Social media use and vaccination among Democrats and Republicans: Informational and normative influences.

Our objective was to determine whether social media influences vaccination through informational and normative influences among Democrats and Republicans. We use a probability-based longitudinal study of Americans (N = 1768) collected between December 2022 and September 2023 to examine the prospective associations between social media use and vaccination as well as informational and normative influence as mediating processes. Greater social media use correlates with more frequent vaccination (cross-lagged coefficients: COVID-19 = 0.113, p < 0.001; influenza = 0.123, p < 0.001). The underlying processes, however, vary between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats who use social media more are more likely to vaccinate because they encounter information about new pathogens. In contrast, Republicans who use social media more are more likely to vaccinate because they think that people who are important to them receive the recommended vaccines. Our findings underscore the potential for social media campaigns to promote vaccination, among both Democrats and Republicans by paying attention to the specific processes in each audience.

The Development of the Urban-Rural Cleavage in Anglo-American Democracies.

We provide a mixed-methods, comparative analysis of the development of the urban-rural electoral cleavage in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States from the early 20th century to the present. Using aggregate election results, electoral district boundary files, and electoral district population measures, we construct a new comparable dataset of district election results and urbanity for the lower house of the legislature in each country. We use this dataset to measure the importance of the urban-rural divide for election outcomes across countries and time. We find that the cleavage has widened over time in each country, each arrived at its current urban-rural divide via a distinct developmental trajectory, which we interpret with reference to secondary literature. We conclude by discussing the significance of our findings for theories of both the causes and consequences of urban-rural divides and discuss the implications of our work for the comparative study of urban-rural cleavages.

A leader without followers: Tory Euroscepticism in a comparative perspective.

This article examines the rare phenomenon of mainstream Euroscepticism that has characterised the British Conservative Party and asks whether a similar pattern has appeared elsewhere in the EU. The study traces the long-term evolution of salience and positions on the EU issue in the manifestos of a heterogenous set of centre-right parties, paying particular attention to whether Brexit or successive EU crises have had some noticeable effect. The thesis of Tory exceptionalism is largely supported by the findings - no other mainstream conservative party in the EU has talked more, and more negatively, about the EU over a long time period. Most other centre-right parties were part of the permissive consensus on the EU and have supported, more or less openly, the integration project throughout the past 30 years. However, some parties of mainstream conservatism have shown a similar negative shift as British Conservatives did in the 2000s, such as the Austrian ÖVP, the Hungarian Fidesz, the Polish PiS and (marginally) the Dutch VVD. Being in opposition or pressured by radical right challengers does not necessarily make the mainstream right more critical of the EU. Internal organisational developments (i.e. the ascent of more Eurosceptic influences within the party) constitute the most convincing proximate explanation for mainstream Euroscepticism on the right.

A dataset exploring turnout patterns in Spanish party primaries (1991-2023).

The paper presents exhaustive information on a dataset of primary processes held by Spanish political parties with representation at both the national and regional level. Using evidences collected from various sources, the dataset covers more than 360 processes carried out by more than 30 Spanish political parties between 1991 and 2023, at both the national and regional level and for both candidate and leadership selection processes. The dataset provides information on the results of the ballots (Turnout, Share of the winner), some basic party features (Ideology, etc.) and the specific features of each process (Competitiveness, Voting procedures, etc.). Hence, it offers the possibility to analyze how different variables providing information on each political party and each internal process are related to the results of each ballot.

Indonesian presidential election sentiment: Dataset of response public before 2024.

