Class,culture and morality: a sociological analysis of neo-conservatism

In Britain, as in many other western countries, there emerged in the mid-1970s a variety of business associations, policy and research institutes and political leagues, committed not only to the restoration of a Conservative government, but also to a much broader refurbishing of conservatism. A network of organizations, individuals and ideas grew up that became identified as the New Right. The New Right, which clearly has an international character, was generated by economic and political crises, but it was nurtured by a variety of resentments and discontents whose roots lay in structural and cultural changes that had developed over the whole post-war period. Drawing, in part, upon interviews with leaders of the organisations that did most to mobilize opinion behind the New Right in Britain, the article examines the major changes – particularly those in class structure and in culture – to which the new conservatives were reacting. It explores the major ideological strands – libertarian, neo-liberal and conservative - and looks at the attempts by the New Right to use these to produce changes not only in economic policy but in the cultural and moral fabric of society.     

The evolution of federal employment

The first federal employees (other than Founding Fathers) were clerks. As federal employment grew in the 1820s, its ranks came to be dominated by patronage workers. After the Civil War, bureaucrats slowly displaced patronage workers at the federal level. Now, federal employments are being privatized and the bureaucracy shrunk. I explain this evolution of federal employment with one simple model of politics in a changing environment. Politicians combine into political firms to promise benefits to subsets of voters in return for election. If elected, politicians provide the benefits as efficiently as possible. Thus, politicians choose the form and size of their political firms to maximize expected political profits. Environmental changes affect the choices. The breach of the Appalachians in the 1810s, defeat of the South in the Civil War and the simultaneous rise of big and transcontinental industry, and contemporary worldwide economic inte-gration (globalization) are three environmental changes that changed the efficient organization of federal political firms.     

Media use and political learning: Comparing Trump supporters to celebrity candidate voters

This study examines whether political media use behaviors of voters who supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election align with those of “celebrity candidate voters” portrayed in the literature. The study used a national online survey (N = 1,608) conducted during the 2016 primary, and findings reveal that Trump supporters, more than other voters, are driven by entertainment motivations and follow campaign news using entertainment media: specifically, the video-sharing site YouTube. Although Trump voters are interested in the campaign, their level of political knowledge is lower than other voters, and no one media outlet made a significant contribution to their learning. A comparison group of other voters showed significant knowledge gains from news websites and Twitter. Results for Trump voters are consistent with scholars’ characterization of the celebrity candidate audience, particularly in studies suggesting that celebrity politicians may increase citizens’ engagement through entertainment gratifications rather than by a desire to become informed.     

Ideological versus Downsian political competition

We analyze a one-dimensional model of spatial political competition with two parties and uncertainty on the distribution of voters' types. We assume that parties are formed by regular members and professional politicians; members care about the policy enacted, while professional politicians, on the contrary, care only about winning the election. We consider two possibilities: that members choose the political platforms and that professional politicians are the ones who choose such platforms. The expected utility for party members is analyzed under these two cases. We find that when professional politicians have no informational advantage, it is on the interest of both parties to let professional politicians choose the platforms. Only in the case in which professional politicians have much better information than the members of the party about voters is it possible that party members obtain a greater expected utility choosing the platforms themselves rather than letting the professional politicians choose. Received: 31 May 1999/Accepted: 1 March 2001     

