Partisan difference in social desirability bias on anti-immigrant sentiments: Covert and overt expression among French voters

Various types of anti-immigrant sentiments have been taken as the characteristic independent variable to explain specific support for radical right parties. However, some survey respondents tend to conceal their attitudes towards socially sensitive issues. To overcome this challenge, the present study used a list experiment method (item count technique) to reveal respondents' covert attitudes towards immigrants (and compared these with overt expressions) based on party support in France. Results indicated similar levels of anti-immigrant sentiments among radical right National Front supporters and other centre-rightist parties. In addition, comparison with the direct question method revealed that while supporters of centre-right parties were reluctant to express their anti-immigrant sentiment in overt expressions, National Front supporters willingly expressed it overtly more than in covert expressions. Using regression analysis, this paper demonstrates the diversity of anti-immigrant norms and the social desirability bias gap in the French political space.     

The Coming Failure of Mission-Oriented Social Research

Abstract

An effort has been made to examine systematically the effects of various types of status inconsistencies and perceived stress on support for radical political parties within various class and age categories in order to clarify ambiguities in previous research. In general, two broad hypotheses have been suggested: that stressful life situations are more likely to lead to radical support among young people since they are less committed to the political system and traditional political parties and are more open to change; and that stressful life situations are more likely to lead to radical political support among older people since they have less hope for their situation to improve. To test these hypotheses, we examine support for the separatist Parti Quebecois using a 1970 survey with 1587 francophone respondents from the province of Quebec. Findings from multiple regression suggest the following: political alienation is more likely to PQ lead to support among those under 35; status inconsistency is more likely to lead to PQ support among those in mid-life (36–59); and worry about financial future is the strongest predictor of support among those over 60. The findings confirm expectations about age differences in the effects of status concerns on radical political support.     

The Scope of Political Conflict and the Effectiveness of Constraints in Contemporary Urban Protest*

This paper examines the effectiveness of the use of constraints (e. g., direct action tactics and violence) by protest groups. It is suggested that the development of theoretical understanding of protest movements requires that scholars turn their attention away from the question, “How effective is the use of constraints by protesters?” and instead address the more refined question, “Under what conditions is the use of constraints by protesters both most effective and least effective?” In pursuit of answers to this latter question, hypotheses are developed suggesting that the effectiveness of constraint utilization depends on the degree and direction of public (third party) involvement in the protest incident. An examination of 212 protests targeted at elected officials and public administrators in American cities during the period between 1960 and 1971 provides support for the following propositions. Constraint utilization will be most effective when third parties are either uninvolved in the protest or when they are involved and unsupportive of protester demands. Under these conditions, constraints may be effective resources enabling protesters to coerce targets into being responsive to their demands. Constraint utilization will be least effective when third parties are involved and supportive of protester demands or are attentive but initially neutral or divided in their support of the protesters. Under these conditions, the use of constraints may alienate those third parties who might otherwise be influential allies of the protesters.     

Configuration to conviction: Network structures of political judiciary in the Austrian Corporate State

In this paper, we analyze the extent of political judiciary in the transformed system of the Corporate State of Austria using the computational methods of a network approach. We investigate the differences in the legal prosecution of the political opposition, namely of members of the Communist, Social Democratic and National Socialist parties based on Vienna as a case study. Based on over 1,800 court records from 1935 processed at the Viennese provincial courts, we evaluate the courts’ practice in contrast to the official legislature during the consolidated phase of the regime. In this study, we examine whether the law was strategically utilized against specific groups (following the concept of Kirchheimer (1965)’s political lawsuit), and as in the more lenient version of Fraenkel (1927/1968)’s tendency justice, we analyze whether the law was disadvantageously interpreted for political partisanship up to a blatant breach of conduct. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods with network science approaches, we identify patterns of political prosecution and structural predispositions for the sentencing of left- and right-wing groups of the political opposition. We can prove different practices of political judiciary and differentiate between the different treatment of Social Democrats, Communists and National Socialists in 1935 in Vienna. We identify specialized strategies to prosecute the political opposition, resulting in a clear bias against left-wing groups and a relative leniency in the conviction of National Socialists based on the evolution of charges in the courts’ actions. Using a multimodal network approach, we reveal key players and cooperation of judges and prosecutors which accounted for harsher sentences. We provide evidence that the system of control over the judiciary and over the political opposition was already crumbling in the Austrian capital in 1935, even before the “Anschluss” to NS-Germany in 1938.     