Indonesia is one of the countries that is currently entering the political year for the election of President, Regional Heads, and Members of the Legislative in 2024. This has become a hot topic on social media, especially about the Presidential Election. Twitter is one of the platforms with the largest users in Indonesia. It is interesting to see the alignment of Twitter users towards presidential candidates who already have a carrying party, namely Ganjar Pranowo, Prabowo Subianto, and Anies Baswedan based on a sentiment analysis approach. User feedback data about Indonesian Presidential candidates are obtained from the Twitter platform using Twitter API with Python programming language. The data obtained was 30,000 data with each candidate as many as 10,000 data. Data is pulled in April 2023 with specific keywords. The time for data withdrawal is chosen based on the announcement of Presidential Candidates carried by political parties before the schedule for determining or campaigning for Presidential candidates. Current data can potentially be used again as a comparison of analysis of presidential candidates on campaign time spans and after campaigns or actual calculation results. The data that can be accessed is in CSV format and has gone through several stages such as labelling using Language experts, removing spam Tweets & empty cells and preprocessing.

LA AMENAZA ROJA Prensa, anticomunismo y miedo en la polarización política de Colombia y el departamento de Santander, 1930-1946

Paralelo a las transformaciones políticas y culturales a nivel mundial en los años veinte, se inició en Colombia, en este mismo decenio, un ambiente de polarización política, la cual tuvo un nuevo ingrediente en la renovada disputa entre los partidos tradicionales: el pánico rojo. El pánico rojo fue una estrategia de permanente campaña de desinformación que los diarios locales y nacionales llevaron a cabo con claros intereses políticos. El propósito de este artículo es analizar este temor al comunismo en el contexto de la confrontación política en las décadas de 1930-1940 en Santander: Esto permitirá reconocer qué grupos, y desde qué publicaciones periódicas, se asumieron como grupos de izquierda. Además, se busca identificar quiénes fueron tachados de comunistas y cómo se utilizó esta arma discursiva a partir del miedo, para polarizar aún más la política y exacerbar la violencia. Para llevar a cabo este análisis, se examinarán tres publicaciones periódicas de diferentes espectros políticos: "El Deber", "Vanguardia Liberal" y "Tribuna Liberal". Se prestará especial atención al uso cambiante que estos diarios hicieron del anticomunismo en diferentes coyunturas políticas.

Parallel to the worldwide political and cultural transformations in the twenties, an environment of political polarization began in Colombia in this same decade, which had a new ingredient in the renewed dispute between the traditional parties: the red panic. The red panic was a permanent disinformation campaign strategy carried out by local and national newspapers with clear political interests. The purpose of this article is to analyze this fear of communism in the context of the political confrontation in the I930-I940s in Santander This will make it possible to recognize which groups, and from which periodicals, assumed themselves to be left-wing groups. In addition, it seeks to identify who was branded as communists and how this discursive weapon was used based on fear, to further polarize politics and exacerbate violence. To carry out this analysis, three periodicals from different political spectrums will be examined: "El Deber", "Vanguardia Liberal" and "Tribuna Liberal". Special attention will be paid to the changing use that these newspapers made of anti-communism in different political situations.

Paralelamente às transformações políticas e culturais globais da década de 1920, nessa mesma década iniciou-se um clima de polarização política na Colômbia, que teve um novo ingrediente na renovada disputa entre os partidos tradicionais: o pânico vermelho. O pânico vermelho foi uma estratégia de campanha de desinformação contínua realizada por jornais locais e nacionais com claros interesses políticos. O objetivo deste artigo é analisar esse medo do comunismo no contexto do confronto político dos anos 1930-1940 em Santander. Isso permitirá reconhecer quais grupos e quais jornais se assumiram como grupos de esquerda. Além disso, busca identificar quem foi tachado de comunista e como essa arma discursiva baseada no medo foi utilizada para polarizar ainda mais a política e exacerbar a violência. Para realizar esta análise, serão examinados três jornais de diferentes espectros políticos: "El Deber", "Vanguardia Liberal" e "Tribuna Liberal". Será dada especial atenção à evolução do uso que estes jornais fizeram do anticomunismo em diferentes situações políticas.

Republicans, Democrats, & Doctors: The Lawmakers Who Wrote Sterilization Laws.