The power(lessness) of Czechoslovak Jews during the Second World War

The article evaluates the perceptions of Jewish power among the Czechoslovak exiles in Britain during the Second World War. The analysis documents the apparent persistence of prejudices against the Jewish minority among the Czechoslovak non-Jewish authorities that eventually formed the government-in-exile (1940–5), under the presidency of Edvard Bene? (1884–1948). The Czechoslovak exiles believed that the Jewish minority, in particular the Jewish nationalists (Zionists), had vehement supporters within Jewish circles in Western countries. Furthermore, they believed that the Jewish press played a significant role in the formation of public opinion in Britain and especially in the United States. In the early 1940s, the government-in-exile embarked on a policy of national homogenisation of post-war Czechoslovakia and was anxious to give concessions to the political representatives of the ethnic minority groups in exile, in particular the Germans, Hungarians and Jews. Yet the concerns about Jewish influence in liberal democracies granted several political concessions to the Jewish minority, in particular the appointment of a Zionist representative, Arno?t Frischer (1887–1954), to the exile parliament. This notwithstanding, by analysing the internal situation among the Czechoslovak Jewish groups in London, the article documents the internal weakness and disputes among the Jewish groups which gradually revealed the utter powerlessness of the Jewish exiles during their negotiations with the Czechoslovak authorities. The Jewish groups (the assimilationists, Orthodox and secular nationalists) were divided by mutual as well as internal disputes which were not concealed from outside observers and were utilised by the exile government. What emerges from the analysis is an impression of quarrelling groups that could not agree on any of the fundamental issues and whose only power was the ability to court the support of Western Jewish groups, which were perceived by the non-Jewish exiles as influential actors in US and British society.     

Der Einfluss politischer Ereignisse auf die PopularitÄt von Parteien und Politikern und auf das Parteiensystem

Political events, entering the political system as external shocks, can have a sizable impact on the popularity of political parties and politicians. We investigate this impact using as examples the unregistered campaign donations to chancellor Kohl (CDU-Spendenaffäre) and the political handling of the flash flood in the Elbe region shortly before the last federal election. Our special contribution to the literature is the combined analysis of event impacts on the valence dimension of the German party system and the inertia of the ideological dimension. By using a principal component analysis we extract a two-dimensional political configuration containing the position of parties and politicians and voters’ ideal points. We show that the basic ideological structure of the party system remains nearly unaltered even by such prominent events as the Spendenaffäre (donations scandal). The main changes affect the valence dimension. Focusing on voters we show that the greatest change of evaluation of parties takes place within the group of independents while the partisans remain rather stable in their assessments.     

Gerontocracy in a comparative perspective: Explaining why political leaders are (almost always) older than their constituents

Gerontocracy, in its narrowest sense, refers to political systems ruled by elderly people, whether de jure or de facto. Although formal gerontocratic rules are progressively disappearing, contemporary political systems are still governed by individuals who are significantly older than the mean voter. This article reviews existing explanations for the prevalence of gerontocracy. To summarize main findings, gerontocracy cannot be explained by the leadership qualities of older rulers: aging leaders do not perform better in office and voters seem to be aware of it. Instead, existing research suggests that gerontocracy can be explained by strategic considerations. In autocracies, the selectorate tends to choose aging leaders in order to reduce their expected tenure length. In democracies, voters are more likely to select experienced candidates, which they expect to be more effective at advancing the interests of their constituency: this premium put on experience mechanically lengthens political careers and increases the age of the average politician. Finally, older voters, which participate more in politics, tend to prefer older politicians, because they (correctly) expect them to better defend their own interests.     

British response to the involvement of the American Jewish joint distribution committee in illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine

Following the end of the Second World War Britain conducted a comprehensive campaign against the illegal immigration of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe to displaced persons’ camps in Germany and Austria, and to Palestine. British inquiries at the time revealed that the American Jewish philanthropic agency known as the ‘Joint’ was assisting the illegal movement. The British government failed to bring this assistance to an end. British failure in this regard was primarily a consequence of the concern of the American administration for the situation of Jewish displaced persons, an attitude which was accounted for by Washington's assessment of the political power of American Jews.     

DECEPTION AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: THEORY AND LABORATORY EVIDENCE

We model two‐candidate elections in which (1) voters are uncertain about candidates' attributes; and (2) candidates can inform voters of their attributes by sending advertisements. We compare between political campaigns with truthful advertising and campaigns in which there is a small chance of deceptive advertising. Our model predicts that voters should vote in‐line with an advertisement's information. We test our model's predictions using laboratory elections. We find, in the presence of even a small probability that an advertisement is deceptive, voters become substantially more likely to elect a “low‐quality” candidate. We discuss implications of this for existing models of voting decisions. (JEL C92, D72, D82)     

“The People Have No More Love Left for the Commonwealth”: Media,Migration and Identity in the 1961–62 British Smallpox Outbreak1

In the last days of 1961, with a Conservative government gingerly guiding highly controversial immigration restrictions through Britain's Parliament, another unwanted immigrant to the UK suddenly made its presence felt: smallpox. Media reportage, in both Pakistan and Britain, immediately intertwined legislation and outbreak. This article explores the interplay between these two sets of events, and their mutual impact on public, political, and medical perceptions of and responses to post-colonial immigration and immigrants in Britain.     

