-based collective action by analysing the case of digital rights campaigning. Drawing upon empirical findings from a case study (the “Telecoms Package” campaign, 2007-2009), we discuss how digital rights activists organise, collaborate and mobilise using websites, mailing lists, wikis and instant messaging channels. Participation is individualised and malleable. However, successful digital rights’ campaigning requires political, technical and social skills. To intervene in EU policy-making, activists need technical and political expertise and technological skills. As a result and contrary to claims of inclusiveness and openness, digital rights campaigning is in fact dominated by a small group of highly specialised movement entrepreneurs who mobilise occasionally to demonstrate broader support to policy-makers. The emergence of internet-based campaigning does not necessarily equal to more inclusive forms of participation. However, it allows for the engagement of resource-poor actors in traditional policy settings such as the EU.

The Global Leadership Vacuum: An Interview with Ian Bremmer, President and Founder, Eurasia Group

T SAIS Review’s Editor-in-Chief, Josh Grundleger, and Senior Editor, Sean Creehan, recently sat down with Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm. Dr. Bremmer discussed the outlook for 2012 and the hidden risks that face the international system. Dr. Bremmer created Wall Street’s first global political risk index and has authored several books including the national bestseller The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?, which details the new global phenomenon of state capitalism and its geopolitical implications. He also wrote The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall and The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing. Dr. Bremmer is a contributor for the Financial Times A-List and Reuters.com and writes “The Call” blog on ForeignPolicy.com. He is also a panelist for CNN International’s “Connect the World” and appears frequently in the media as a political risk expert. Dr. Bremmer has a PhD in political science from Stanford University (1994), and he presently teaches at Columbia University. His analysis focuses on global macro-political trends and emerging markets, which he defines as “those countries where politics matter at least as much as economics for market outcomes.”

Expertise and Scale of Conflict: Governments as Advocates in American Indian Politics

How do American Indian tribal governments relate to nearby local governments? Do insights gleaned from these cases illuminate the constraints and opportunities that marginalized groups face within any system of federalism? What circumstances of marginalized governments help or hinder their effectiveness? Although some Native American tribes have transformed their fortunes with highly profitable casinos, most continue to face stark disadvantages. Some tribal governments, despite limited opportunities prevail locally by cultivating policy and political expertise. This analysis demonstrates that such expertise can be developed, even when resources are scarce.

Expertise and the Ideological Consequences of the Authoritarian Predisposition

Recent research on the psychological bases of political ideology suggests that a number of “pre-political” variables influence individuals‟ ideological positions. This paper examines how the political implications of one such variable – the authoritarian predisposition – may be conditioned by citizens‟ political expertise. An examination of the 2000 and 2004 American National Election Studies revealed that (1) the relation between the authoritarian predisposition and conservatism was stronger among experts; (2) relations between the authoritarian predisposition and the two component facets of conservatism – opposition to equality and support for traditionalism – were also stronger among experts; and (3) the interactive effect of expertise and the authoritarian predisposition on conservatism was mediated by orientations toward equality and traditionalism. These findings suggest that the linkage between psychological variables and ideology may be contingent on one‟s understanding of abstract political ideas and indicate the need for a more nuanced understanding of what expertise contributes to democratic citizenship.

Conditions for Dyadic Partisan Agreement and Disagreement: An Analysis of Voters' Social Networks at the 2009 German Federal Election

Using a unique dataset (a nationally representative pre-election Rolling Cross-Section survey with post-election panel wave) the paper tests a series of hypotheses about conditions that increase or decrease the amount of agreement resp. disagreement in dyads of voters and discussants at the 2009 German Federal Election: that interpersonal influence is stronger within primary relationships (strong ties) than within functionally defined secondary relationships (weak ties); that political conversion is the medium through which agreement is generated; that perceived political expertise and trustworthiness as well as effective communication are important preconditions of agreement; and that dyadic partisan correspondence is a function of the party preferences prevalent in the overall network (autoregressive effect). While most studies of this kind have so far strictly focused on party correspondence, this study of a West European multi-party system additionally explores agreement and disagreement across parties belonging to the same ideological camps. To varying degrees, when simultaneously tested all hypotheses are supported by our findings.

