Political Outlets Research Articles

Remittances, terrorism, and democracy

How do remittances affect domestic terrorism? Past work argues that remittances increase groups’ resources and increase terrorism. However, we argue that the effect of remittances depends on political institutions. Within democracies, remittances can help groups overcome barriers to legitimate politics and reduce terrorism's allure. Within autocracies, however, fewer legitimate political opportunities exist, and remittances may lead to more terrorism as it remains an alternative and available political outlet. We find that remittances are associated with less (more) domestic terrorism within democracies (autocracies) and use additional mechanism tests to demonstrate that the competitive aspects of democracy help explain these trends.

REFUGEE OR EXPAT, HERO OR THREAT: MIGRANT QUERIES IN GOOGLE NEWS SEARCH RESULTS

Search engines play a gatekeeper role in current high-choice information environments. Considered a form of new media, users are still more likely to find and trust news found through search than social media sites. Indeed, search engines are one of the most utilised technologies to find political information, despite audits uncovering biases in their results, for example, towards national outlets over local ones. It is therefore important to keep in mind the potential of search results to affect public opinion. With this study, we investigate how Google search news headlines and snippets differ when varying migrant search terms (e.g., immigrant, refugee, expat). We employ computational text analysis methods as well as qualitative content analysis. Specifically, we employ an automated framework for detecting media frames, originally trained on Twitter data, and attempt to transfer it to news data; this framework allows for a categorization of data to frames of a generic-issue (economy, safety, health) and specific (hero:diversity, threat:jobs) nature. We evaluate its applicability for this novel data source and find that it performs well for frames related economy and security. Our next steps include analysing the results of other computational measures, namely, sentiment, agency and political outlet of the news item. We expect that sentiment and agency will complement the initial results we see based on media frames.

The Green is the New Red? A Libertarian Challenge: The Radicals and the Friends of the Earth Italy, 1976–1983

This paper focuses on Italian libertarian and anti-authoritarian environmentalism, embodied at the political level by the Radical Party and by a small organization linked to it, the Amici della Terra, the Italian section of Friends of the Earth. It aims at highlighting their role within the environmentalist galaxy of associations, movements and committees and at studying their political strategy, the peculiarities of their cultural and political contribution to the Green movement, but also their clashes with the other components. The paper analyses the Radical Party and Amici della Terra's support for anti-nuclear mobilizations in the late 1970s, especially against the construction of a nuclear plant in Montalto di Castro; how they provided a political outlet for many animal-rights movements and contributed to bringing conservationist associations closer to politics; and how they tried to build international links with other Green parties and associations. The paper highlights some political and ideological clashes between Radical environmentalism and the so-called ‘Red ecology’ around the referendum against nuclear power plants, the anti-hunting referendum and the mobilization for peace and the Amici della Terra's proposal to create local Green Lists. Thus it aims at adding a political interpretation to the cultural one – suggested by scholars – of the delay in the development of a Green party in Italy compared to other Western European countries.

Does Fear of Isolation Disappear Online? Attention-Seeking Motivators in Online Political Engagement

This study investigated the effects of fear of isolation (FOI) on political content consumption and creation in the context of online communication. Using more than 1,000 respondents from South Korea, the study empirically tested a theoretical model of FOI on political content consumption and expressions with two mediators (i.e., attention/status-seeking, and anonymity-seeking). Results indicated that FOI is related to seeking attention and status in political outlets also connected to anonymity-preference that leads to political expression. Implications for political communication scholarship and for practitioners are that voters’ political participations can be understood in a framework different from traditional focus on persuasion, political ideology, or demographics because—in today’s virtual and interactive media environment—users are more content consumers or community participants.

German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene ed. by Heather I. Sullivan and Caroline Schaumann

