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Political Preferences (political + preference)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	90%

Selected Abstracts

National pension systems and mass opinion: a case study of confidence, satisfaction and political attitudes in Norway

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 2 2004
Ann-Helén Bay
It is commonly assumed that popular support for national pension systems depends on widespread satisfaction with projected benefit levels among the working age population, and in particular that public support for the system will be jeopardised if the taxpayers do not feel confident about eventually receiving the promised benefits. On the basis of Norwegian survey data, two sets of questions are addressed in the article: (1) Is there a widespread lack of confidence in and satisfaction with the Norwegian National Insurance pension scheme? and (2) Is there an association between confidence and satisfaction and people's political attitudes towards the National Insurance pension scheme? Although we do not find any signs of a dramatic erosion of confidence towards the system, we do find that overall satisfaction with projected benefits is low among the working age population. Contrary to what one might expect, however, confidence and satisfaction from the point of view of individual interests appear not to be associated with a political preference for privatisation. [source]

The political thought of Isaiah Berlin

BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2002
Dunchan Kelly
Typically evaluated for the merits or otherwise of his famous account of ,value pluralism', Isaiah Berlin's more general political thought is less often discussed. However, broader reflection sheds light on three crucial elements necessary for a proper understanding of Berlin's work. First, it shows the importance and context of his analysis of Marx and Marxism in providing the basis for his distinction between pluralism and monism. Secondly, through his criticisms of Marxism, Berlin's political sympathy for a moderate nationalism, something also reflected in his personal considerations regarding Jewish identity, can more easily be gauged. Thirdly, and in conclusion, a combination of this political preference and the ,pluralism,monism' dichotomy offers an explanation as to why Berlin wrote the history of political ideas as he did. [source]

Ideology,Driven opinion formation in Europe: The case of attitudes towards the third sector in Sweden

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2001
STAFFAN KUMLIN
This paper uses attitudes towards the third sector in Sweden to test general assumptions about how citizens in West European political systems apply ideological schemas as shortcuts to political preferences. Attitudes towards the third sector are found to be affected by all ideological schemas reflected in the Swedish party system (state,market, Christian traditionalism, and growth,ecology). Contrary to what is implied by findings from America, these effects are very stable across socio,economic groups (especially those of the dominant statemarket schema). Similarly, no interaction effects of political sophistication could be traced, and the relative impact of the schemas remains the same regardless of whether or not the third sector is presented as an alternative to the welfare state. The implications of these findings for the nature of public opinion formation in ideologically clear and structured political systems are discussed. [source]

Critical Junctures and Social Identity Theory: Explaining the Gap between Danish Mass and Elite Attitudes to Europeanization

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2005
TRINE FLOCKHART
By applying a combination of a social constructivist perspective on ideational change with theories of social learning and social identity, the article explains the gap in the Danish discourse on Europe between mass and elite. The Danish population is conceptualized as two differently constructed ,social groups' consisting of a nation people and a state-elite group. Each ,social group' has experienced different processes of ideational change and socialization and has developed different conceptions of interests and political preferences. [source]

Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 1 2009
Shanto Iyengar
We show that the demand for news varies with the perceived affinity of the news organization to the consumer's political preferences. In an experimental setting, conservatives and Republicans preferred to read news reports attributed to Fox News and to avoid news from CNN and NPR. Democrats and liberals exhibited exactly the opposite syndrome,dividing their attention equally between CNN and NPR, but avoiding Fox News. This pattern of selective exposure based on partisan affinity held not only for news coverage of controversial issues but also for relatively "soft" subjects such as crime and travel. The tendency to select news based on anticipated agreement was also strengthened among more politically engaged partisans. Overall, these results suggest that the further proliferation of new media and enhanced media choices may contribute to the further polarization of the news audience. Resumen Los Medios Rojos, los Medios Azules: La Evidencia de la Selectividad Ideológica en el Uso de los Medios Mostramos que la demanda de noticias varía con la percepción de la afinidad con las organizaciones de noticias en las preferencias políticas del consumidor. En un ambiente experimental, conservadores y Republicanos prefirieron leer reportes de noticias atribuidos a la cadena de noticias Fox y evitaron las noticias de CNN y NPR. Los Demócratas y liberales exhibieron el síndrome exactamente opuesto , dividiendo su atención igualmente entre CNN y NPR, pero evitando las noticias de la cadena Fox. Esta pauta selectiva de exposición basada en la afinidad partidaria es sostenida no solo con respecto a la cobertura de noticias de hechos controversiales, sino también con respecto a materias relativamente "blandas" tales como el crimen y el viaje. La tendencia a seleccionar noticias basadas en un acuerdo anticipado fue aumentada también entre los partidarios políticamente más comprometidos. En general, los resultados sugieren que la mayor proliferación de los nuevos medios y las opciones mejoradas de los medios pueden contribuir a una mayor polarización de las audiencias de noticias. ZhaiYao Yo yak [source]