The consequences of political disagreement in interpersonal communication: New insights from a comparative perspective

AbstractPolitical disagreement in interpersonal communication increases attitudinal ambivalence and can depress voter turnout. These effects seem to be driven by a wish to avoid social controversy rather than informational gains from encountering other opinions. This article shows that political disagreement in interpersonal communication increases the difficulty of deciding for which party to vote. Moreover, this effect is a result of social disapproval of one's party preference, while political expertise in interpersonal communication has no effect. For voter turnout, no direct effect of social disapproval of one's party preference is found. However, disapproval has an indirect influence on turnout via difficulty of vote choice. In sum, both political attitudes and political behaviour are affected by social pressures. Students of political attitudes and behaviour should try to include interpersonal discussion in their models in greater detail than is common practice today.

Personality and Political Discussion

Political discussion matters for a wide array of political phenomena such as attitude formation, electoral choice, other forms of participation, levels of political expertise, and tolerance. Thus far, research on the underpinnings of political discussion has focused on political, social, and contextual forces. We expand upon this existing research by examining how individual personality traits influence patterns of political discussion. Drawing on data from two surveys we investigate how personality traits influence the context in which citizens discuss politics, the nature of the relationship between individuals and their discussion partners, and the influence discussion partners have on respondents’ views. We find a number of personality effects and our results highlight the importance of accounting for individual predispositions in the study of political discussion.

Facing Complexity: Democracy, Expertise and the Discovery Process

As politics continues to be intertwined with complex, rapidly advancing bodies of knowledge, the question arises of how we are to understand the relationship between democracy and expertise. Recent discussions have focused on the capacity for democratic political institutions to address complex technical and scientific issues. These discussions have a post-positivist starting point, emphasising the contested, varied and dispersed nature of technical-scientific knowledge and expertise. Yet, as this article explores with particular reference to the work of Hayek, the sources of tension between democracy, complexity and expertise involve complex economic as well as technical-scientific dimensions. Starting from a similarly ‘post-positivist’ view of economic knowledge, Hayek famously concludes that over-reliance upon political expertise carries the danger of authoritarianism. He looks to the market as the most suitable institutional process for addressing complex economic choices, reflecting the various goals of individuals across society. As more recent writers have shown, this radically pro-market conclusion overlooks the profound social and environmental implications of market failure. Yet it is argued here that we can draw from the Hayekian understanding of complexity and its implications to enrich our understanding of how non-market, democratic institutions might handle those dimensions of complexity that cannot be adequately addressed through markets alone. Hence Hayekian insights can serve as an aid to re-conceptualising the concept of expertise as performing a potentially enabling role on behalf of political democracy.

Accuracy and Bias in Perceptions of Political Knowledge

Learning through social communication is promoted when citizens are able to identify which of their associates is likely to possess the necessary political information. This paper examines the factors that influence individuals’ evaluations of political expertise. Actual political expertise plays a large role in perceived expertise, but mistakes are made. These are largely the result of assuming that those engaged in politics must also be knowledgeable about politics. This paper uses the 1996 Indianapolis-St. Louis Study and the 2000 National Election Study to identify factors that bias levels of perceived political knowledge. The paper concludes by demonstrating that perceived expertise plays a larger role than actual expertise in the social influence process.

Political Discussion, Views of Political Expertise and Women’s Representation in Italy

Italy is one of the advanced industrial democracies with the smallest number of women elected to public office. Current literature has focused on several structural, institutional and cultural factors to explain such a gender gap in political participation and representation. However, one of the most basic forms of political participation, political discussion, has not received a thorough investigation. This article analyses gender differences in the attitudes and the habits of talking about politics with relatives, friends and social acquaintances during the Italian 2006 electoral campaign. The main argument is that the analysis of political discussion may shed new light on how Italian women approach politics and help explain their reluctance to be involved in political activities in terms of elected office and party membership.

Political Expertise, Social Worldviews, and Ideology: Translating “Competitive Jungles” and “Dangerous Worlds” into Ideological Reality

The psychological bases of ideology have received renewed attention amid growing political polarization. Nevertheless, little research has examined how one’s understanding of political ideas might moderate the relationship between “pre-political” psychological variables and ideology. In this paper, we fill this gap by exploring how expertise influences citizens’ ability to select ideological orientations that match their psychologically rooted worldviews. We find that expertise strengthens the relationship between two basic social worldviews—competitive-jungle beliefs and dangerous-world beliefs and left–right self-placement. Moreover, expertise strengthens these relationships by boosting the impact of the worldviews on two intervening ideological attitude systems—social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. These results go beyond previous work on expertise and ideology, suggesting that expertise strengthens not only relationships between explicitly political attitudes but also the relationship between political attitudes and their psychological antecedents.

