Are Citizens “Receiving the Treatment”? Assessing a Key Link in Contextual Theories of Public Opinion and Political Behavior

The theorization and empirical exploration of contextual effects is a long‐standing feature of public opinion and political behavior research. At present, however, there is little to no evidence that citizens actually perceive the local contextual factors theorized to influence their attitudes and behaviors. In this article, we focus on two of the most prevalent contextual factors appearing in theories—racial/ethnic and economic context—to investigate whether citizens' perceptions of their local ethnic and economic contexts map onto variation in the actual ethnic composition and economic health of these environments. Using national survey data combined with Census data, and focusing on the popular topics of immigration and unemployment, we find that objective measures of the size of the immigrant population and unemployment rate in respondents' county and zip code strongly predict perceived levels of local immigration and assessments of the health of one's local job market. In addition to demonstrating that citizens are “receiving the treatment,” we show that perceptions of one's context overwhelmingly mediate the effect of these objective contextual factors on relevant economic and immigration attitudes. The results from our analyses provide scholars with unprecedented evidence that a key perceptual process presumed in various contextual theories of political attitudes and behavior is, in fact, valid.     

‘Everybody's entitled to their own opinion’: ideological dilemmas of liberal individualism and active citizenship

Conversational interview accounts were used to explore everyday understandings of political participation on the part of young white adults in England. Analysis focussed on dilemmatic tensions within respondents' accounts between values of active citizenship and norms of liberal individualism. Respondents could represent community membership as engendering rights to political participation, whilst also arguing that identification with local or national community militates against the formulation of genuine personal attitudes and rational political judgement. Respondents could represent political participation as a civic responsibility, whilst also casting political campaigning as an illegitimate attempt to impose personal opinions on to others. Formal citizenship education did not appear to promote norms of political engagement but rather lent substance to the argument that political decision-making should be based on the rational application of technical knowledge rather than on public opinion or moral principle. In conclusion we question whether everyday understandings of responsible citizenship necessarily entail injunctions to political action. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Clash of Civilizations? Muslims,Christians, and Preferences for Democracy

The incompatibility of Islam with democracy has been the focal point of many public and scholarly debates. However, very few studies have attempted to investigate empirically whether the followers of Islam are less favorable to democracy than the followers of Christianity. This study extends previous research by conducting empirical and representative analyses of whether Muslims in general and religious and practicing Muslims in particular prefer democracy less than their Christian counterparts. Using country fixed effects regression and data from the World Values Survey (WVS6) that include 52,326 Muslims and Christians, the analyses show that Muslims in general, as well as religious and practicing Muslims, endorse democracy to the same extent as do Christians. Thereby, this study is the first to provide comparative, individual‐level evidence of the influence these religions may have on democratic attitudes.     

Storytelling in Liberal Religious Advocacy

Previous research suggests liberal religious advocates often find it necessary to use broadly accessible technical or moral language to communicate with policymakers and public audiences, yet this conformity to secular speech norms diminishes the distinctiveness of their religious voices. Communicating through storytelling offers them one way of overcoming this dilemma. This is demonstrated by examining liberal religious advocacy during recent healthcare reform debates in the United States, using data from interviews and public communications by advocates. By embedding stories within religiopolitical performances that highlight their religious identities, advocates convey policy‐relevant information without relying on explicitly religious language that may be inaccessible or unpersuasive to diverse audiences. They also deploy storytelling strategically, bearing witness to injustices experienced firsthand, secondhand, from the pews, and from the past, depending on the context. These findings have implications for ongoing debates about religious citizens’ capacity to communicate across lines of difference in the public sphere.     

Religious Claims in Public: Lutheran Resources

Abstract : A cacophony of religious voices seeking to influence public culture, opinion, and policy pervades the public discourse in the United States today. Some publicly‐oriented religious claims are appropriate while others are not. Sorely needed are criteria for making that distinction. This essay asks: What are criteria for appropriate and valid use of religious claims, language, and symbols in deliberation about public policy? What particular gifts do Lutheran traditions bring to shaping those criteria? The essay then draws upon Lutheran theological resources to propose theologically grounded criteria for appropriate and valid use of religious language, claims, and symbols in public discourse.     