During the 20th Century, thirty-two state legislatures passed laws that sanctioned coercive sexual sterilization as a solution to the purported detrimental increases in the population of "unfit" or "defective" citizens. While both scholarly and popular commentary has attempted to attribute these laws to political parties, or to broad or poorly defined ideological groups such as "progressives," no one has identified the political allegiance of each legislator who introduced a successfully adopted sterilization law, and the governor who signed it. This article remedies that omission.

The political and fiscal determinants of public health and curative care expenditures: evidence from the Canadian provinces, 1980-2018.

OBJECTIVES: Public health systems have been centre stage during the COVID-19 pandemic, but governments invest relatively little in public health as compared to curative care. Previous research has shown that public health expenditures are under pressure during recessions and could be politically determined, but very few studies analyze quantitatively their determinants. This study investigates the political and fiscal determinants of public health and curative care expenditures. METHODS: After constructing a dataset building on disaggregated health expenditures in the Canadian provinces from 1975 to 2018, we use error correction models to study the short-run and long-run influence of fiscal and political determinants on public health expenditures and on curative expenditures. Fiscal determinants include measures of public debt charges and federal transfers. Political determinants include government partisanship and election cycles. We also explore whether curative expenditures crowd out public health expenditures. RESULTS: We find no difference between left and right governments in curative care expenditures but show that left governments spend more on public health if we control for past spending decisions in favour of curative care. Fiscal austerity reduces both public health and curative expenditures, and provincial governments use additional intergovernmental transfers to increase their curative care budgets. A growth in the proportion of curative care relative to total health budgets is associated with a decline in public health expenditures. CONCLUSION: Even though they have low political salience, public health expenditures remain driven by partisanship and electoral concerns. Despite their widely acknowledged importance, public health programs develop in the shadow of curative care priorities.

RéSUMé: OBJECTIFS: Bien que les systèmes de santé publique aient occupé le devant de la scène pendant la pandémie de COVID-19, les gouvernements investissent relativement peu dans la santé publique par rapport aux soins de santé curatifs. Des recherches antérieures ont montré que les dépenses de santé publique sont vulnérables aux récessions économiques et pourraient être influencées par la politique, mais très peu d'études analysent quantitativement les déterminants des dépenses de santé publique. Cette étude examine les déterminants politiques et fiscaux des dépenses de santé publique et de soins curatifs. MéTHODES: Nous avons assemblé une base de données regroupant les dépenses de santé désagrégées dans les provinces canadiennes de 1975 à 2018. Nous utilisons des modèles de correction d'erreurs pour étudier l'influence à court et long terme des déterminants fiscaux et politiques des dépenses de santé publique et des dépenses de santé curatives. Les déterminants fiscaux comprennent des mesures des intérêts sur la dette publique et des transferts fédéraux. Les déterminants politiques comprennent l'idéologie du gouvernement et les cycles électoraux. Nous examinons également si la croissance des dépenses curatives entraîne un effet d'éviction sur les dépenses de santé publique. RéSULTATS: Nous ne trouvons aucune différence entre les dépenses en soins curatifs effectuées par les gouvernements de gauche et de droite, mais nous montrons que les gouvernements de gauche dépensent plus en santé publique si nous contrôlons pour les décisions passées en faveur des soins curatifs. L'austérité fiscale réduit à la fois les dépenses de santé publique et les dépenses en soins curatifs, et les gouvernements provinciaux utilisent les transferts intergouvernementaux supplémentaires pour augmenter leurs budgets de soins curatifs. Une augmentation de la proportion des budgets de santé alloués aux soins curatifs est associée à une baisse des dépenses de santé publique. CONCLUSION: Même si elles ont une faible saillance politique, les dépenses de santé publique restent guidées par la partisanerie et les préoccupations électorales. Malgré leur importance largement reconnue, les programmes de santé publique se développent à l'ombre de la priorité donnée aux soins curatifs.

A comparison of attitudes towards immigrants from the perspective of the political party vote.