Estimating the effects of activists in two-party and multi-party systems: comparing the United States and Israel

This article presents an electoral model where activist groups contribute resources to their favored parties. These resources are then used by the party candidates to enhance the electoral perception of their quality or valence. We construct an empirical model of the United States presidential election of 2008 and employ the electoral perception of the character traits of the two candidates. We use a simulation technique to determine the local Nash equilibrium, under vote share maximization, of this model. The result shows that the unique vote-maximizing equilibrium is one where the two candidates adopt convergent positions, close to the electoral center. This result conflicts with the estimated positions of the candidates in opposed quadrants of the policy space. The difference between estimated positions and equilibrium positions allows us to estimate the influence of activist groups on the candidates. We compare this estimation with that of Israel for the election of 1996, and show that vote maximization leads low valence parties to position themselves far from the electoral origin. We argue that these low valence parties in Israel will be dependent on support of radical activist groups, resulting in a degree of political fragmentation.     

The “Big Bang” of the populist parties in the European Union: The 2014 European Parliament election

A significant number of voters are turning their backs on traditional parties. The stability of European party systems is being defied by a growing number of (new) radical parties, whose presence in the European Parliament has never been as strong as it is now. Faced with the worst global economic crisis of the last 80 years and with growing socio-economic inequalities, a series of political groups, referred to as populists, have secured almost a quarter of the seats in the European Parliament. This paper aims to highlight some of the reasons why these parties attract so much support and to reach a better understanding, from a comparative perspective, of the profile of these electorates as well as their motivations and aspirations. The analysis is based on the study of microdata (N?=?30,064) from the European Election Study 2014 conducted in the EU after the European elections of 2014.     

Brahmin Left versus Merchant Right? Education,class, multiparty competition,and redistribution in Western Europe

In this article, we revisit the main claims of Part Four of Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology and especially the changing support coalitions for parties of the left. Piketty's core argument in this part of the book is that the left now represents the highly educated and that, as a result, the redistributive preferences of the working class do not find representation in today's party systems. We address these claims building on existing political science research that has investigated the transformation of politics in advanced capitalist societies. We argue, first, that the educational divide cannot be adequately analyzed by looking at a left and a right bloc, but crucially needs to pay attention to the rise of green/left‐libertarian and radical right parties. Second, we contend that the new middle classes that support parties of the left are largely in favor of economic redistribution. Analyzing data from the European Social Survey in 11 West European countries from 2002 to 2018, we show that the effect of education on voting left or right is indeed largely driven by green/left‐libertarian and radical right parties, while there is little empirical evidence that social democratic parties represent the educational elite. We also find that redistributive preferences remain at the heart of voting behavior and that, especially for educated voters, these preferences determine whether someone votes for a party of the left rather than the right.     

Still fighting the good fight: An analysis of student activism and institutional response

The current study employs content analysis of news coverage on recent campus protests (the University of Missouri, the University of Cincinnati, Harvard School of Law, and Ithaca College). Using the contingency theory of conflict management as a theoretical framework, the study sought both parties’ (institution and student activist group) stances along the continuum of pure advocacy to pure accommodation. The study also examined whether recent student groups applied radical activist strategies, and if institutions employed conflict resolution strategies.Results indicate both parties were advocating, with only institutions moving along the continuum from advocacy to pure accommodation. Students were found to execute radical activist strategies and institutions’ responses were dominantly unconditionally constructive.     

Second and third party punishment under costly monitoring

In a laboratory experiment we study how costly punishment behavior of second and third parties in a social dilemma situation is affected by monitoring costs. Subjects have to pay a fee over and above punishment costs if they wish to condition punishments on previous play, which is equivalent to a binary choice between the acquisition of perfect information on the target subject’s behavior and no information at all. When monitoring is costly both second and third party punishment is weaker and less discriminate and hence generates weaker incentives for cooperation than when monitoring is free. There are subtle differences between second and third parties: The presence of monitoring costs leads subjects to withhold sanctioning more often as second parties than as third parties, and to punish indiscriminately more often as third parties than as second parties. The results contribute to the understanding of peer-enforcement of cooperation in social dilemmas and whether there is a common motivational structure underpinning second and third party punishment.     

