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Background and research aims. Considering the high prevalence of conspiracy theories and misinformation, there is an urgent need to explain the tendency to adopt a conspiracy mentality and identify behavioural (including voting) outcomes of a high conspiracy mentality. The aims of the present paper are 1) the examination of populist attitudes dimensions, relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise as predictors of conspiracy mentality and 2) proposal of comprehensive models, that combine predictors of conspiracy mentality and its voting consequences. Methodology. Studies utilised OSL regression and structural equation modelling. Results. The overall regression was statistically significant. It was found that dimensions of populist attitudes (anti-elitism, sovereignty), relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise were significant predictors of conspiracy mentality. In line with the second research aim, the fitness of models was confirmed and results suggest mistrust of expertise is also a significant predictor of far-right voting. Discussion. The contribution of the paper lies in connecting conspiracy mentality with not only attitudes but also with important behaviour outcome - voting behaviour. We propose future research should experimentally examine whether the reduction of some of the identified predictors could possibly lower levels of conspiracy mentality and whether this reduction translates into voting behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wartime violence and authoritarian repression against civilians take various forms. Past research has explored the causes and consequences of violence, but no previous work simultaneously assessed the long-term effects of different types of violence on political identities. This paper contends that indiscriminate attacks can reinforce ingroup identity, whereas the role of civilian agency in selective violence may have a detrimental impact. Equipped with original data capturing municipality-level exposure to both selective and indiscriminate violence during the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) in Biscay (Basque Country), this study examines its legacy on voting behavior (1983–2015). Results indicate that fascist airstrikes increased Basque nationalism while selective violence diminished the popularity of Basque parties. Individual and community-level evidence suggests that airstrikes fostered the intergenerational transmission of political attitudes. Violence can boost national identities, but it can also erode them: it depends on the type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces three new scales to measure left- and right-wing radical as well as general extremist attitudes that can be applied across Western European countries. We therefore propose a thorough conceptualization of extremist attitudes that consists of two dimensions: general extremism, by which we understand attitudes that oppose the constitutional democratic state, and another dimension that differentiates between right- and left-wing radicalism by which we understand people who take far-reaching but often one-sided positions on political issues (e.g., on nationalism or anti-imperialism) by advocating fundamental socio-political change. Based on data from Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands (n = 6,201) we created short indices for general extremism and left- and right-wing radicalism. We check for convergence validity by assessing the psychometric properties of the extracted indices, i.e. their internal coherence and the degree to which a scale is able to distinguish strongly extremist and non-extremist individuals. Finally, we correlate the scales with various constructs that are likely related to extremist attitudes in order to assure external or construct validity. The results indicate that the three scales are highly valid and applicable across three Western European countries. Overall, we find that about two to four percent of citizens in each country hold left-wing or right-wing extremist attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many news outlets aim for impartiality, 67% of Americans perceive their news sources as partisan, often presenting only one side of the story. This paper tests whether exposing individuals to news stories their political adversaries focus on can mitigate political polarization. In an experiment involving a real-world political newsletter—sent to participants who had opted to receive news that uncovers media biases—exposure to a specific story about refugee policy led respondents to reassess their positions. This reevaluation changed their stances on the issue and reduced the ideological distinctions they made between Democrats and Republicans. These findings underscore the need for future studies to untangle the specific circumstances where cross-partisan exposure can alter political attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Established in March 2020, the C19PRC Study monitors the psychological and socio‐economic impact of the pandemic in the UK and other countries. This paper describes the protocol for Wave 6 (August–September 2021). Methods: The survey assessed: COVID‐19 related experiences; experiences of common mental health disorders; psychological characteristics; and social and political attitudes. Adult participants from any previous wave (N = 3170) were re‐invited, and sample replenishment procedures helped manage attrition. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure the on‐going original panel (from baseline) was nationally representative in terms of gender, age, and household income, amongst other factors. Results: 1643 adults were re‐interviewed at Wave 6 (51.8% retention rate). Non‐participation was higher younger adults, those born outside UK, and adults living in cities. Of the adults recruited at baseline, 54.3% (N = 1100) participated in Wave 6. New respondent (N = 415) entered the panel at this wave, resulting in cross‐sectional sample for Wave 6 of 2058 adults. The raking procedure re‐balanced the longitudinal panel to within 1.3% of population estimates for selected socio‐demographic characteristics. Conclusions: This paper outlines the growing strength of the publicly available C19PRC Study data for COVID‐19‐related interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recently published personal reminiscence of Robert E. Park that also contains a subtle critique of his place among the master-thinkers of the sociological discipline, Edward Shils asserts that Park's work would have had a longer life if he had been able to draw on Max Weber's certain writings. and if he had studied and pondered writings of other such thinkers. Of course, Park was not unaware of Weber's verstehende sociology--he referred to it in one of his writings in the 1930s--nor was he ignorant of the contributions of other social thinkers. In the social sciences in general and sociology in particular, research is all too often associated with the transmogrification of knowledge into numbers and the reification of the latter into the simulacra of theory. Park's career as an academician was confounded by this disciplinary hubris. At the turn of the nineteenth century, as sociology emerged from its immersion in German romantic philosophy, its academicians still clung to its baptism in American Protestant thought, seeking to infuse the latter with the trappings of positive science. In any event, a transvalued and secularizing sociology would have to come to terms with the existence of evil in the world.

Concern over democratic erosion has led to a proliferation of proposed interventions to strengthen democratic attitudes in the United States. Resource constraints, however, prevent implementing all proposed interventions. One approach to identify promising interventions entails leveraging domain experts, who have knowledge regarding a given field, to forecast the effectiveness of candidate interventions. We recruit experts who develop general knowledge about a social problem (academics), experts who directly intervene on the problem (practitioners), and nonexperts from the public to forecast the effectiveness of interventions to reduce partisan animosity, support for undemocratic practices, and support for partisan violence. Comparing 14,076 forecasts submitted by 1,181 forecasters against the results of a megaexperiment (n = 32,059) that tested 75 hypothesized effects of interventions, we find that both types of experts outperformed members of the public, though experts differed in how they were accurate. While academics' predictions were more specific (i.e., they identified a larger proportion of ineffective interventions and had fewer false-positive forecasts), practitioners' predictions were more sensitive (i.e., they identified a larger proportion of effective interventions and had fewer false-negative forecasts). Consistent with this, practitioners were better at predicting best-performing interventions, while academics were superior in predicting which interventions performed worst. Our paper highlights the importance of differentiating types of experts and types of accuracy. We conclude by discussing factors that affect whether sensitive or specific forecasters are preferable, such as the relative cost of false positives and negatives and the expected rate of intervention success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part of a research project developed by the CINDE Foundation, the University of Manizales, the Center for Advanced Studies in Childhood and Youth of these entities and the Catholic University Luis Amigó with funding from the Historical Memory Center and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation - Minciencias; the project explored the representations that children have about recent violence in their contexts and the ways in which they have learned about it at home and at school. The research is called Peaceful Expedition: pedagogies of memory and reconciliation in schools, which began in December 2020 and ended in June 2022. The research was conducted by the CINDE Foundation, the University of Manizales, the Center for Advanced Studies in Childhood and Youth of the same entities and the Catholic University Luis Amigó, Manizales branch. It also received financial support from the Historical Memory Center and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and from the University of Manizales. In particular, the article focuses on the processes related to the pedagogies of memory and the teaching of the recent past in an educational institution in the city of Manizales, with the participation of 40 children. The project provided resources from creation-action research and performative hermeneutic research, paying special attention to the cartographies and narratives of the participants, based on the performative ontological hermeneutic research proposal. The research project was conducted from a qualitative perspective and took resources from performative ontological hermeneutic research, which is understood by Alvarado et al. (2014), as that which allows the emergence of the voices of actors that have been silenced by traditional research mechanisms that, also makes it possible that the same research questions and the ways in which the voices of the group of actors are summoned, allow them to position themselves as