Hierarchy in Political Discussion

Some scholars posit that the influence of opinion leaders within a social network can provide an efficient division of labor of knowledge acquisition. Opinion leaders, however, are only one type of influential discussion partner in a social network. Although untested in the current literature, if political discussion amounts to pressure from social superiors to vote or think a certain way, discussion may not increase political comprehension. I tested this effect in Japan, a country that has a high level of social hierarchy. Using data from a new nationally representative survey during the 2005 Japanese Diet elections, I test the determinants of the social transfer of political expertise. I found that political discussion from superiors does increase vote similarity, but does not increase political knowledge. I also found that hierarchical pressure is focused disproportionately on women and youth. However I show as well that discussion with opinion leaders increases political knowledge.

Implications for evidence‐based practice when the evidence is lacking

Implications for evidence‐based practice when the evidence is lacking

Expertise, Evaluative Motivation, and the Structure of Citizens’ Ideological Commitments

Political psychologists have typically argued that ideological commitments are structured in a bipolar fashion, where a positive evaluation of conservative objects implies a negative evaluation of liberal objects (and vice versa). Individual differences in conformity to this pattern are usually attributed to an ability‐related variable, i.e., political expertise. Departing from this strict focus on ability, this study examines the hypotheses that an important motivational variable—the need to evaluate, or the desire to form opinions of objects as “good” or “bad”—would (1) predict deviations from ideological bipolarity, even controlling for expertise; and (2) moderate the relationship between expertise and deviations from bipolarity. Data from two national surveys provided evidence for these hypotheses and indicated that the results extended to deviations from bipolarity in evaluations of presidential candidates and political parties.

Political Expertise and the Use of Ideology: Moderating Effects of Evaluative Motivation

Much research suggests that political experts are more likely to structure attitudes toward different issues in an ideologically consistent fashion. Based on recent studies of motivational influences on social cognition, we hypothesize that only experts with a high need to evaluate—a strong motivation to establish evaluations of social objects—may “apply” ideology to a variety of issues. Data from the 1998 NES Pilot and 2000 NES are used to examine this hypothesis. While experts do show more ideological constraint, this relationship appears to be limited to individuals with a high need to evaluate. Additional analyses indicated that this interactive effect extended to other indices of the use of ideology as well.

From a Symbolic Boom to a Marketing Bust: Genesis and Reconstruction of a Field of Legal and Political Expertise at the Crossroads of a Europe Opening to the Atlantic

The short history of environmental institutions and policies in Europe is marked by their radical reorientation. While environmental protection devices were initially conceived in the 1970s by using the classical model of the “watchdog state,” they underwent a shift during the 1990s: the ineffectiveness produced by bureaucratic constraints served as a pretext to hasten the disengagement of the state to the benefit of a regulation negotiated on the basis of financial incentives. The management of environmental issues now relies on the construction of an international market of sustainable development (or of a “rights to pollute” market, similar to that which has been established by the Kyoto protocol). The emergence and reconstruction of this field of expertise can be seen as a kind of microcosm of the perpetually unfinished Tower of Babel that is the European construction. One of the merits of this subject matter is to highlight the internal and external dynamics that have favored the success of a neoliberal counterattack.

KUDOS FOR THE MINDLESS EXPERT

ABSTRACT Arguments for skepticism about political expertise abound. The skeptics believe that political matters are too unpredictable, experts too dogmatic, social science too imprecise, or the electorate too blind to justify hopefulness about the results of real‐world democracy. Philip Tetlock's empirical research suggests, however, that there is some regularity to the political world, and that while most political experts have a poor grasp of it, some (Isaiah Berlin's “foxes”) do better than others (his “hedgehogs”). And Tetlock's research suggests that our political judgments can be improved if we trust more in mechanical, statistical prediction, which outperforms even “fox‐like” experts.

Knowledge gaps in water systems management in South Asia: a framework for research

South Asia, with its burgeoning population density and poverty on the one hand, and rapid urbanization and industrialization on the other, seems to be facing an impending water crisis. This crisis is not due to water shortage, but due to conflicts over water use at various levels. The governments in the region have neglected the knowledge base needed to research water systems management and deal with these conflicts. The paper stresses that only a transdisciplinary approach, including the engineering and medical sciences, along with social, political, and economic expertise, can help in poverty alleviation and development. Eventually, the paper traces the knowledge gaps in water systems management in South Asia and sets forth a research agenda based on the emergent paradigm of integrated water resources management.