Twelve Jewish boys from the class of '47 of a Budapest grammar school – and their families: memories and reminiscences

Based on personal memory and interviews with former classmates the author outlines the lives of 12 men from the professional middle class, who between 1939 and 1947 attended a segregated “Jewish class” of a renowned Budapest grammar school. The article follows their youth, education, survival of the Holocaust and their careers at home or abroad till the end of the twentieth century. Additionally, as far as it became known, one or two generations of ancestors, siblings, and spouses, and one or two generations of offspring are also presented. Finally, central issues of the lives of the “boys,” such as emigration, political conformism, and, above all, assimilation to the majority society will be discussed in separate chapters. These life and family histories may be regarded as typical of a not insignificant segment of Budapest Jewish society.     

Shaping Perceptions of Sarah Palin’s Charisma: Presentations of Palin in the 2008 Presidential Election

Research has shown that male politicians are often stereotyped as stronger leaders than female politicians. This research, however, has taken a fairly narrow view of leadership. In the business organization literature, a leadership style called charismatic leadership is treated as a multidimensional concept, with feminine and masculine attributes. While scholarship has considered factors that shape perceptions of charisma, it has not looked at the effect of media presentations. This question became especially timely during the 2008 election. Using data from an experiment with voters in Los Angeles County, we show how media presentations impact the feminine and masculine components of Sarah Palin’s charisma. In our analysis, we show that media presentations that highlight stereotypically feminine traits increase perceptions of Palin’s feminine charisma, while those that highlight masculine traits have null effects on perceptions of Palin’s masculine charisma. Partisanship moderates these effects. Moreover, as one might expect, increased perceptions of Palin as a charismatic figure increase positive feelings toward her as a candidate.     

The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class1

White working‐class citizens who vote for the Republican Party have been fodder for much political discussion and speculation recently, and a debate has arisen about the role that “moral values” played in the political decision making of this segment of voters. In this article, we defend a version of the moral values claim. We show that although the Republicans’ policies are unpopular, they are bundled with an overarching moral framework that is extremely resonant to this set of voters, and we use in‐depth interviews to uncover this framework. A key feature of this framework, on which in the 2004 presidential election George W. Bush scored high and John Kerry scored low, is the appropriate attitude to wealth, which serves as an indicator for a candidate’s general moral philosophy and as a heuristic about whether the candidate will govern with working‐class voters’ interests in mind. National Election Studies data support the argument that this was a key influence on the voting decision in 2004, even controlling for voters’ partisan identification.     

Technique and Ethos in Nonviolent Action: The Woman Suffrage Case

The Woman's Party, a militant woman's suffrage organization, was active in nonviolent protests from 1916 through 1919. The party members, who drew their inspiration from the woman suffrage movement in Great Britain, were predominately middle and upper class. They were motivated to protest by the descrepancy between their relatively high social status and their relatively low political power. Although they continued to agitate for equal rights after the suffrage ammendment became part of the Constitution, they did not generalize their concern to an explicitly pacifist ethic but continued to emphasize the particularistic ideology of feminism.     

Fo(u)nts of etymology: abstraction and the absolute in Derrida’s 'Faith and Knowledge…'

The political philosopher Hannah Arendt actively engaged in the problem of a Jewish homeland and the politics of Zionism in the years 1941–1948. She advocated a Binational solution to Palestine – a single political commonwealth with two national identities, Jewish and Arab, integrated in a federation with other countries in the region. In the crucial period leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel, Arendt became increasingly disillusioned with the Jewish Agency and the Zionist movement for failing to organize a Jewish response to Nazism (a Jewish Army) and rejecting the Palestinian right to a homeland.     