Many reasons have shaped immigration into the EU over the past decade. Since then, attitudes towards immigration have not only gained public attention but have also shaped political debate and discourse in recent regional, national, and EU elections. The global financial crisis of 2008 increased the importance of migration in the social welfare upheaval in most Member States. Anti-immigrant sentiment and rhetoric became part of the narrative of some political parties during the campaign, and media coverage catalysed these social attitudes. The study used the 2013 International Social Survey Project (ISSP) dataset of six countries (namely Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, the UK, and Portugal) to see if the political party vote might have affected the attitude toward immigrants. The study extends other previous studies and presents new evidence on an under-researched topic. Results show that the left party voters are more open toward immigrants than the right party voters and that the green party voters show the most positive attitudes towards immigrants.

How not to write a constitution: lessons from Chile.

On September 4, 2022, Chilean voters massively turned down a constitutional proposal that responded to widely shared criticisms of the 1980 constitution and emerged from a consensual and participatory process. This result is paradoxical because ex ante, the odds seemed largely in favor of changing the status quo. We argue that three factors, which derived from the interaction between rules and political contingency, explain the outcome: a Convention under the control of party-less independents, the exceptional underrepresentation of the political right, and a highly decentralized and public writing process. We extract some lessons from the failed experience that can be useful for countries seeking to deepen democratization through constitutional change and for a future constitution-making process in Chile.

Who benefits from voter identification laws?

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, many American state governments implemented voter identification (ID) laws for elections held in their states. These laws, which commonly mandate photo ID and/or require significant effort by voters lacking ID, sparked an ongoing national debate over the tension between election security and access in a democratic society. The laws' proponents-primarily politicians in the Republican Party-claim that they prevent voter fraud, while Democratic opponents denounce the disproportionate burden they place on historically disadvantaged groups such as the poor and people of color. While these positions may reflect sincerely held beliefs, they also align with the political parties' rational electoral strategies because the groups most likely to be disenfranchised by the laws tend to support Democratic candidates. Are these partisan views on the impact of voter ID correct? Existing research focuses on how voter ID laws affect voter turnout and fraud. But the extent to which they produce observable electoral benefits for Republican candidates and/or penalize Democrats remains an open question. We examine how voter ID impacts the parties' electoral fortunes in races at the state level (state legislatures and governorships) and federal level (United States Congress and president) during 2003 to 2020. Our results suggest negligible average effects but with some heterogeneity over time. The first laws implemented produced a Democratic advantage, which weakened to near zero after 2012. We conclude that voter ID requirements motivate and mobilize supporters of both parties, ultimately mitigating their anticipated effects on election results.

"Flattening the curve": Communication, risk and COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey.

This study examines Turkish online news media coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. It explores media framing narratives, particularly how they reflected and promoted elite polarization or consensus in the COVID-19 debate. The findings shed light on Turkish political power dynamics during the first stage in the national response to the pandemic. The study highlights the calculations of political partisans who are keen on building a fragile consensus in an increasingly polarized society.

Recalibrating populism measurement tools: Methodological inconsistencies and challenges to our understanding of the relationship between the supply- and demand-side of populism.

The analysis of the congruence between the demand- and supply-side of populism is key to understand the relationship between citizens and populist parties, and to what extent this is mainly a "pull" or "push" phenomenon. Although the study of populism has experienced an unprecedented growth across social sciences during the last decade, research directly addressing this connection remains scarce. Moreover, most existing tools used to measure populism have not been created paying much consideration to their compatibility with those applied in the other side of this demand-supply divide. This article critically revisits the influential Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Module 5 dataset to illustrate shortcomings regarding current efforts to measure the demand- and supply-sides of populism. We show that according to CSES data the, often presumed, correspondence between "populist" attitudes and likelihood of voting for "populist parties" is only partial and country specific. But more importantly, we identify three main potential sources of such mismatch linked to instrumental issues: (i) problems with the choice, design and operationalization of attitudinal survey items; (ii) problems in the assessment of parties' populism; and (iii) instrument biases that make them more effective with some varieties of populism than with others. These methodological limitations are hindering our ability to settle longstanding theoretical debates concerning the correspondence between the demand- and supply-side, the relative centrality of attributes, and varieties of populism. Therefore, we invite scholars working in this field to update existing measurement tools, or develop new ones, considering the multidimensionality of this latent construct, the diversity of movements, and the need to apply consistent criteria and operationalization techniques when assessing degrees of populism in citizens and parties.

