Political Novice Research Articles

Changing Political Elite Network Dynamics and the Fate of Democracy

In this article, I adopt insights from social network analysis to document and explain changes in India’s ruling political elite’s network that led to the end of a brief period of authoritarianism, known as the Emergency period, in postcolonial India. Using data on the political elite’s interactions and point of view, and utilizing network analysis methods, I show that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s political trajectory made her expect loyalty, not clientelistic exchanges, from members of her political network. During the first year of the Emergency period, a new political elite shifted its loyalty from Mrs. Gandhi to her son Sanjay, a political novice. If the interactions among the political elite had continued, Sanjay’s clique likely would have pushed Mrs. Gandhi from the center to the periphery of political elite networks. Hence, I argue that Mrs. Gandhi called for elections and ended the Emergency to reestablish her centrality in the political elite networks. This article contributes to the cultural turn in the study of political networks by highlighting the importance of the political elite’s history of interactions within political networks, allowing us to comprehend the elite’s current strategies for reproducing or transforming its network position.

Race and Campaign Resources: Candidate Identification Numbers in Brazil

Party elites may hinder racial and ethnic minorities from winning public office by withholding resources. Prior studies have explored the distribution of money, media access, and party-list positions. In Brazil, party elites provide each candidate with a unique identification number. Voters must enter their preferred candidate’s identification number into an electronic voting machine to register their support. In this article, we replicate and extend Bueno and Dunning’s (2017) analysis of candidate identification numbers. They conclude that party elites do not provide white candidates with superior identification numbers than non-whites. We contend that assessing intraparty variation is theoretically and methodologically warranted. Using party fixed effects, we find that party elites provide non-white candidates with worse identification numbers than whites. We demonstrate that our findings are generalisable using data from other elections. Moreover, we show that party elites also withhold advantageous numbers from women and political novices.

From fiction to reality: Presidential framing in the Ukrainian comedy Servant of the People

This study examines presidential framing in the Ukrainian sitcom Servant of the People, which may have helped Ukrainian comedian and political novice Volodymyr Zelenskyy win the presidency in 2019. Building upon research into fictional framing and political satire verite, this study analyzes the roles and character traits of Vasiliy Goloborodko, a fictional Ukrainian president played by Zelenskyy. The findings expand framing theory to include fictional political leaders in sitcoms.

Do Gender Cues from Images Supersede Partisan Cues Conveyed via Text? Eye Movements Reveal Political Stereotyping in Multimodal Information Environments

ABSTRACT An important feature of the information environment is its multimodal nature. In politics, people encounter representations of political candidates that combine images and text. Among the most prominent pieces of information people encounter are a candidate’s gender, obtained from images of the candidate’s face, and the candidate’s partisan identification, often represented as text. This feature of the environment is important given previous work showing that individuals infer gender categories from faces rapidly and effortlessly. In this study (N = 113), we use eye movements to determine how individuals assign stereotypical policy positions to candidates in an environment in which photos of candidates’ faces are paired with labels of their partisan IDs. We find that politically-knowledgeable individuals are more likely to use partisan- than gender-based stereotypes. In contrast, political novices did not prioritize one type of stereotype over the other. Our findings have implications for understanding how individuals make political evaluations in multimodal settings and show the advantages of measuring eye movements when studying stereotyping in multimodal environments.

The Hillary Hypotheses: Testing Candidate Views of Loss

The surprising election of Donald Trump to the presidency calls for a comprehensive assessment of what motivated voters to opt for a controversial political novice rather than a provocative but experienced political veteran. Our study provides a novel exploration of the Trump victory through the prism of the defeated candidate—Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC). Losing candidates’ perceptions are usually not subject to academic analyses. Nevertheless, these people often hold substantial sway in their parties and thus understanding their views on the loss is essential, especially as a party regroups after defeat. Using HRC’s memoir What Happened, we devise the Hillary Hypotheses, her rationale for her electoral defeat. Using the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES), we provide the first systematic test of a losing candidate’s rationale for their defeat. We show that more often than not, HRC’s assumptions are supported. However, we find little evidence to support HRC’s most crucial assertion, namely that the e-mail scandal and specifically James Comey’s intervention ten days before Election Day cost her the presidency. Our findings have implications for understanding why Donald Trump won, but more broadly the contribution explores an understudied aspect of elections—a defeated candidate’s impression of their loss.