political subjects, based on the recognition of their potencies and their capacities for the transformation of reality. On the other hand, the research also took resources from action-creation research, applying design and audiovisual resources as creative resources that allow narratives to be accompanied by creations made by the research participants themselves and that also communicate knowledge, experiences and knowledge. The work consisted of the development of five cartographic expeditions, the first related to the knowledge of the project, the second to the pedagogies of memory and the teaching of the recent past, the third to the construction of peace, the fourth to reconciliation, and the last to political agency. This paper analyzes the expedition related to the pedagogies of memory and the teaching of the recent past. The analysis of the information was based on the categories related to the teaching of the recent past and the pedagogies of memory, allowing the emergence of three subcategories, the first emphasizes the relationship between memory and territory, the second focuses on children as readers of reality, and the third is based on the continuity of adult voices and traditional media as the main sources of information for children. It was found that children prefer some places or regions of the country due to the events they have learned about from adults or from the news, which makes them generalize their imaginary about certain regions based on what is communicated to them. It was also possible to recognize that children assume certain positions according to what they hear from their families and from television, for example, stories were evidenced in which they give their opinion about the political situation in Colombia or the socio-political situation in Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated how Japanese young people's attitudes toward politics and the social environments they are in affect their interaction with political information in their daily life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty people to gather data about their experiences with political information and their attitudes toward politics. The results show that they have mixed feelings about political information, which arise from personal factors but are interrelated with broader social factors. Their attitude, which comprises their sense of remoteness to politics, low political efficacy, and difficulty understanding politics, reduces their interest in knowing political information. Social factors that limit opportunities for political participation and conversation diminish the utility of information and the motivation for seeking information. The habit of monitoring political information, often facilitated by experience watching television news with family, emerges as a factor that can maintain young people's exposure to political information, regardless of their level of political interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we pursue four goals: First, we replicate the original Asch experiment with five confederates and one naïve subject in each group (N = 210). Second, in a randomized trial we incentivize the decisions in the line experiment and demonstrate that monetary incentives lower the error rate, but that social influence is still at work. Third, we confront subjects with different political statements and show that the power of social influence can be generalized to matters of political opinion. Finally, we investigate whether intelligence, self-esteem, the need for social approval, and the Big Five are related to the susceptibility to provide conforming answers. We find an error rate of 33% for the standard length-of-line experiment which replicates the original findings by Asch (1951, 1955, 1956). Furthermore, in the incentivized condition the error rate decreases to 25%. For political opinions we find a conformity rate of 38%. However, besides openness, none of the investigated personality traits are convincingly related to the susceptibility of group pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper works from a Jungian perspective to explore the unconscious dynamics of an authoritarian cultural complex at work in public schools in the United States. The paper exposes two areas of what Jung called the shadow archetype: the historical narrative of child labor during the industrial revolution as a traumatic societal event; and mythic images of the Greek Father-gods who buried, ate, or imprisoned their children. The working hypothesis of the paper is that the trauma of child labor operates as a social force, an unconscious archetypal pattern of authority and exploitation that is imaged and illuminated by the mythic narratives of the Greek Father-gods. Using depth psychological concepts and methods, the paper reveals how these repressed traumas create unconscious cultural attitudes that view children as commodities whose innate value and potential are sacrificed to feed the nation's economic power and growth rather than leading out the potential within each student. Kristeva's theories of abjection and subject in process provide psychoanalytic insights into how authoritarian cultural attitudes toward the education of children enslave students in a mandated instructive process that inflicts a kind of violence upon them. In conclusion, the paper suggests that the current system of education calibrated to standardized testing needs to broaden significantly to include transformative educative processes encompassing learning through the body, senses, feeling, intuition, and imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This publication examines the history of Project Orion and NERVA nuclear