The organization of political belief networks: A cross-country analysis.

Studies on mass opinion conceptualize political ideology as an interrelated network of attitudes, beliefs and values. Using the joint dataset of European Values Study and World Values Survey collected between 2017 and 2020, I ask whether the organization of political ideology depends on the structure of political field. Consistent with the theories of social constraint, I find that in countries with high institutionalization of political parties, the organization of political opinions is more likely to be dense and consolidated. These patterns are robust to a variety of predictors between countries and the results are not sensitive to sampling variability or item selection.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Support for the German AfD: Jumping the Populist Ship or Staying the Course?

Populist parties enjoy stable support in various European countries. The literature on the rise of populism argues that this support especially increases in times of crises. Surprisingly, the German right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) did not increase its support in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the party even lost 2.3 percentage points in the 2021 federal election. We address this puzzle and ask why the AfD has not been able to use the crisis to its advantage. Our main argument in answering this question is that, although the AfD pursued the classic populist strategy of fundamental opposition, the support base of the AfD is strongly divided on the preference towards measures containing the spread of COVID-19. This division is reinforced by individual affectedness by the pandemic. Introducing a novel weekly dataset on voter preferences, we show that the AfD support base is strongly divided on the issue with approval of the government measures being a significant and substantial contributor to vote switching away from the AfD. Using regional-level data and a difference-in-differences approach, we further show that western German regions hit especially hard by the pandemic display a lower AfD vote share than other regions. Our findings have important implications for the impact of exogenous shocks on electoral competition and also on the future of populist parties.

Party Politics vs. Grievance Politics: Competing Modes of Representative Democracy.

As a vast literature on political disaffection, populism, "pitchfork politics," and the emergence of an "age of anger" testifies, the nature of democratic politics and the socio-political context in which it operates appear to have shifted sharply during the last decade. This is reflected in the rise of challenger parties, the election of unorthodox politicians, and widespread concern regarding the "crisis," "death," or "end" of democracy. Existing analyses have, however, understandably adopted a conventional model of party-based representative politics as their main interpretive lens or reference point to make sense of these changes. This article adopts a far bolder position. It suggests that a new form of "grievance politics" has emerged that constitutes a distinct and novel species of representative democracy. Grievance politics is defined by the fuelling and funneling of negative emotions and various blame-based political strategies which explicitly challenge and confound many of the core principles and values that have traditionally underpinned conventional conceptions of party politics. It is the tension between party politics and grievance politics-and their contemporary co-existence as competing modes of political representation-which this article seeks to underline and through this, to develop a clearer understanding of possible futures for representative democracy.

Determining the Existence and Strength of Teen Dating Violence Policy: Testing a Comparative State Internal Determinants Model.

Research demonstrates that Teen Dating Violence (TDV) programs impact TDV knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, decreasing the odds of TDV victimization and perpetration. Studies indicate that students who do not complete a TDV intervention have significantly higher odds of physical and emotional TDV victimization and emotional TDV perpetration. This study uses multiple logistic regression and multiple linear regression to examine predictors of the presence and the strength of state legislation addressing TDV education and school policies. Results indicate some success in predicting the existence of TDV laws but less support for forecasting the strength of the policies passed. Dominant political party and state median income were found to be potentially important determinants of TDV state school policies. A state's political culture influenced the strength of states' TDV policies. Showing that policy existence and strength are related to different processes is important for advocates to understand. Future research should look at additional variables and explore legislative histories.

The Political Realignment of Health: How Partisan Power Shaped Infant Health in the United States, 1915-2017.