Ukraine's Post-Maidan Struggles: I. The Rise of an "Outsider" President

In May 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky was inaugurated as Ukraine's sixth president. A political novice best known as a comic actor, he had garnered over 73 percent of the vote in the April run-off election. While Zelensky's inaugural address left little doubt that he would continue to position himself as a political outsider and disruptor of the system, it remains to be seen whether his actions will be as bold as his words. As the country heads into parliamentary elections, the coming months will be a crucial test of Ukraine's democracy, the resiliency of its still fragile institutions, and its dedication to continuing reforms.

The illusion of explanatory depth and endorsement of conspiracy beliefs

AbstractThe average person possesses superficial understanding of complex causal relations and, consequently, tends to overestimate the quality and depth of their explanatory knowledge. In this study, we examined the role of this illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) in politics—inflated confidence in one's causal understanding of political phenomena—for endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. Utilizing a pre‐/post‐election panel design and a large sample of U.S. Citizens (N = 394) recruited in the context of the 2016 presidential election, we provide evidence that political IOED, but not a non‐political IOED, was associated with increased support for general and election‐specific conspiracy beliefs, particularly among political novices and supporters of the losing candidate. We find this pattern of results net the influence of a broad range of variables known to covary with conspiracy beliefs. Implications for theory and the need for future research are discussed.

Bristol fashion ? Leadership and local politics in England and the power of democratically-elected mayors : an epiphenomenon or a national trend ?

In 2012 Bristol, one of the top English cities, on a par with Manchester in terms of population, elected its first democratically-elected mayor. To lead its council, Bristol elected not a member of one of the traditional political parties, but George Ferguson, local businessman and political novice, leader and sole member of Bristol First, the localist party he founded. This paper will examine how local politics in Bristol have been influenced by the introduction of direct democracy in mayoral elections in England and whether the Bristol case is a blueprint demonstrating how local politics are independent from the national level and new leadership styles and issues or whether Bristol merely reflects the general trend in the sixteen remaining directly-elected city mayoralties.

Political entrepreneurship and the Ko-P phenomenon in Taiwan’s democratization

ABSTRACTTaiwan’s economic modernization and political democratization after World War II have been praised as good examples for emerging countries. As of 2014, Taiwan has successfully gone through four direct presidential elections and two rounds of peaceful transfer of power. However, continuing sectarian quarrels between the ruling Kuomintang and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party cast doubt on the suitability of democracy for a Confucian society. This pessimism is challenged by the emergence of a new political star. A political novice, Ko Wen-je (aka Ko-P), won a landslide victory in the 2014 Taipei mayoral election, which is seen as a phenomenon. It has significant political implications and has so far inspired changes in the political landscape. The adoption of entrepreneurial strategies, such as identifying problems, leading by example, and team creation, are unprecedented in Taiwan’s political campaign. The Ko-P phenomenon demonstrates a self-correcting mechanism in Taiwan’s political system and bodes well for the future of new democracies, particularly for the Greater China Region.

Reinventing Race, Reinventing Racism

List of Tables and Figures About the Contributors 1. Reinventing Race, Reinventing Racism: An Introduction, John J. Betancur and Cedric Herring 2. Critical Considerations and New Challenges in Black-Latino Relations, John J. Betancur 3. Juntos Pero No Revueltos: Race, Citizenship, and the Conundrums of Latinidad, Tomas Almaguer 4. Public Housing Redevelopment and the Displacement of African Americans, Edward G. Goetz 5. Problems of Racial Justice in Portland, 1968-2010: Revisiting the City's Kerner Report, Karen J. Gibson 6. After the Storm: Race and Victims' Reactions to the Hurricane Katrina Aftermath, Hayward Derrick Horton, Melvin Thomas, and Cedric Herring 7. Race, Class, and the Restructuring of Urban Community Development, Douglas C. Gills 8. Fairness on the Job: Skin Tone, the Beauty Myth, and the Treatment of African American Women at Work, N. Michelle Hughes and Cedric Herring 9. Training Black Media Makers after Kerner: The Black Journal Workshop, Devorah Heitner 10. Illegals Under Fire: Analyzing U.S. News Frames of Latina/o Immigration and Immigration Rights (1997-2007), Isabel Molina-Guzman 11. Muslims in the Global City: Racism, Islamophobia, and Multiracial Organizing in Chicago, Junaid Rana 12.New Configurations of Racism after 9/11: Gender and Race in the Context of the Anti-Immigrant City, Elizabeth L. Sweet 13.Gang Members, Juvenile Delinquents, and Direct Democracy, Lisa Marie Cacho 14. Racial Disadvantage and Incarceration: Sources of Wage Inequality among African American, Latino, and White Men, Kecia R. Johnson and Jacqueline Johnson 15. Casualties of War: The War on Drugs, Prisoner Re-entry and the Spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C in Chicago's Communities, Cedric Herring 16. Marching in March: Early Participation in Chicago's Immigrant Mobilizations, Angela Mascarenas and Cedric Herring 17. From Political Novice to Veteran: Youth Participation in the Immigrant Mobilization, Loren Henderson 18. Race, Poverty, and Disability: A Social Justice Dilemma, Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, Fabricio Balcazar, Tina Ritzler-Taylor, Asma Ali , and Rooshey Hasnain 19. Conclusion: Racism and Neoracism: Contributions of This Book, John J. Betancur Index