PARTY POLITICS AND THE PRICE OF PAYOLA

The literature contains two competing views of the role of political parties: parties are treated either as associations of interest groups supported to the degree that they offer electoral support in the lawmaker's district, or as expressions of the personal ideologies of the lawmakers. In this paper parties are treated as bargaining agents for groups of lawmakers in their dealings with interest groups. Interest groups are depicted buying votes on proposals where those votes are cheapest. Parties are combinations of consistently low-price vote suppliers. The theory has empirical power that discriminates between it and the two competing models.     

Why is Collective Violence Collective?

A theory of collective violence must explain both why it is collective and why it is violent. Whereas my earlier work addresses the question of why collective violence is violent, here I apply and extend Donald Black's theory of partisanship to the question of why violence collectivizes. I propose in general that the collectivization of violence is a direct function of strong partisanship. Strong partisanship arises when third parties (1) support one side against the other and (2) are solidary among themselves. Such support occurs when third parties are socially close to one side and remote from the other and when one side has more social status than the other. Third parties are solidary when they are intimate, culturally homogeneous, and interdependent. I focus in particular on lynching: Lynching is a joint function of strong partisanship toward the alleged victim and weak partisanship toward the alleged offender. Unequal strong partisanship appears in both classic lynchings (of outsiders) and communal ynchings (of insiders) across societies and history. Where partisanship is weak or strong on both sides, lynching is unlikely to occur. Evidence includes patterns of lynching in various tribal societies, the American South, imperial China, and medieval Europe.     

Electoral democracy, revolutionary politics and political violence: the emergence of Fascism in Italy, 1920-21

This study examines the determination of the Italian Fascists' extra‐parliamentary, para‐military, violent strategy. What were the effects of the socialists' political strategy, relying on electoral democracy, on the creation and strategy of the Fascist Action Squads? A comparison among Italy's 69 provinces, based on quantitative and qualitative historical evidence reveals a distinct pattern in the Fascists' violence. They attacked mainly provinces where the Socialists enjoyed the greatest electoral support. This pattern was a product of two historical processes: (a) the threat of the Socialist party to the landlords' economic and political hegemony, and (b) the landlords' tradition of militant anti‐worker organization which culminated in their alliance with the Fascists. The Fascists' struggle for, and takeover of, political power was not an immanent historical necessity. It was first and foremost an anti‐socialist reaction. It was shaped both ‘from below’, by the political power and radicalism of the PSI and the para‐military capacity of the Fascist Squads; and ‘from above’, by the active support the Fascists received from the landlords and the state. Supported by organized landlords and blessed with the authorities' benevolence, the Squads were able to destroy – physically and politically – the legitimately constituted provincial governments of the Socialists. The alliance with the landlords determined the Squads' almost exclusive attacks on Socialist provincial strongholds that constituted the greatest threat to the landlords' interests, while provinces dominated by the ruling Liberal party were excluded from the Squads' path of ‘punitive expeditions’.     

Feelings of power lead people to take sides with other powerful parties

Abstract

It has often been noted that power has various self-reinforcing effects, in the sense that it leads people to support the interests of other powerful people and harm the interests of the powerless. In the current article we investigate this in a fundamental manner and show that the experience of power makes people more inclined to side with parties that are higher in the hierarchy and against parties that are lower in that hierarchy. Two studies demonstrate that people who experience elevated power side with parties higher in the hierarchy and against parties lower in the hierarchy. A third experiment identifies an important moderator: if people sense their power is unfair and illegitimate, this effect is blocked. These results extend our understanding of the effects of power on moral thinking to actual side taking with one party against another in an interpersonal, moral conflict.     

Toward a Viable Progressive Third Party in 2020 and Beyond1

Creating a strong, influential third party has been an abiding aspiration on the American left, and were this goal to be achieved, it could be a great boon to subordinate groups in the United States. Yet widespread doubts persist, even among progressives that this is desirable, and especially that it is possible. Here, I briefly review compelling reasons for thinking otherwise; I then consider in some depth the potential for starting to build a viable left third party leading up to and after the pivotal 2020 election. In doing so, I go beyond the existing literature on third parties, which has yet to reflect systematically on progressive third party prospects in this period. Specifically, I assess how the emerging political environment may shape left third-party building, and I evaluate ongoing and developing attempts by key groups engaged in that effort. I find a distinct tension between conditions encouraging progressives to reform versus abandon the Democratic Party, and I identify one alternative party-building tendency that seems most able to exploit the latter impulse due to its already established electoral viability. Last, I highlight relevant questions that remain for activists hoping to create an effective national left third party.     