Association between femininity and women voters political trust in Pakistan

Political trust has been researched extensively since long in the sociology of politics. However, feminine attributes are rarely tested against political trust, especially in developing countries such as Pakistan. The present research explores the association of feminine attributes possessed by rural women with different attributes of political trust in politicians. A total of 414 registered women voters were recruited through a multistage sampling technique from selected tehsils of Punjab Province, Pakistan. The data were collected through an interview schedule, processed through SPSS (21.0), and presented in a tabular format. Pearson R correlation was applied to find out the association between hypothesized variables. The findings suggest that emotionality is significantly correlated with performance, ability, and the conduct of politicians (r = .302, r = .267, r = ?.216, p < .01). Feminine purity is significantly correlated with performance and the ability of politicians (r = .309, r = .202, p < .01). Feminine stereotypical image is significantly correlated with performance and the ability of politicians (r = .174, r = .196, p < .01). Traditional gender relations in the society need to be looked at carefully to realize the true potential of women in terms of their political participation.     

Governing multicultural populations and family life

Shortly after coming to power in Britain, the Conservative–Liberal Democratic alliance placed family life at the heart of their political agenda, and set out their plans to reform adoption. The paper draws upon debates about the reforms and considers them in articulation with concerns about health of the nation expressed in political pronouncements on ‘broken Britain’ and the failures of ‘state multiculturalism’. The paper considers the debates about domestic (transracial) and intercountry adoption, and uses feminist postcolonial perspectives to argue that we can only understand what are expressed as national issues within a transnational and postcolonial framework which illuminate the processes of state and institutional race‐making. The paper analyses three key instances of biopower and governmentality in the adoption debates: the population, the normalizing family and the individual. The paper argues that we need to understand the reforms as part of a wider concern with the ‘problem’ of multicultural belonging, and that the interlocking discourses of nation, family and identities are crucial to the constitution and regulation of gendered, racialized subjects.     

DYNASTIC POLITICAL PRIVILEGE AND ELECTORAL ACCOUNTABILITY: THE CASE OF U.S. GOVERNORS, 1950–2005

This paper examines the impact of dynastic political privilege on the behavior of incumbents. Incumbents have opportunities to serve themselves at the expense of voters, but society can design political institutions to mitigate these principal‐agent problems. Dynastic political privilege may be one such mechanism. We argue that the possibility that opportunistic behavior in office may damage family members' political prospects disciplines incumbents. We test this hypothesis using data for 1950–2005 on U.S. governors, including a new data set on the family relationships of politicians, and find that dynastic political privilege increases incumbent accountability. (JEL H71, H10)     

Britain and the Jewish community of Iraq, 1948–51: An aspect of British policy in the Middle East

British policy after the Second World War was designed to maintain her influence in the Middle East. As a result, she worked to prevent any destabilization of the region's nations and especially to preserve the existent pro‐British regimes.

The Iraqi royal government was weak, depending mainly on its army. The riots of January 1948 proved how tenuous the government's position was. Here Britain invested great efforts in preventing conditions from damaging the regime or destroying it. This explains why the British were not active on behalf of the Jewish community, which at the time suffered from a policy of discrimination and persecution.

The British assumed that the problem of the Jewish minority in Iraq could not be divorced from overall Jewish‐Arab relations or those between Israel and the Arab states, and that the Iraqi Jewish community's fate was inevitable given the events in Palestine. Moreover, despite the pressure from extremist quarters in Iraq to banish all the Jews and expropriate their property, the Iraqi government's policy was not that extreme, and it sought at least to defend their lives and prevent a recurrence of the June 1941 pogrom. Despite this, Israel exploited the Iraqi Jewish community's situation to attain her own political and economic ends.     

Picking the Winners: Politician vs. Voter Predictions of Two Controversial Ballot Measures

Abstract Both politicians and voters were asked to predict outcomesof two Oregon ballot measures in 1982. As expected, politicians'predictions always were closer to the mark than voters' were.Further, voters showed stronger signs of wishful thinking (the"Looking-Glass effect") in their predictions than did politicians.Using published preelection polls apparently improved politicians'accuracy in 1982, as well as voters' accuracy in a separate1984 survey. No other sources of data improved predictive accuracy.Findings have implications for theories of representative governmentand are consistent with a new theory of public opinion.