The US two-party system was transformed in the 1960s when the Democratic Party abandoned its Jim Crow protectionism to incorporate the policy agenda fostered by the civil rights movement, and the Republican Party redirected its platform toward socioeconomic and racial conservatism. The authors argue that the policy agendas promoted by the two parties through presidents and state legislatures codify a racially patterned access to resources and power detrimental to the health of all. To test the hypothesis that fluctuations in overall and race-specific infant mortality rates (IMRs) shift between the parties in power before and after the political realignment (PR), the authors apply panel data analysis methods to state-level data from the National Center for Health Statistics for the period 1915 through 2017. Net of trend, overall, and race-specific IMRs were not statistically different between presidential parties before the PR. This pattern, however, changed after the PR, with Republican administrations consistently underperforming Democratic ones. Net of trend, non-Southern state legislatures controlled by Republicans underperform Democratic ones in overall and racial IMRs in both periods.

México, una democracia en crisis de confianza y satisfacción, años 2000 - 2018 / Mexico, a democracy with confidence and satisfaction crisis: years 2000-2018

Resumen Este artículo ofrece una aproximación a la comprensión de las llamadas crisis "de confianza" y "de satisfacción" del Sistema Democrático Representativo en México; partiendo del establecimiento doctrinal y empírico del Sistema Representativo Democrático en el contexto internacional y en México, se estudia la creciente desafección por las instituciones políticas y el nivel de satisfacción expresada por las personas en momentos dignos de atención para la democracia mexicana: el primer proceso electoral federal con la alternancia partidista presidencial, año 2000; la elección del regreso a la continuidad y la consolidación del pluralismo político, año 2012; y la nueva posalternancia, 2018. Se usan datos estadísticos, teóricos y sociales de las encuestas que en México preguntan sobre el grado de satisfacción con la democracia como sistema representativo, hasta qué punto los ciudadanos le tienen más o menos confianza a instituciones públicas y privadas, y cómo han evolucionado estos sentimientos. Los datos disponibles evidencian que el Sistema Democrático Representativo mexicano sufre una crisis de confianza y de satisfacción y que tiene importantes retos por delante. Proponemos una defensa de la representación institucional con correcciones que pueda hacerla más cercana, sensible y eficiente.

Abstract This article offers an approximation to the understanding of the so-called "confidence" and "satisfaction" crises of the Representative Democratic System in Mexico; Starting from the doctrinal and empirical establishment of the Democratic Representative System in the international context and in Mexico, the growing disaffection for political institutions and the level of satisfaction expressed by people in key moments of the Mexican democracy is studied: the first federal electoral process with the presidential party alternation, year 2000; the choice of the return to continuity and the consolidation of political pluralism, year 2012; and, the new post-alternation 2018. Statistical, theoretical and social data are used from surveys in Mexico that ask about the degree of satisfaction with democracy as a representative system, to what extent citizens have more or less trust in public and private institutions, and how these feelings have evolved. The available data show that the Mexican Representative Democratic System is suffering a crisis of confidence and satisfaction and that it has important challenges ahead. We propose a defense of institutional representation with corrections that can make it closer to the people, more sensitive and efficient.

Issue Competition and the Social Construction of Target Populations: Alternative Suggestions for the Study of the Influence of Populist Radical Right Parties on Health Policy and Health Outcomes Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties' Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe".

Rinaldi and Bekker ask whether populist radical right (PRR) parties have an influence on population health and health equity. The assumption is that this influence is negative, but mediated by political system characteristics. Starting from the authors' premise that the positions of PRR parties on welfare policies are a good proxy for health outcomes, we build on political science literature to suggest further avenues for research. The equivocal relationship between political parties and the ownership of specific healthcare, health insurance and public health issues invites studies that break down party positions relating to different health policy issues. As policy-makers use social representations of target populations to make policy decisions and anticipate the feedback these decisions might generate, it is worth studying how PRR parties influence societal, institutional and partisan perceptions of deserving and undeserving populations, even when they are not in government.