Reviewed by: German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene ed. by Heather I. Sullivan and Caroline Schaumann Timothy Attanucci Heather I. Sullivan and Caroline Schaumann, eds. German Ecocriticism in the Anthropocene. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 348 pp. The title of this volume of collected essays is as programmatic as it is succinct. The adjective "German" marks the disciplinary purview of the essays, which emerged from several conference panels organized by the Trans-Atlantic Network in the Environmental Humanities at the University of Washington and the Environmental Studies Network of the German Studies Association. More than a territorial demarcation, however, this disciplinary choice reflects the editors' desire to correct the historical belatedness of German Studies (or Germanistik) in embracing ecocriticism. As one can read in the preface by Americanist Ursula K. Heise and in the editors' introduction, "ecocriticism" first appeared in Anglo-Saxon contexts, and the reasons for Germany's hesitation are varied. Among other things, Heise suggests that the German tradition lacks the genre of "nature writing," but also that its ecological traditions are both burdened with the loaded history of concepts like Heimat and benefit from significant media resonance and political outlets (i.e., the Green Party), whose failure in the American context may explain a complementary boom in US-academic activism. [End Page 336] As the editors point out, however, "the concept of 'nature' has a long-standing and important tradition in German literature, though only few scholars have critically investigated the approaches, definitions, and ramifications of 'nature' in German texts in a theoretical and sustained manner" (11). If this is the case, then, as the editors readily admit, the situation is rapidly changing. In the German context, for example, two introductions to ecocriticism (Bühler, 2016; Dürbeck and Stobbe, 2015) now compete with several other collected volumes (Goodbody and Rigby, 2011; Wilke and Frost, 2013; Duerbeck et al., 2017; Novero, Obermayer, and Barton, 2017). Indeed, another volume published in 2017, Readings in the Anthropocene, edited by Sabine Wilke and Japhet Johnstone, also takes up the term "Anthropocene," which has become increasingly popular as a designation for our current state of environmental crisis. The preface and the introduction of this volume make a compelling case that the "Anthropocene"—an as yet unofficial epoch of geological time first popularized by Paul Crutzen, and now approved by a special working group of the International Union of Geologic Sciences—presents a significant challenge to environmental thinking and "ecocriticism" alike. In short, accepting that human activity has left a permanent geological record undermines the distinction between a human "inside" and an environmental "outside." We can thus no longer simply "critique" the human relationship to nature, imagined as an ecology without humans, nor the destruction of the environment, imaged as a space surrounding humanity. Or as Heise argues in her frequently cited monograph (Sense of Place; 2010), the Anthropocene forces a transition from a "sense of place" to a "sense of planet." In her preface here, Heise proposes that this "sense of planet" implies a provocation for cultural studies, which until now have relied on a notion of culture delineated by language, tradition, or nation. Without closing itself off to the global impact of the Anthropocene, the essays collected here meet the challenge of demonstrating the value of recognizing cultural specificity—in this instance, German, Swiss, and Austrian specificities, which are often engaged in complex forms of communication with other cultures. The first part of this book takes up the notion of "place" as an organizing principle. In her essay, "The Dark Pastoral: A Trope for the Anthropocene," Heather I. Sullivan argues that the literary category of the pastoral not only still has relevance for ecocriticism in the Anthropocene, but also can serve as a litmus test for the literary history of this new epoch. In tracing the "dark" side, or the "darkening" of the pastoral from Goethe to Storm and Trojanow, Sullivan shows how the growing consciousness of ecological change impacts the German cultural imagination of the idyllic "restriction" (Jean Paul) of ecological places. Simon Richter likewise situates Goethe as the starting point of an Anthropocene, but his "ecoliguistic" approach introduces an innovative marker of cultural change: in the semantic differentiation of...

The Structure of Prejudice and Its Relation to Party Preferences in Belgium: Flanders and Wallonia Compared.

We test two assumptions of the generalized prejudice literature. First, that the structure of generalized prejudice (i.e. how prejudices are interrelated) is dependent on the intergroup context. Second, that different types of prejudice have similar political consequences and run via the generalized prejudice component. We perform these tests in the two main regions of Belgium – Flanders and Wallonia – and investigate the influence of differences in the history of immigration, experience of the linguistic and autonomy conflict, and the separate party system and political discourse (i.e. the societal and intergroup context) on these premises. We make use of the Belgian Election Panel (BEP) data that included measures of prejudice toward multiple target groups (immigrants, Flemings, Walloons, homosexuals, and Jews) and voting propensities for the main political parties. Our results show that, regardless of the differences in intergroup experiences, the structure of prejudice is identical in Flanders and Wallonia. Flemings are, however, more tolerant toward homosexuals and immigrants than Walloons. The political context and the set of potential political outlets does play an important moderating role in the translation of prejudices to party preferences: While negative attitudes toward the other regional group seem to divide the electorate in Flanders, it does not affect voting intentions in Wallonia. Anti-immigrant prejudice is crucial in both regions, but affects voters in different ways at the right-side of the political spectrum.

The revolt of the Rust Belt: place and politics in the age of anger.

