This article overviews outcomes in different types of refugee claims in Canada. It critiques standard legal research methodologies in the refugee law field due to skews in publication practices. To ...address these skews, the article employs empirical quantitative research methods using administrative tribunal data and computational methods. It provides a snapshot of refugee claim numbers, countries of origin, claim categories, and outcomes. The article then underscores the benefits of supplementing doctrinal legal research with empirical quantitative research methods, outlines barriers to the adoption of such methods, and offers guidance and tools to assist other researchers in overcoming those barriers.
A democracia nas Américas Riberti Almeida Felisbino
Meridiano 47,
10/2017, Letnik:
12, Številka:
124
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This paper aims to analyze the the situation in Mercosur countries, for reference to the research the Latinobarómetro, Fundação Konrad Adenauer-Polilat and the Instituto Interuniversitario de ...Iberoamérica.
If the individuals who are most likely to perceive media bias no longer encounter, via selective exposure, media content they might consider biased, why are perceptions of media bias so pervasive? We ...argue that many people who engage in politically motivated selective exposure also perceive “the media” in general to be biased. Relying on a survey of adults in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, which has witnessed particularly contentious and divisive political events since 2011, this study examines self-reported patterns of selective exposure to partisan media while accounting for the role of the local communication ecology in encouraging or discouraging partisan media selectivity. It also tests the idea that selective exposure is related to a generalized perception of media bias—the idea that “the media” in general are biased while self-selected media are not. Finally, the study tests a moderated mediation model showing the structure of relationships among political opinion extremity, selective exposure, and perceived media bias. Results suggest (a) a positive relationship between political opinion extremity and selective exposure, (b) opposite patterns of relationships between selective exposure and perceived media bias about self-selected and general media, respectively, and (c) evidence of moderated mediation among political opinion extremity, selective exposure, and perceived media bias.
Does radical right political violence favour or hinder public support for right‐wing stances? Numerous existing studies have demonstrated that Islamic terrorism provokes a conservative shift, ...increases nationalism and induces negative sentiments towards immigration. However, little is known about the consequences of far‐right terrorism, despite its incidence in Western societies. We leverage four waves of the British Election Study (BES) and use a quasi‐experimental design to analyse individual political orientations shortly before and after terrorist attacks. We find that respondents distance themselves from the ideology associated with the perpetrator and shift away from ideological positions at the right end of the political spectrum. Furthermore, respondents are less likely to report nationalistic attitudes and immigration skepticism, core tenets of extremist right‐wing political ideologies. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of the perpetrators and their driving goals are crucial factors shaping the impact of terrorism on public sentiments.
The Great Recession, institutional dysfunction, a growing divide between urban and rural prospects, and failed efforts to effectively address immigration have paved the way for a populist backlash ...that disrupts the postwar bargain between political elites and citizens. Whether today's populism represents a corrective to unfair and obsolete policies or a threat to liberal democracy itself remains up for debate. Yet this much is clear: these challenges indict the triumphalism that accompanied liberal democratic consolidation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To respond to today's crisis, good leaders must strive for inclusive economic growth while addressing fraught social and cultural issues, including demographic anxiety, with frank attention. Although reforms may stem the populist tide, liberal democratic life will always leave some citizens unsatisfied. This is a permanent source of vulnerability, but liberal democracy will endure so long as citizens believe it is worth fighting for.
This study focuses on the influence of public perceptions of political opinion polls on people’s voting behavior in Mwanza city and the role of Tanzanian media in creating awareness about political ...opinion polls. The study uses a descriptive paradigm and a qualitative case study design. A purposive sampling technique was used to select participants for key informants and focus group discussions. The study concludes that, although polling is a new phenomenon in Tanzania, the level of awareness of polls is high among Mwanza City residents and they hold a variety of positions regarding the accuracy of the polls. The study highlights why journalists need to be trained on how to report poll-related stories to avoid false conclusions because they have become a major source of news.
This paper deals with the evaluation of the relative performance of different groups when the achievements of the members of a group are summarised by the relative distribution of these achievements ...across various ordered categories. After reviewing a previous attempt by Herrero and Vilar to deal with this issue, we propose to adopt an approach introduced recently by Apouey, Silber and Xu who derived a measure of achievement that, in the case of ordinal variables, takes account of both the inequality and the location of a distribution. Their approach is then applied to the analysis of political opinions, using the International Social Survey Programme for the year 2009. We compare questions dealing with respectively the need for the government to reduce income inequality, the duty of the government to help poor and unemployed individuals and the inequality of opportunity in health and education. It appears that the correlations obtained for our summary indicator of political opinions, based on the data covering 41 countries, reflect quite well the distinction we made between the three types of questions on political opinions. In addition, regression results show that generally the higher the inequality in a country, the more likely it is that people will approve government intervention aimed at reducing inequality and poverty.
Evidence has accumulated that people often conform to political norms. However, we know little about the mechanisms underlying political conformity. Whose norms are people likely to follow, and why? ...This article discusses two phenomena—social identity and "self-conscious" emotions—that are key to understanding when and why people follow the crowd. It argues that adherence to in-group norms is a critical basis of status among in-group peers. Conformity generates peer approval and leads to personal pride. Deviance generates disapproval and causes embarrassment or shame. These emotional reactions color an individual's political perspectives, typically generating conformity. These same mechanisms can spur between-group polarization. In this case, differentiation from the norms of disliked out-groups results in peer approval and pride, and conformity to out-group norms disapproval and embarrassment or shame. This framework is supported by the results of two experiments that examine the influence of group opinion norms over economic and social aspects of citizens' political ideologies. One exogenously varies the social identity of attitudinal majorities; the other primes the relevant emotions. In addition to contributing to the study of political conformity and polarization, this article adds to our growing understanding of the relevance of social identity and emotion to political life.
One reason why people avoid using social media to express their opinions is to avert social sanctions as proposed by the spiral of silence theory. We here elaborate on individual-level sensitivity to ...social rejection in relation to voicing political opinions on social media sites. Given the uncertainty about sharing political views in social media, and the fact that social acceptance, or rejection, can be easily communicated through, for instance, likes, or a lack of likes, we argue that rejection sensitive individuals are less likely to share political information in social media. Combining an analysis of unique survey data on psychological characteristics and online political activity with focus group interviews with Swedish youth supports our argument, showing that rejection sensitive individuals are less inclined to engage politically in social media. The results extend on previous research by establishing the role of rejection sensitivity in political engagement in social media.
One implication of the transition to high-choice media environments is that what information people are exposed to depend less on journalistic curation and more on social, algorithmic, and personal ...curation. This has sparked a renewed interest in the concept of political opinion leaders, who are often assumed to be more interested in and informed about politics and society. Theoretically, political opinion leaders could hence help disseminate information to less interested and informed. At the same time, there are theoretical reasons for why political opinion leaders may be more prone to politically motivated reasoning, which may lead them to believe in and disseminate misinformation. Thus far, there is only
limited research on whether political opinion leaders are more informed than others that also takes into consideration that some facts are contested, whereas other facts are uncontested. Hence, this paper seeks to investigate the relationship between political opinion leadership and knowledge, distinguishing between (a) uncontested and (b) contested facts. Among other things, findings show that those who score high in political opinion leadership traits in general are not more knowledgeable about contested and uncontested facts.
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