The March 2014 presidential elections in Slovakia: The victory of a political Novice

The 2014 presidential elections in Slovakia, held on March 15 and 29, produced an unexpected result: millionaire-turned-philanthropist Andrej Kiska convincingly defeated the incumbent Prime Minister Robert Fico in a runoff election and became the fourth president since Slovakia's independence in 1993. Kiska, who had not held any elected office before, ran as an independent candidate with no ties to political parties.

The Election of 1860 Reconsidered ed. by A. James Fuller (review)

Reviewed by: The Election of 1860 Reconsidered ed. by A. James Fuller Adam Zucconi The Election of 1860 Reconsidered. Edited by A. James Fuller. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2013. Pp. xii, 271.) The presidential election of 1860 stands out as a seminal moment in United States history. Indeed, the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, a foreordained victory to modern eyes, often serves as a signpost on the road to the US Civil War. However, as A. James Fuller and the contributors to this collection argue, this pivotal election warrants more attention and analysis in [End Page 106] order to fully understand the forces and tensions surrounding it. For too long, these historians aver, Lincoln’s election has overshadowed the various state and local level issues, personalities, ideologies, and politicking that shaped voters’ interpretation of the election. Refocusing the election of 1860 on these various elements, Fuller contends, reveals the dynamism of the election and opens up historians’ eyes to “seeing the election as more than Lincoln’s victory” and the inevitable defeat of his opponents (2). The collection begins with an essay by Michael S. Green, who reminds historians that Lincoln busied himself in the day-to-day tasks of campaigning, organizing, and stumping for candidates long before his ascension within the Republican Party. Such a reminder corrects the myopic notion that Lincoln was a political novice before his presidency. James L. Huston then focuses on the travels of Stephen Douglas (“The Little Giant”) into the slaveholding South months before the election. The Little Giant rejected arguments advocating secession and defended his doctrine of popular sovereignty against accusations it threatened slavery’s longevity. His message, however, foundered. Nearly all Northern presses failed to print Douglas’s Southern speeches, while Southerners, concerned about the country’s growing antislaveryism, believed that Douglas’s election would prove to be a stopgap, not a panacea, to sectional strife. The other two presidential candidates, John C. Breckinridge and John Bell, also receive much-needed attention. With Lincoln’s election a near inevitability, A. James Fuller contends that the concept of honor compelled Breckinridge to defend “the very identity of Southerners against those who would deprive them of honor and make them slaves” (89–90). In his study of John Bell, Fuller argues that Bell followed in the footsteps of another compromiser, Henry Clay. Like Clay, Bell believed that compromise offered the best opportunity to save the Union. Bell’s advocacy for negotiation, however, came at a time when compromise was anathema and the ideologies of free labor and proslavery compelled Northerners and Southerners to advocate for a Union solely on their terms. Outside of these studies on the candidates, other contributors highlight people, ideologies, and places often overlooked when discussing the election of 1860. John R. McKivigan details why Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists remained pessimistic about the Republican Party’s stance on African American rights during the campaign and election, while Lawrence Sondhaus highlights why Europeans (specifically Britons) remained conflicted about the ideological and economic implications of Lincoln’s election and subsequent disunion. Republicanism, according to Thomas E. Rodgers, proved to be the determinant factor in mobilizing both Northerner and Southerner voters. The importance of local and state events are highlighted, too, as a close study of Indiana reveals that voters interpreted the presidential election through a [End Page 107] political lens shaped by recent political, economic, and social developments. A historiographical essay by Douglas Gardner acts as a fitting coda, plotting how historians have changed their interpretation of the election while offering possible avenues for future exploration. All of these studies—grounded in archival, printed primary, and relevant secondary sources—broaden the scope of the election of 1860, challenging historians to interpret the election as more than Lincoln’s inevitable election. Areas for research, however, still remain. More focus on Republican Party enclaves in states such as Virginia and Missouri would shed light on the local dynamics feeding the growth of the party. Greater attention on printed ephemera, especially broadsides and posters, would reveal the spirited political environment and material culture surrounding the election. Questions remain, too. What did other countries, notably Brazil and Russia, think about the election of Republican...