PRIVATIZATION AND EFFICIENCY: FROM PRINCIPALS AND AGENTS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY

JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 4 2008
Alberto Cavaliere
Abstract We survey the theoretical literature on privatization and efficiency by tracing its evolution from the applications of agency theory to recent contributions in the field of political economy. The former extend the theory of regulation with incomplete information to address privatization issues, comparing state-owned enterprises with private regulated firms. The benefits of privatization may derive either from the constraints it places on malevolent agents or from the impossibility of commitment by a benevolent government because of incomplete contracts. Contributions dealing with political economy issues separate privatization from restructuring decisions. They either explore bargaining between managers and politicians or analyse the impact of privatization shaped by political preferences on efficiency. The theoretical results regarding the relation between privatization and efficiency do not lead to any definitive conclusion. Privatization may increase productive efficiency when restructuring takes place whereas its effects on allocative efficiency still remain uncertain. [source]

Voters, Parties, and the Endogenous Size of Government

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2002
Jans-Peter Olters
Elections, often to a considerable degree, influence the fiscal policies of governments installed on the basis of their results. Yet, economists have tended to view politicians' behaviour either as being determined exogenously or as the result of a social planner's maximisation of a well-defined social-welfare function (subject to some appropriate technology and resource constraints). The latter approach, given (i) its inherent abstraction from important politico-economic interactions, (ii) the theoretical difficulty in deriving a non-contradictory "collective utility function" (as demonstrated by Arrow), and (iii) the inability to estimate a stable relationship that could explain political preferences with economic variables,is viewed as being an unsatisfactory tool for the joint description of a country's economy and polity. On the basis of explicit micro-economic foundations and a democratically coordinated decision-making mechanism over the "optimal" provision of public goods and the corresponding taxes required to finance them, this paper will introduce a simple economic model of politics that subjects individuals to a,two-tiered,political decision-making process over party membership and electoral participation, thereby endogenising the evolution of the competing parties' ideologies, households' electoral behaviour, and the key factors explaining the design of fiscal policies. Having the majority party's median delegate determine on the "optimal" degree of income redistribution suggests that a country's wealth distribution is a crucial explanatory variable explaining its politico-economic development path. [source]

Dynamics of Interpersonal Political Environment and Party Identification: Longitudinal Studies of Voting in Japan and New Zealand

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2005
Ken'ichi Ikeda
The dynamical systems theory of groups claims that interpersonal political environment and party identification are dynamically interrelated to provide heuristics under uncertainty. Panel data over the course of a year examined the longitudinal dynamics between social networks, social identifications, and voting behavior among a national sample of registered voters in Japan and a regional sample in Wellington, New Zealand. Respondents with more stable party identification had greater stability in the political preferences of their interpersonal network in both countries; moreover, stability in party identification was predicted by interpersonal political environment and older age in both countries. Stability of party identification predicted voting consistency in both countries, whereas stability of interpersonal political environment made an independent contribution to voting consistency in Japan only. There were cultural differences in levels of interpersonal political environment stability, but the amount of political discussion and ideological stability did not make independent contributions to any of the three main variables. Results provided support for the dynamical systems theory of groups. [source]

Structural Power and Public Policy: A Signaling Model of Business Lobbying in Democratic Capitalism

POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2005
Patrick Bernhagen
This paper develops a signaling model of corporate lobbying in democratic capitalist societies to analyze the conditions that lead to a powerful political position of business. Proceeding from the traditional dichotomy of structural economic determinants versus business' political action, our model predicts the conditions under which elected political decisionmakers modify their policy pledges to accommodate business' political preferences, or override business' lobbying messages and honor their pledges. Our results show that the structural power of business over public policy is contingent on two variables: the size of reputation costs of business in relation to its material costs of lobbying; and the ratio of the policymaker's reputation constraints from policy commitments and campaign pledges to the electoral costs arising from adverse effects of policy. We evaluate our model using case studies of business lobbying on environmental and financial services regulation in Britain and Germany. [source]

Social mobility and constitutional and political preferences in Northern Ireland

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
Richard Breen
ABSTRACT During the past thirty years Catholics in Northern Ireland have experienced unprecedented upward social mobility. Some commentators have suggested that this has led Catholics not merely to adopt the lifestyles of the middle class but also to modify their constitutional preferences, leading to a decline in nationalism. In this paper I examine the relationship between social mobility, on the one hand, and, on the other, both constitutional preferences and political (left or right wing) preferences among Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, using survey data collected in 1996. There is no evidence that Catholics' constitutional preferences are related to their mobility experiences. [source]