This paper argues that the election of Donald Trump is the product of a confluence of historical factors rather than the distinctive appeal of the victor himself. By paying particular attention to the geography of unusual voting behaviour the analytical question comes into view: why did so much uncharacteristic voting occur in the Rust Belt states of the upper Midwest? It is impossible to answer this question adequately using conventional categorical attributes. The usual hypotheses of 'economic anxiety' and white revanchism are unable to account for sudden shifts in the voting behaviour of both white and black voters in post-industrial territories. Instead, it is necessary to turn to the history of the region and the institutional apparatus that connected voters there to the federal government and the Democratic Party. From this perspective we can see that the active dismantling of the Fordist social order set the region on a divergent path from the rest of the country. But this path had no political outlet due to the reorientation of the Democratic Party around a new class and geographic base. Due to this, the party pursued policies that would magnify the region's difficulties rather than alleviate its circumstances. Moreover, the elaborate institutional ties that connected the region's voters to the Democratic Party and the federal government meant that the political implications of regional decline would be muted. However, as these institutions frayed, Rust Belt voters were made available to candidates that challenged the policy consensus that had done so much damage to the region. The election was decided by a Rust Belt revolt that unified black and white working-class voters against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

A rhetorical balancing act: Popular punitivism in the Netherlands

The level of influence public discourse has on policy can vary widely. Research has noted that while it is largely dependent on the topic, frequency, and severity of the message, political rhetoric has the potential to sway public opinion and support. Particularly true for crime policy, rhetoric has historically been a strong factor for many countries such as the United States and England often understood as popular punitivism. However, popular punitivism has not been empirically characterized with specific focus given to political discourse, especially in international context. This paper attempts to capture the scope and relationship between rhetoric, political gain, crime policy, and public response in the Netherlands. Using the context of popular punitivism, we analyze rhetoric from three different political outlets (party platforms, coalition agreements, and statements of the throne) and triangulate the codes with passed policies, voter support, and systemic action. Findings suggest that recent rhetoric often exaggerates observed crime in society, consistent with expectations of popular punitivism perspectives. However, such exaggeration does not necessarily correlate with public support and system response patterns. Implications for discourse theory and popular punitivism are discussed.

Public climate-change skepticism, energy preferences and political participation

Many studies have shown a general decline of public concern about climate change or vice versa a rise in public climate-change skepticism, in particular in the U.S. and other Anglo-Saxon countries. There is a vivid debate on whether this is a global phenomenon, on which factors explain the decline, and on the broader societal implications of these trends in the context of the transformation toward a low-carbon society. We add to this literature by presenting the results of a recent general population survey in Germany in which we looked for systematic linkages between public climate-change skepticism on one hand, and energy preferences and political participation on the other. Germany is an interesting testbed as it is currently involved in a large-scale restructuring of its system of energy supply toward renewable energy sources (the “Energiewende”). Our results indicate that climate-change skepticism has not diffused widely in Germany, but that it correlates with less support of renewable energy sources. However, skepticism correlates negatively with political participation, and there is no strong political outlet for public climate-change skepticism in Germany. Alternative potential barriers for the successful implementation of the “Energiewende” are also discussed.

Who Tweets About Politics?

Twitter has been lauded for its potential political value by academics, journalists, and politicians; yet, we know little about the citizenry’s use of Twitter to engage in politics. Under the backdrop of the 2011 gubernatorial elections, we observed Twitter users’ direct engagement in the electoral process by collecting usernames and tweets of anyone who mentioned a candidate. After the elections were called, we employed an original survey via Twitter of these political tweeters to answer the question, who tweets about politics? Unsurprisingly, the results of our logit analysis demonstrate that strong partisans and those exhibiting high levels of traditional political participation activity tweet about politics most often which supports those who argue that we can expect to find the same political activists online as offline. However, we also find evidence that racial minorities and secularists are engaged in the electoral conversation on Twitter suggesting that some marginalized groups may have found a political outlet.

The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order

Dark-skinned blacks in the United States have lower socioeconomic status, more punitive relationships with the criminal justice system, diminished prestige, and less likelihood of holding elective office compared with their lighter counterparts. This phenomenon of “colorism” both occurs within the African American community and is expressed by outsiders, and most blacks are aware of it. Nevertheless, blacks' perceptions of discrimination, belief that their fates are linked, or attachment to their race almost never vary by skin color. We identify this disparity between treatment and political attitudes as “the skin color paradox” and use it as a window into the politics of race in the United States over the past half-century. Using national surveys, we explain the skin color paradox as follows: Blacks' commitment to racial identity overrides the potential for skin color discrimination to have political significance. That is, because most blacks see the fight against racial hierarchy as requiring their primary allegiance, they do not see or do not choose to express concern about the internal hierarchy of skin tone. Thus dark-skinned blacks' widespread experience of harm has no political outlet — which generates the skin color paradox.

