In the hybrid media system, many processes are reforming political communication: popularisation, disintermediation, personalisation, intimisation and of course populism. This study proposes an ...empirical definition of political communication style with the aim of identifying characteristics of the populist political communication style. Between 2015 and 2016, the Twitter timelines of the main political leaders in Italy were analysed for 16 months. Applying an MCA allowed us to identify two key factors that characterise the communication styles of leaders: (1) communication mode, comparing negative and positive; and (2) communicative focus, comparing personalisation and political/campaign. The intersection of these two factors resulted in four different political communication styles: 'Engaging', 'Intimate', 'Champion of the people' and 'Man of the street'. The latter two were clearly characterised by the presence of populist ideology fragments and traits, but were not strictly related to the leaders' ideological positions. This result supports the hypothesis that populist style is less and less connected to the right/left political cleavage, but rather the result of a varied combination of gradations that mix different individual aspects of the leader's political communication style.
This article expands the scope of agenda-building research, which has traditionally focused on the ability of press releases, press conferences, and political ads to influence media coverage. ...In-depth interviews with political reporters and editors at US newspapers during the 2012 campaign found that tweets from political leaders are used by journalists in ways that suggest first- and second-level agenda building. Participants gave examples of how political tweets have shaped their coverage in terms of the events they cover, the sources they interview, the quotes they use, and the background information they rely on to decide how to cover an issue. In addition, political tweets that contribute the most to coverage tend to have several elements in common.
We present evidence from India showing that state governments induce electoral cycles in electricity service provision. Our data and research strategy allow us to build on models of political ...business cycles and targeted distribution in two important ways. First, we demonstrate that by manipulating the flow of critical inputs into economic activity like electricity, elected leaders can influence economic outcomes even in contexts where they have constrained fiscal capacity. Second, we identify the effect of elections on electricity provision by focusing on special elections held for exogenous reasons. Our results show that state governments induce substantive increases in electricity service to constituencies that hold special elections. Manipulation of the power supply is stronger in contested constituencies and during special elections held in states where the government commands only a small majority. Overall, we find no evidence of positive welfare effects from the electoral manipulation of electricity supply.
•We find that state governments in India induce electoral cycles in electricity service provision.•We focus on special elections held for exogenous reasons for identification.•Manipulation of the power supply is stronger in contested constituencies and in states with weaker governments.•We find no evidence of any positive welfare effects of electoral manipulation.
While Twitter has grown popular among political leaders as a means of computer-mediated mass media communication alternative, the COVID-19 pandemic required new strategies for socio-political ...communication to handle such a crisis. Using the case of India, which was one of the worst-hit countries and is also the world's largest democracy, this research explicates how political leaders responded to the COVID-19 crisis on Twitter during the first wave as it was the first time such a crisis occurred. Theoretical frameworks of discursive leadership and situational crisis communication theory have been used to analyze interactions based on the usage patterns, the content of communication, the extent of usage in relation to the severity of the crisis, and the possible role of leaders' position along with the status of their political party. The sample consisted of tweets posted by six prominent political leaders in India across the four consecutive lockdown periods from 25th March to 31st May 2020. A total of 4,158 tweets were scrapped and after filtering for retweets, the final dataset consisted of 2,809 original tweets. Exploratory data analysis, sentiment analysis, and content analysis were conducted. It was found that the tweets had an overall positive sentiment, an important crisis management strategy. Four main themes emerged: crisis management information, strengthening followers' resilience and trust, reputation management, and leaders' proactiveness. By focusing on such discursive aspects of crisis management, the study comprehensively highlights how political interactions on twitter integrated with politics and governance to handle COVID-19 in India. The study has implications for the fields of digital media interaction, political communication, public relations, and crisis leadership.
This Open Access book provides a comprehensive analysis of political reforms in Japan since the 1990s, emphasizing the role of ideas in shaping their goals and outcomes. For more than fifteen years ...following the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble, politicians, business people and academics tackled a range of institutional reforms. The sweeping changes they enacted—covering almost all facets of the public sphere, including elections, public administration, courts and the central bank—fundamentally altered Japanese political processes and policies. Taken together, they arguably represent the final touches of Japan’s political modernization, which had been unfolding since the mid-19th century. Throughout the reform process, advocates were inspired by a combination of liberal and modernist ideas. This book examines those guiding concepts and illustrates the often messy process of applying them to real-world institutions. While most reforms began from common goals, they ultimately produced different—and frequently unexpected—institutional outcomes, which continue to shape Japanese politics. By focusing on the relationship between the ideas and processes that shaped Japan’s reforms, this book presents a broad vision of institutional change in comparative politics.
The 'populist phenomenon' has received a lot of attention in recent years. Yet little is known about the populists themselves: who are they? They are often described as bad-mannered provocateurs ...disrupting the political game, but also as charismatic leaders able to persuade and motivate. Can a populist 'style' or 'personality' be identified? This article assesses to what extent populists score differently from 'mainstream' politicians on established personality inventories. Using a new dataset based on expert ratings for 152 candidates (including 33 populists) having competed in 73 elections worldwide, it is found that populists score lower on agreeableness, emotional stability and conscientiousness. At the same time, populists score higher on extraversion, narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These results have important implications for the study of the success of populists in contemporary democracies and beyond.
Most scientists agree that climate change is the largest existential threat of our time. Despite the magnitude of the threat, surprisingly few climate-related discussions take place on social media. ...What factors drive online discussions about climate change? In this study, we examined the occurrence of Reddit discussions around three types of climate-related events: natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, wildfires), political events (i.e., 2016 United States Presidential election), and policy events (i.e., United States’ withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement, release of IPCC report). The objective was to understand how different types of events influence collective action as measured by discussions of climate change. Six large US cities were selected based on the occurrence of at least one locally-relevant natural disaster since 2014. Posts (
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= 4.4 million) from subreddits of the selected cities were collected to obtain a six-month period before and after local natural disasters as well as climate-related political and policy events (which applied equally to all cities). Climate change discussions increased significantly for all three types of events, with the highest discussion during the 2016 elections. Further, discussions returned to baseline levels within 2 months following natural disasters and policy events but continued at elevated rates for up to 4 months following the 2016 elections. The findings suggest that collective discussions on climate change are driven more by political leaders’ controversial positions than life-threatening local natural disasters themselves. Implications for collective action are discussed.
To date, practical and scholarly work on participatory and deliberative governance has focused on supply-side issues such as how to engage citizens in public policy. Yet little is known about the ...demand for public engagement, particularly from those authorised to make collective decisions. This article empirically examines how political leaders view and value public input. It draws on 51 in-depth interviews with senior national ministers from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. The interviews reveal that leaders value public input because it informs their decisions, connects them to everyday people and ‘tests’ advice from other sources. Their support for participatory governing is, however, qualified; they find formal consultation processes too staged and antagonistic to produce constructive interactions. Instead leaders prefer informal, spontaneous conversations with individual citizens. This hidden world of informal elite–citizen interaction has implications for the design and democratic aspirations of public engagement.
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