Suchergebnisse

Introduction -- Turnout twist : higher voter turnout in lower-level elections -- A rational choice model of relative voter turnout -- Levels of quantitative tests -- Culture or institutions? elections in a traditional society -- Conclusion.

The "rally 'round the flag" effect—a short-term boost in a political leader's popularity during an interstate political dispute—was first proposed by Mueller (1970) more than half a century ago. However, there is no scholarly consensus on its empirical validity and the circumstances under which the effect becomes most prominent. In this paper, based on a natural experimental design, we analyze large-scale worldwide surveys of 34,118 responses and causally identify the effects of 46 militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) on the approval ratings of political leaders in 27 countries. We find that MIDs, on average, decrease public support for national leaders. However, the public backlash could be attenuated depending on theoretically relevant contexts. Our finding implies that political leaders cannot rely on MIDs for public support increases, as they are generally penalized for such decisions.

Scholars and practitioners often argue that the United States' identity as a democracy contributes to the effectiveness and endurance of US military alliances. One way to test this claim is to ask: what would happen if citizens of allied countries came to perceive US democracy as severely flawed or diminished? In the context of now well-documented Russian interference in recent US elections, we examine whether Russia's election interference and its perceived impact on American democracy damage foreign public opinion about the United States. The results of our survey experiment fielded in Japan suggest that information about successful Russian election interference—that is, interference that had an impact on the election outcome—reduces foreign citizens' faith in the United States as an ally. This pattern most clearly manifests in reduced belief in the US capacity to defend Japan. Our study sheds light on the connections between the image of the United States, both as a trustworthy and effective state, and the foreign public's attitudes toward US alliances, with theoretical and practical implications.

Does "soft power" matter in international relations? Specifically, when the United States seeks cooperation from countries around the world, do the views of their publics about US foreign policy affect the actual foreign policy behavior of these countries? The authors examine this question using multinational surveys covering fifty-eight countries, combined with information about their foreign policy decisions in 2003, a critical year for the US. They draw their basic conceptual framework from Joseph Nye, who uses various indicators of opinion about the US to assess US soft power. But the authors argue that his theory lacks the specificity needed for falsifiable testing. They refine it by focusing on foreign public opinion about US foreign policy, an underemphasized element of Nye's approach. Their regression analysis shows that foreign public opinion has a significant and large effect on troop commitments to the war in Iraq, even after controlling for various hard power factors. It also has significant, albeit small, effects on policies toward the International Criminal Court and on voting decisions in the UN General Assembly. These results support the authors' refined theoretical argument about soft power: public opinion about US foreign policy in foreign countries does affect their policies toward the US, but this effect is conditional on the salience of an issue for mass publics. (World Politics / SWP)

"On the evening of November 11, 2015, close to 200 students gathered at Baker Berry Library on the campus of Dartmouth College. Clad in black and holding homemade posters, they marched to the steps of the iconic Dartmouth Hall chanting, "We shall overcome" and "Black lives matter." One poster summed up the emotions of many students involved in the demonstration: "This is how we REALLY feel." The week before that march, a #BlackLivesMatter display in the campus student center had been defaced. The display featured 74 shirts representing 74 unarmed individuals killed by police officers in 2015. Twenty-eight of the shirts were black, representing black individuals who lost their lives. Soon after the display was presented, several of the black shirts were ripped down. The protesters also wanted to stand in solidarity with students of color at the University of Missouri and Yale University, where racially-charged incidents had sparked protests. At Mizzou, a swastika drawn in feces was found in a dormitory bathroom, and reports of racial slurs and an overall climate of bias on campus had inspired a hunger strike by one student and broader demonstrations calling for the university's president and chancellor to step down. At Yale, allegations about a racist fraternity party and a dispute over a faculty member's push-back against university directives on Halloween costumes led to a March of Resilience with over a thousand participants"--