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This paper investigates factors affecting voting behavior in Canada's October 2008 federal election. The election was held in the context of a rapidly worsening financial crisis that threatened to become a global economic meltdown. National survey data gathered in the 2008 Political Support in Canada Study reveal that the deteriorating economy trumped the opposition Liberal Party's Green Shift Program as the major campaign issue by a huge margin. Damage done to the governing Conservatives by the economic crisis was limited by perceptions of their leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Analyses of a mixed logit model of electoral choice shows that although the Conservatives had a relatively small share of party identifiers and Harper was widely disliked, his image as "safe pair on hands" helped his party weather the political storm generated by the flood of bad economic news. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

This paper examines the structure and domestic political relevance of foreign policy beliefs in contemporary Britain. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of data gathered in five national surveys conducted between May and September 2008 show that the British public's foreign policy beliefs are organized by two latent factors, which we label Liberal Internationalism and British Militarism. These factors closely resemble those reported in studies of the foreign policy beliefs of the American public. Analyses reveal significant co variation between the two foreign policy belief factors and voting intentions, as well as with partisanship and feelings about party leaders -- key predictor variables in voting behavior models. These relationships remain significant in the presence of several controls, including measures of incumbent government performance in domestic and foreign policy domains. Demonstrating that foreign policy beliefs matter for the fates of political parties and their leaders helps to explain how public opinion in democratic politics affects the conduct of international relations. Adapted from the source document.

Was the outcome of the United Kingdom's 'Brexit' referendum to leave the European Union a visible and consequential manifestation of right-wing populism? After all, skepticism in the UK towards the EU predates the recent rise of European right wing populism. Original survey data show, however, that the interaction of nativist sentiment and anti-elitist attitudes, the cocktail of right-wing populism, led to widespread support for Brexit, even while controlling for other factors. Although hostility to immigrants was an important factor, nativists were particularly prone to vote 'leave'; if they also did not trust political elites, a crucial element of populism. Further underscoring this explanation is the conditional effect of anti-elite sentiment. The relationship between anti-elite sentiment and support for leaving the EU only exists among those with high nativist sentiment; among those low in nativist sentiment, anti-elite feelings did not increase support for Brexit.

Was the outcome of the United Kingdom's 'Brexit' referendum to leave the European Union a visible and consequential manifestation of right-wing populism? After all, skepticism in the UK towards the EU predates the recent rise of European right wing populism. Original survey data show, however, that the interaction of nativist sentiment and anti-elitist attitudes, the cocktail of right-wing populism, led to widespread support for Brexit, even while controlling for other factors. Although hostility to immigrants was an important factor, nativists were particularly prone to vote 'leave'; if they also did not trust political elites, a crucial element of populism. Further underscoring this explanation is the conditional effect of anti-elite sentiment. The relationship between anti-elite sentiment and support for leaving the EU only exists among those with high nativist sentiment; among those low in nativist sentiment, anti-elite feelings did not increase support for Brexit.

Was the outcome of the United Kingdom's 'Brexit' referendum to leave the European Union a visible and consequential manifestation of right-wing populism? After all, skepticism in the UK towards the EU predates the recent rise of European right wing populism. Original survey data show, however, that the interaction of nativist sentiment and anti-elitist attitudes, the cocktail of right-wing populism, led to widespread support for Brexit, even while controlling for other factors. Although hostility to immigrants was an important factor, nativists were particularly prone to vote 'leave'; if they also did not trust political elites, a crucial element of populism. Further underscoring this explanation is the conditional effect of anti-elite sentiment. The relationship between anti-elite sentiment and support for leaving the EU only exists among those with high nativist sentiment; among those low in nativist sentiment, anti-elite feelings did not increase support for Brexit.

AbstractMajorities of citizens in high-income countries often oppose foreign aid spending. One popular explanation is that the public overestimates the percentage and amount of taxpayer funds that goes toward overseas aid. Does expressing aid flows in dollar and/or percentage terms shift public opinion toward aid? We report the results of an experiment examining differences in support for aid spending as a function of the information American and British respondents receive about foreign aid spending. In both nations, providing respondents with information about foreign aid spending as a percentage of the national budget significantly reduces support for cuts. The findings suggest that support for aid can be increased, but significant opposition to aid spending remains.

Vaccine hesitancy is a significant impediment to global efforts to vaccinate against the SARS-CoV-2 virus at levels that generate herd immunity. In this article, we show the utility of an inductive approach – latent class analysis (LCA) – that allows us to characterize the size and nature of different vaccine attitude groups; and to compare how these groups differ across countries as well as across demographic subgroups within countries. We perform this analysis using original survey data collected in the US, UK, and Canada. We also show that these classes are strongly associated with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination intent and perceptions of the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting that attitudes about vaccines to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic are well explained by latent vaccine attitudes that precede the pandemic. More specifically, we find four substantive classes of vaccine attitudes: strong supporters, supporters with concerns, vaccine hesitant, and "anti-vax" as well as a fifth measurement error class. The strong "anti-vax" sentiment class is small in all three countries, while the strong supporter class is the largest across all three countries. We observe different distributions of class assignments in different demographic groups – most notably education and political leaning (partisanship and ideology).

Vaccine hesitancy is a significant impediment to global efforts to vaccinate against the SARS-CoV-2 virus at levels that generate herd immunity. In this article, we show the utility of an inductive approach – latent class analysis (LCA) – that allows us to characterize the size and nature of different vaccine attitude groups; and to compare how these groups differ across countries as well as across demographic subgroups within countries. We perform this analysis using original survey data collected in the US, UK, and Canada. We also show that these classes are strongly associated with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination intent and perceptions of the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting that attitudes about vaccines to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic are well explained by latent vaccine attitudes that precede the pandemic. More specifically, we find four substantive classes of vaccine attitudes: strong supporters, supporters with concerns, vaccine hesitant, and "anti-vax" as well as a fifth measurement error class. The strong "anti-vax" sentiment class is small in all three countries, while the strong supporter class is the largest across all three countries. We observe different distributions of class assignments in different demographic groups – most notably education and political leaning (partisanship and ideology).

Similar to other recent Canadian elections, foreign policy did not feature prominently in the 2011 federal election campaign. In fact, many doubt Canadian public opinion on international affairs is linked to the actions taken by recent Governments. In this paper, we examine Canadian public opinion toward a range of foreign policy issues and argue that the survey questions measure two latent dimensions —militarism and internationalism. Our survey evidence indicates the existence of an "issue public" which is prepared to endorse military action and is skeptical of human rights and overseas aid programs, and this group is far more supportive of Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative Party than other Canadians. The absence of an elite discussion, either among politicians or between media elites, about the direction of Canadian foreign policy does not prevent the Canadian voter from thinking coherently about questions pertaining to this issue domain and employing these beliefs to support or oppose political parties and their leaders.