宗教信仰对亲社会行为的影响

以往研究发现宗教信仰与亲社会行为之间存在显著的正相关, 据此研究者提出“信仰-亲社会假设”试图证实两者的因果关系。本文主要从研究方法、影响因素及心理机制三个方面对信仰影响亲社会行为的研究进展进行介绍和评述。在研究早期, 研究者主要考察宗教信仰的归属身份对个体亲社会行为的影响; 而近年来, 研究者则越来越关注信仰启动对亲社会行为的影响。信仰对亲社会行为的作用受到信仰程度、文化背景、信仰认知和信仰取向等多种因素的影响。未来研究需要有效控制宗教信仰身份对亲社会测量的影响, 明确宗教信仰的操作性定义并改进相关的测量指标, 关注精神性的作用机制、“信仰-亲社会假设”的跨文化效应以及信仰概念对非宗教信仰群体的影响。     

Generational Conversion? The Role of Religiosity in the Politics of Evangelicals

The political environment for evangelical Protestants has changed substantially since the Christian Right reached its apex, as a more issue and ideologically diffuse political environment has emerged. The present study tests two different theoretical perspectives on whether these contextual changes may have altered Millennial evangelicals’ political perspectives vis‐à‐vis those of previous generations of evangelicals. On the one hand, theoretical perspectives related to differential political socialization processes across generations would lead to expectations of generational change among evangelicals. On the other hand, theoretical perspectives related to social identity theory would suggest far less change across generations. Using Pew's 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, we test these expectations by comparing the relationships between religiosity and political attitudes across three generations of evangelicals. Ordered probit and logistic regression models estimate the impact of religiosity on various political attitudes. These models reveal that Millennial evangelical religiosity continues to be strongly related to Republican Party identification and opposition toward abortion, which is largely consistent with the social identity perspective. Generational change is most evident in a variety of nonsocial issues in which religiosity is associated with less conservatism among Millennials. Additional analysis using the 2012 Religion and Politics Survey with a smaller sample of Millennial evangelicals confirms these results.     

Homelessness in the US and Germany: a cross‐national analysis

A public opinion survey was administered by telephone to nationally representative samples in the US and Germany to assess prevalence of homelessness as well as attitudes, opinions and knowledge regarding homelessness. Lower prevalence rates were found in Germany as compared with the US. German respondents demonstrated higher levels of general compassion, greater support for the public rights of the homeless, a greater tendency to view the homeless as trustworthy, and were more likely to view economic factors and less likely to view personal failings as integral to the problem of homelessness. Respondent age, gender, and political affiliation predicted many public opinion variables. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Racial Components of "Race-Neutral" Crime Policy Attitudes

Past studies have found evidence of a connection between race and crime in the minds of many white Americans, but several gaps remain in our knowledge of this association. Here, a multimethod approach was used to examine more closely the racial component of whites' support for ostensibly race-neutral crime policies. Conventional correlational analysis showed that negative stereotypes of African Americans—specifically, the belief that blacks are violent and lazy—are an important source of support for punitive policies such as the death penalty and longer prison terms. A survey experiment further showed that negative evaluations of black prisoners are much more strongly tied to support for punitive policies than are negative evaluations of white prisoners. These findings suggest that when many whites think of punitive crime policies to deal with violent offenders, they are thinking of black offenders.     

A Muslim President? Misperceptions of Barack Obama's Faith in the 2008 Presidential Campaign

Rumors that President Barack Obama is a Muslim were rampant during the 2008 presidential campaign and continued well into his presidency. These rumors were widely believed, were electorally consequential, and are part of a growing trend of politically motivated misconceptions. Thus, relying principally on the theory of motivated reasoning, we examine the factors that shaped citizens’ beliefs about and responses to messages about Obama's faith. Using an original survey experiment and data from the 2008–2009 American National Election Study panel, we show that citizens’ responses to rumors about Obama's religion were shaped by political predispositions, political awareness, and their interactions. Identification of Obama with Islam was most widespread, and the cues encouraging such identification were most successful, among individuals with low levels of political awareness, conservative and Republican identifications, and negative views of cultural out‐groups. Viewing Obama as Muslim was significantly less prevalent among people with high levels of awareness and with the opposite set of predispositions.     

AIDS as Threat,AIDS as Stigma correlates of AIDS beliefs among the Dutch general public

Abstract

The central question of this article is whether findings about social and cultural correlates of preventive and public attitudes towards AIDS that were found in other western countries are also valid for the Netherlands. Answering this question contributes to the international accumulation of empirical knowledge about attitudes of the general public and might as well be relevant for the international transfer of knowledge about the public into assumptions of information campaigns. Eight hypotheses derived from international literature were tested on data of the 1987 module of “Cultural changes in the Netherlands,” a general opinion survey of the Dutch population (16-80 years old). In line with international research, younger age and more education are correlated with preventive knowledge and social acceptance; however sex and urbanization do not make a difference in the Netherlands As expected, a negative attitude towards homosexuals is related to a lack of acceptance of people suffering from AIDS, support for mandatory screening for HIV, as well as a lack of preventive knowledge. Also in accordance with earlier research, “authoritarian attitudes” are far more important in explaining the public attitudes than beliefs about AIDS as an individual threat.