Social Networks and Student Activism: On the Politicising Effect of Campus Connections

In the first part of this paper I present original survey data which suggests that the transition from further to higher education, or more specifically the process of becoming a university student, has a politicising effect upon some students. In particular, university students are more likely that their 6th form counter-parts to have engaged in some of the forms of protest activity associated with social movements. This holds even during periods when levels of social movement mobilisation are low both on and off campus. In the second part of the paper I review several of the key theoretical explanations of student politicisation to be found in the social movements literature. Having criticised these theories and noted that they are challenged by my survey findings, I outline an alternative which focuses upon campus-based social networks. University campuses, I suggest, facilitate the formation of a critical and connected mass of previously politicised actors who then use their further networks to recruit political novices into activism. It is this recruitment activity, which is greatly enhanced by the network structure of campus life, which explains the politicising effect of campus life. Moreover, insofar as new recruits go on to become recruiters this forms part of a self-perpetuating dynamic of politicisation.

Of Note: Celebrity and Politics

Of Note:Celebrity and Politics Andrew Kamons A politician's ability to take advantage of innovations in media has long been central to his or her electoral success. It's been nearly fifty years since JFK demonstrated that in the age of television, a close shave and an effective antiperspirant could be as important to a presidential election as bold leadership and a robust foreign policy strategy. Yet as innovations in the media continue to blur the line between celebrity and politician, politicians must not only keep abreast of the latest media technology, they must also be wary of those celebrities eager to supplant them in their leadership roles. The link between celebrity and activism is well established. There is a natural transition from being a spokesperson for someone else's product—a practice almost as old as that of hawking goods themselves—to speaking up for one's own causes or interests. Traditional politicians have moved beyond the staid celebrity endorsement to more creative uses of their famous friends. When British Prime Minister Tony Blair is photographed listening attentively to Bono and Bob Geldof talk about debt relief, he's not just selling the idea that celebrities support his views, but rather that he himself is willing to entertain their opinions and to heed their counsel.1 Whether it is Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on the Tonight Show or President George W. Bush poised mid-deck in his flight suit, our leaders clearly recognize that behaving like celebrities can translate into public approval. But why settle for politicians who attempt to emulate celebrities when one can have the celebrities themselves? The growing cult of celebrity has enabled those with limited political experience to rise higher within the political sphere, not only as activists, but also as policymakers. The trends suggest that celebrity can serve as a proxy for political accomplishment. Critics contend that while celebrities may succeed in engaging with the public, they rarely do so without diluting the message they are trying to convey. Celebrity endorsements succeed in large part because they apply a veneer of attractiveness to whatever policy or cause they support. Unfortunately, celebrities often prove reluctant to wrestle with ambiguities and quick to gloss over the very distinctions that give a position importance. It's hard to argue against those who seek to reduce the toll of AIDS in the developing world, but when it comes to decisions over sex education, access to medications, or resource allocation, the issue is far from clear-cut.2 Celebrity politicians often run as populist outsiders who can reach across the aisles and who can draw disaffected voters into the political process. [End Page 145] As such, they succeed best where party systems are poorly entrenched and barriers to outside entry are low. In Minnesota, former actor and political pundit Jesse Ventura won the gubernatorial race due in large part to lax restrictions on late voter registration that allowed him to capitalize on a last minute swing in momentum by attracting unregistered voters to the polls.3 Where the party system is weak and politics personalized, celebrity often carries more weight. The runner up in Liberia's election last year was George Weah, a political novice known principally for his success as a professional soccer player in Europe. Despite having a modest academic record and spending most of his adult life outside the country, he achieved a plurality of votes in the first ballot, and lost by a slim margin in the runoff election.4 One of the strongest critiques of celebrity politicians is that they in fact short-circuit the democratic process by winning on personal appeal instead of sound policies. Darrell West and John Orman argue, "Celebrity politics accentuates many of the elements in our society that drain substance out of the political process and substitutes trivial and nonsubstantive forms of entertainment. [This] endangers the ability of ordinary citizens to hold leaders accountable for their policymaking decisions."5 Unlike other populist outsiders, celebrities rarely offset this failing with their reformist credentials. That celebrities are not proponents of the policies favored by the people they represent is a criticism that could also be applied to any number...

The development of interattitudinal consistency: The shared-consequences model.