The Presence of Others and Overreporting of Voting in American National Elections

This study uses the 1978 and 1980 vote validation studies conductedby the University of Michigan Survey Research Center to testthe extent to which false claims about voting are affected bythe presence of third parties during the interview. The presenceof third parties during interviews is far more frequent thanis commonly assumed. But the tendency of respondents to givesocially approved answers is not affected by the presence ofothers during the interview. Thus, additional efforts to avoidcontamination of interviews by eliminating third parties arenot likely to reduce the exaggeration of self-reported vote.The analysis suggests that the declared intention to vote isa far more important factor in whether people falsely reportvoting than is the presence of others. Additional effort tounderstand the motivational basis of voting and nonvoting couldhelp to account for variation in voting overreports.     

Protest Group Success: The Impact of Group Characteristics,Social Control,and Context

Abstract

In this study we test eight hypotheses about the relative control of protesters, third parties, and elements of the situation (movement context and confrontation) over two types of protest group success: goal achievement and recognition. A path analysis indicates that two sets of protester-controlled factors decisively affect protest group success: organization and beliefs and goals. Of the two, beliefs and goals is the more significant, although bureaucracy is very important for recognition. For the most part, the impact of protester-controlled factors is not due to the reaction of third parties; however, revolutionary activism, one factor in the realm of beliefs and goals, is a notable exception. Revolutionary activism's negative association with success is largely due to suppression by third parties.     

Negotiating Unequal Exchange: Relational Work in Cross-Class Sibling Relationships1

Based on 60 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, this article examines exchanges of support in cross-class adult sibling relationships. Whereas previous studies of family exchange have largely focused on parent–child support and patterns of inequality across families, this study addresses a gap in the literature by focusing on sibling exchanges and within-family inequality. How is support exchanged when expectations of peer equality are violated—when there is an economic difference between adult siblings? I find that cross-class siblings engage in relational work to shape and reframe exchanges in ways that are more indirect, often involving third parties. I identify four types of indirect economic support—proxy support, dependent support, compensatory support, and shared resources—which contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of sibling exchange, and point to ways in which inequality can be interactionally managed.     

Competition for popular support: a valence model of elections in Turkey

Models of elections tend to predict that parties will maximize votes by converging to an electoral center. There is no empirical support for this prediction. In order to account for the phenomenon of political divergence, this paper offers a stochastic electoral model where party leaders or candidates are differentiated by differing valences??the electoral perception of the quality of the party leader. If valence is simply intrinsic, then it can be shown that there is a ??convergence coefficient??, defined in terms of the empirical parameters, that must be bounded above by the dimension of the space, in order for the electoral mean to be a Nash equilibrium. This model is applied to elections in Turkey in 1999 and 2002. The idea of valence is then extended to include the possibility that activist groups contribute resources to their favored parties in response to policy concessions from the parties. The equilibrium result is that parties, in order to maximize vote share, must balance a centripetal electoral force against a centrifugal activist effect. We estimate pure spatial models and models with sociodemographic valences, and use simulations to compare the equilibrium predictions with the estimated party positions.     

THE HOLLOW REALIGNMENT PARTISAN CHANGE IN A CANDIDATE-CENTERED ERA

In 1984 identification with the Republican party increased tothe point where the plurality of Democrats over Republicansreached its lowest point since such measurements began in 1952.Yet the realignment is a hollow one between two parties whostill have a weak image in the public mind and an uncertainrole in the future of American government. While the balanceof power between the two parties shifted, the importance ofpolitical parties to the electorate remained at an historicallyweak level. Split-ticket voting continued to be high and roughlya third of the electorate had nothing to say-either positiveor negative-about both the parties. In short, realignment occurredin 1984 without party revitalization and the reestablishmentof the linkage between parties and candidates.     

Employer liability for third‐party sexual harassment

While most employers understand the scope of their responsibility to prevent sexual harassment between employees, the scope of an employer's responsibility to prevent sexual harassment by third parties is often less clear. Such third parties may include customers, clients, sales representatives, vendors, investors, or anyone in the workplace who is not a member of the employer's workforce. Although an employer may be unable to easily control non‐employee actions, it is legally obligated to respond to any third‐party sexual harassment of its employees that is brought to the employer's attention. With proper safeguards and remedial action, however, an employer can keep its employees safe from third‐party sexual harassment and protect itself from liability in the process. This Q&A explains employer liability for third‐party sexual harassment, describes the ramifications of an employer's failure to properly address or prevent it, and recommends strategies to reduce an employer's legal exposure.