American Media and Deliberative Democratic Processes

Despite the importance of mass media to deliberative democratic processes, few scholars have focused on how market forces, occupational norms, and competition among outlets affect the quality of media discourse in mainstream and political outlets. Here, I argue that field theory, as outlined by new institutionalism and Pierre Bourdieu, provides a useful theoretical framework for assessing the quality of media discourse in different kinds of media outlets. The value of field theory is that it simultaneously highlights the importance of homogeneity and heterogeneity within a field of action, which provides a framework for discussing the roles different kinds of outlets play in deliberate democratic processes and evaluating the quality of discourse in mainstream and political venues. I illustrate the utility of this conceptualization through an analysis of 1,424 stories on abortion in nine U.S. media outlets and interviews with journalists, editors, and producers in these venues. I find that political media outlets provide higher-quality discourse than that of mainstream venues. Additionally, I find that while market pressures may heighten a focus on conflict in the abortion debate, this emphasis is exacerbated by mainstream journalists themselves, who assume that the general public is familiar with, and has taken a firm position on, abortion. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for deliberative democratic processes.

?Growing the Size of the Black Woman?: Feminist Activism in Havana Hip Hop

- less, Black Cubans do face all manners of discrimination in contemporary Cuba. With few formal political outlets open to young Black Cubans (Fernandes 2003), hip hop has emerged on the island as a powerful form of political expression: a kind of theater of the oppressed that addresses the racial and economic problems encountered by Black Cubans (Boal 1985). The all-female group Las Krudas stands out as particularly courageous within this hip-hop scene. In 2003, I spent four months studying at the University of Havana. While in Cuba, my research partner and I recorded interviews with 23 women of African descent. The members of Las Krudas were among this group. I draw upon these interviews to sketch a portrait of a striking phenomenon: the emergence of a strongly oppositional, Black, feminist activist art in Cuba. I first saw Las Krudas perform at a concert of women rappers; I was struck by their positive message, and they were kind enough to invite me to their home for an interview. We chatted like old friends before we began tape recording the interview. One of the first topics we addressed was how they see their intersecting identities. Olivia tells me:

Parties and the Expansion of Direct Democracy

This article considers the extent to which political parties can use direct democratic reforms as an effective tool for reshaping political behavior. It investigates the interaction between behavioral and institutional changes associated with recent German extensions of direct democracy and intra-party democracy. The examination finds clear links between individual participation preferences and the evolution of the institutional framework: parties promoted reforms in hopes of making `conventional', electorally orientated political participation more appealing to citizens who were increasingly attracted by `unconventional' political outlets. The parties were less successful in using institutional design to achieve specific modifications in patterns of political participation.

Immigration and changes in the French party system

Abstract. This article explores the role of political, especially party, elites in the emergence of the politics of racism in France. It argues that these elites seem to have reacted more to the changing dynamics of the party system than to mass opinion in raising and exploiting the issues of race and immigration. The anti‐immigrant feelings of the electorate were mobilised and provided with a political outlet by these changing dynamics. The electoral rise of the National Front and the decline of the Communist party have profoundly altered the dynamics of French electoral politics. Both of these phenomena are indirectly related to the immigration issue. The changing dynamics of the party system have in turn contributed significantly to the sustenance and development of immigration as an issue in French politics in the 1980s.

Voluntary Associations in a Metropolis: The Case of Lagos, Nigeria

Voluntary associations are significant mechanisms by which migrants can be integrated into a new urban milieu, yet not all individuals or sectors of city populations belong to them. While it is widely accepted that associations have a role to play in urban west Africa by offering welfare services (Little, 1965), providing political outlets in the broad sense of that term (Wallerstein, 1966), or defining status (Eisenstadt, 1956), little is known about the configurations of membership (but see Meillassoux, 1968). In order to understand more fully the part that voluntary associations play in the lives of city dwellers it is still necessary to ask fundamental questions. For example: 1) What percentages of urban populations actually belong to, and are active in, voluntary associations? 2) What kinds of voluntary associations are preferred? 3) Who belongs to what kinds of associations? In other words we still need to know to whom voluntary associations are important and to whom they are relatively unimportant. This essay addresses itself to these questions by examining voluntary association behavior among residents of one suburban neighborhood of Lagos, Nigeria. In so doing it argues that membership varies substantially according to ethnicity and sex. Yoruba and Ibo-speaking residents are known for their high level of participation in several types of voluntary associations, yet Hausa-speaking residents rarely join any but religious groups. The same contrast can be made between men and women, whose membership preferences are not necessarily similar. Examination of the variables of sex and ethnicity, therefore, begins to provide membership profiles of the various types of associations, but these factors do not stand alone.