A model of interattitudinal consistency was proposed to address: (a) the factors mediating political expert-novice differences in interattitudinal organization and (b) the processes mediating the development of interattitudinal organization among political novices. In Experiment 1, both expertise and situationally induced thought (among novices) heightened the extent to which pairs of policies were viewed as instrumentally influencing the attainment of a common set of values, which in turn influenced the structural balance of participants' attitudes. Moreover, both expertise and thought (among experts) heightened the ideological consistency of participants' attitudes. In Experiment 2, thought related to values or implicational relations increased the structural balance of novices' attitudes, whereas ideology-related thought increased the ideological consistency of experts' attitudes. Discussion focuses on a general consequences-based model of interattitudinal structure.

Private Reactions to Public Transgressions: Predictors of Evaluative Responses to Allegations of Political Misconduct

Effects of blameworthiness, account type, and politician power on respondents' evaluations of political offenders were examined. Political expertise and party affiliation served as additional categorical predictors of evaluations. Participants read two scenarios describing the misadventures of fictitious politicians and their accounts and evaluated the politicians. Results revealed that political novices were more generous than experts in their evaluations. Politicians who transgressed intentionally were evaluated more negatively than politicians who trans-gressed accidentally. Respondents who shared partisanship with the politicians evaluated them more positively than respondents who did not share partisanship. Finally, results revealed interactions among politician power, account type, party, and scenario. This study points to the utility of a sociolinguistic framework for the systematic investigation of respondents' private reactions to public political transgressions.

Basic Values and Sociopolitical Ideology: A Comparison of Political Experts and Political Novices

For 102 college students and 102 “experts” (professionals) inspection of unstandardized paths (LISREL) shows different relationships between Rokeach's terminal values and the construct of liberalism-conservatism, relationships being somewhat greater for “experts” than students (“novices”). The observation was confirmed by structural equation analysis.

German Parliamentarism in 1848: Roll-Call Voting in the Frankfurt Assembly

The reputation of the Frankfurt Assembly of 1848 has undergone a partial revision in the last few years. Its members used to be considered political novices from whom one could learn little about how to run a parliament (Huber, 1960: 613 is typical). Ziebura (1963) was perhaps the first to challenge this view. He showed that the Frankfurt Assembly was, in fact, run in a very professional way: It created sophisticated and disciplined political parties, and these parties actually exerted effective control over parliamentary business. They even joined together to form a coalition that gave reliable political support to a German provisional government. Kramer (1968), Boldt (1971), Botzenhart (1977), and Langewiesche (1978) have subsequently documented the skillful organization of these parties and their attempts to control members, to create extraparliamentary connections, and to maintain both a formal government coalition and an organized opposition. Kramer (1968: 175-178) has shown that they were particularly successful in applying party discipline to voting behavior: The results of voting could often be foretold simply from a knowledge of how the parties stood on the question at issue.

Legislative Recruitment and Political Change in Yugoslavia

Recent turmoil in Yugoslavia convinced the leadership of the need to change legislative recruitment goals to favor women, youth, workers, and nonprofessionals. Empirical aggregate analysis of the background of Yugoslav federal and republic legislators indicates that these recruitment goals were implemented. Analysis of the political career paths of individual legislators from 1967 to 1974, however, reveals that the changes in legislative recruitment patterns only benefited political novices. Legislators with good political contacts continued to have more successful careers than legislators coming from those groups favored by the new recruitment goals. The reason for the difference between recruitment criteria and determinants of career advancement is due to the Yugoslav nominating and electoral process.

Background Characteristics of Delegates To the 1972 Conventions: a Summary Report of Findings From a National Sample

JN 1965, Aaron Wildavsky examined what he termed ;. the great mystery of American politics. . the nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater as the Republican presidential candidate, with the accompanying disastrous consequences for the party.' He concluded that .. the Goldwater phenomenon, which once seemed so strange, may become a persistent feature of the American political scene, nonetheless disturbing because it reappears under different ideological guises.2 Spared such an occurrence in 1968, it may be that the American political system was merely given a respite until 1972. The temptation to draw parallels between the 1964 and 1972 elections (and the accompanying agony of the Republican and Democratic parties in those years) is great; and, it may well be that there is a common basis for the Goldwater and McGovern phenomena. On both occasions, the electorally suffering experienced an influx to its national convention of delegates who were political novices, amateurs, ideological purists.3 In the larger study from which data for this research note are drawn,4 attention is directed to identifying relevant dimensions of what is termed a perception of party along which activists fall. As a preliminary to an extensive analysis of how Democratic and Republican delegates differed in their perceptions concerning the as a political institution, an analysis was conducted of certain demographic social and political data which were available for the 1972 delegations. The purpose of this analysis was to develop a descriptive chapter on the characteristics of the delegates who responded to a survey. In addition to supplying useful background data for the larger study, however, these demographic social and political data also provide a rare opportunity to examine differences in the characteristics of delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions.5 While such differences are widely assumed to