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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Easing The Heavy Hand: Humanitarian Concern, Empathy, And Opinion On Immigration, Benjamin J. Newman, Todd K. Hartman, Patrick L. Lown, Stanley Feldman
Easing The Heavy Hand: Humanitarian Concern, Empathy, And Opinion On Immigration, Benjamin J. Newman, Todd K. Hartman, Patrick L. Lown, Stanley Feldman
Todd K. Hartman
The bulk of the opinion research on immigration identifies the factors leading to opposition to immigration among the American public. In contrast, we identify a key factor and condition under which citizens embrace more permissive and supportive positions on immigration. Past research indicates that humanitarianism is a core value orientation promoting support—albeit limited—for social welfare policy. Extending this research into another highly salient policy domain—immigration—we find that humanitarian concern serves as a significant source of support for permissive positions on government immigration policy. Relying upon secondary analysis of national survey data and an original survey experiment, we demonstrate that humanitarian …
Decreasing The Economy’S Impact On Evaluations Of The President: An Experiment On Attribution Framing, Brian Newman
Decreasing The Economy’S Impact On Evaluations Of The President: An Experiment On Attribution Framing, Brian Newman
Brian Newman
Decades of research has shown that economic considerations are strongly tied to evaluations of the president. Many studies have found that framing (often called priming) by news coverage, events, and presidential rhetoric can increase the weight of economic and other considerations in presidential evaluations. I use a survey experiment to show that attribution frames can decrease the weight of economic considerations on presidential evaluations. The finding holds implications for the public’s capacity to hold the president accountable and presidents’ legislative strategies.
Divided Government And Foreign Relations Approval, Brian Newman, Kevin Lammert
Divided Government And Foreign Relations Approval, Brian Newman, Kevin Lammert
Brian Newman
During divided government, the public tends to attribute credit and blame for economic conditions to both the president and Congress. However, the "two presidencies" thesis argues that presidents have more influence vis-a-vis Congress in shaping foreign policy compared to domestic policy, so the public may attribute all foreign policy outcomes to the president alone. This suggests that the boost presidents typically receive in their overall approval during divided government due to sharing the blame for negative economic conditions will not extend to their foreign relations approval numbers, We find that presidents do enjoy higher overall approval during divided government. However, …
The Penetration Of Social Media In Governance,Political Reforms And Building Public Perception, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr
The Penetration Of Social Media In Governance,Political Reforms And Building Public Perception, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr
Ratnesh Dwivedi
Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. While we know that social media can play an important role in publicizing political activities such as protests, do we have evidence that such actions have led to substantive political change? Is it possible to develop a set of indicators to more effectively gauge the impact of new technologies and media on questions of political change? That social media can help coordinate large and discrete activities, such as protests and …
The Polarized Presidency: Depth And Breadth Of Public Partisanship, Brian Newman, Emerson Siegle
The Polarized Presidency: Depth And Breadth Of Public Partisanship, Brian Newman, Emerson Siegle
Brian Newman
This essay examines the extent of partisan polarization in the public's views of the president from 1972 to 2008, extending earlier studies by placing the George W. Bush administration in historical context and exploring the depth and breadth of polarization. The authors find that the party gap in presidential approval has grown significantly over time. Moreover, more inpartisans strongly approve of the president and more outpartisans strongly disapprove. In addition, polarization has become broader as assessments of economic conditions, the president's handling of foreign relations, perceptions of the ideological difference between the president and citizens, and views of the president's …
'Rally Round The Flag’ Events For Presidential Approval Research, Brian Newman, Andrew Forcehimes
'Rally Round The Flag’ Events For Presidential Approval Research, Brian Newman, Andrew Forcehimes
Brian Newman
Since Mueller's [Mueller, J., 1970. Presidential popularity from Truman to Johnson. The American Political Science Review 64 (1), 18-34.] pioneering study, students of presidential approval ratings have agreed that major events affect these ratings. Despite this consensus, there is wide divergence in the ways that scholars have selected events for inclusion in models of approval ratings. This inconsistency inhibits direct comparisons across studies and raises the possibility that results are contingent on those selection criteria. Thus, what we have learned about the impact of various factors that may affect approval may depend on the details of selection criteria. Practically, scholars …
Public Evaluations Of Presidents, Brian Newman, Paul Gronke
Public Evaluations Of Presidents, Brian Newman, Paul Gronke
Brian Newman
An overview of the presidential approval literature that highlights questions for future research.
Presidential Traits And Job Approval: Some Aggregate-Level Evidence., Brian Newman
Presidential Traits And Job Approval: Some Aggregate-Level Evidence., Brian Newman
Brian Newman
In a previous article in this journal, Cohen (2001) introduced time series measures of public perceptions of Bill Clinton's personal characteristics. Here, I explore the political impact of these perceptions, asking whether they affect the public's evaluations of presidential job performance. I find that they do, adding aggregate-level support to existing individual-level evidence of the importance of character assessments. Finding a connection between character perceptions and job approval in the aggregate time series context helps answer questions previous studies leave unresolved, with significant implications for our understanding of presidential approval and presidential politics more generally. [First paragraph]
Fdr To Clinton, Mueller To ?: A Field Essay On Presidential Approval, Brian Newman, Paul Gronke
Fdr To Clinton, Mueller To ?: A Field Essay On Presidential Approval, Brian Newman, Paul Gronke
Brian Newman
Since the 1930s, polling organizations have asked Americans whether they "approve or disapprove of the job [the incumbent] is doing as president." In the early 1970s, John Mueller started an academic industry by asking what drives these evaluations. American politics and the tools available to examine it have changed dramatically since then, inspiring a burst of research on presidential approval in the 1990s. We review this new body of literature, arguing that it builds on but differs importantly from earlier approval studies. Since Mueller's writing, scholars have expanded his relatively simple model, taking account of presidents' goals and personal characteristics, …
Integrity And Presidential Approval, 1980-2000, Brian Newman
Integrity And Presidential Approval, 1980-2000, Brian Newman
Brian Newman
Do individuals' assessments of the president's integrity consistently affect their evaluations of his job performance? Previous research suggests that they might, but extant studies typically do not directly examine the effects of these assessments. Those that do have examined only a few time points, leaving the question of whether integrity assessments consistently affect approval across presidencies unresolved. Further, they do not examine the effects of integrity on Bill Clinton's approval after the Lewinsky scandal, a time when many argued that integrity assessments were irrelevant to evaluations of his job performance. This study examines the effects of integrity assessments on approval …
Bill Clinton’S Approval Ratings: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same, Brian Newman
Bill Clinton’S Approval Ratings: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same, Brian Newman
Brian Newman
Over the past three decades, political scientists have been developing general models of presidential approval ratings, seeking to determine the structure of aggregate approval. This endeavor has culminated in the broad claim that "peace, prosperity, and probity" drive the public's approval. The unprecedented events of the Clinton Presidency, especially his high approval during and after impeachment, present a strong challenge to this model. However, the existing model explains Clinton's approval remarkably well, suggesting that the public punished and rewarded him for the state of the economy, major political events, and his integrity. Passing this strong test constitutes considerable support for …