engine program within the Integrated Program Plan, the technical reasons for their study, their progress, and the political reasons for their cancellation. Whether pulsed or thermal, nuclear propulsion offers the best compromise in efficiency and thrust for the propulsion of future manned missions. Project Orion was born in the mind of Stanislaw Ulam, an atomic physicist who had worked on the Manhattan project. Despite theoretical performances superior to anything conceivable even with current technologies, and despite the mobilisation of some of the most brilliant physicists of the time (Freeman Dyson), the project was killed by the Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water (Moscow, 5 August 1963). The Integrated Program Plan was Wernher von Braun's proposal to the Space Task Group (STG), chaired by Vice President Spiro Agnew, for the continuation of the Apollo program. This plan envisaged a lunar base in the 1970s, and a first manned mission to Mars in the early 1980s. All of this would have been powered by nuclear-powered orbital shuttles, using NERVA, a nuclear engine tested and operational since 1968. Here again, even though it performed better than anything else in the world, even today, the project failed politically. This retrospective publication therefore aims to answer the following question: How can nuclear space programs of today and tomorrow be protected from the uncertainties of this influence? The study of propulsion systems is very often left to engineers, and political and public relations issues to politicians. However, every technology is the result of a political system, and has a strategic impact, which is a subject for social and political sciences. That's why this paper adopts an original approach crossing social sciences through the historical study of decision-making dynamics, and engineering through the study of the technical characteristics of the projects involved. This publication is based on declassified technical reports, testimonies of the personalities of the time, and a document from the archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. History can be the academic bridge between political and technical studies. In a context of resurgence of nuclear propulsion projects throughout the world, such an approach is now necessary both at the historical level and in terms of political decisions making. Indeed, space programs involving nuclear energy are, by nature, at the crossroads of public relations issues very specific to both space and atomic subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we account for differences in the extent of risk disclosure among companies? The paper expands the existing explanations by claiming that corporate risk reporting is not just financial but also political communication. The presented empirical analysis of how corporations disclose Brexit-related uncertainties suggests that risk reporting is a part of a company's holistic conversation with multiple audiences in society (e.g. politicians, regulators, journalists and customers) and might have well-targeted but also unforeseen effects on each of them. The quantity and quality of risk disclosure can be explained – among other factors – by the extent to which companies want to participate in public discourse and wish their opinions on a particular political issue, such as Brexit, to be heard. In other words, risk reporting is a part of 'the politics of expectations' which should be investigated in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender gap in voting for far-right parties is significant in many European countries. While most studies focus on how men and women differ in their nationalist and populist attitudes, it is unknown how the socio-economic and political promotion of women is associated with the gender gap in far-right political orientation. The following paper compares the effect of four different spheres of gender equality on this gender gap. By estimating multilevel logit models for more than 25 European countries and testing the mechanism via a socially conservative attitude toward gendered division of work, I find that the visible field of representation in particular—measured by the share of women in parliament and women on boards—is associated with a gender gap in far-right orientation. This paper contributes to the literature in two important ways: first, it combines policy feedback with cultural backlash theory, enlarging the scope of both theories; second, it demonstrates the importance of gender equality policies for the study of the far-right gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of Internet technology, the network has become an indispensable way of life for undergraduates. The correct guidance of public opinion has also become an important thing in the ideological work of universities. Undergraduates are in an important period of formation and development of thoughts that they are easily to be incited by cyber-rumors. Therefore, it is particularly important to obtain the data of political public opinion in universities and position the hot topics for early detection of political public opinion tendency, which can also avoid the outbreak of major security incidents. With such consideration, this paper obtains multi-source political public opinion data from BBS, Tieba and Weibo of SUN YAT-SEN UNIVERSITY (SYSU) through crawler. We study a text feature extraction method based on Word2Vec & LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation), which improves the high-dimensional sparsity in traditional Vector Space Model (VSM) text representation. Meanwhile, based on the classical Single-pass clustering algorithm, this paper studies the Single-pass & HAC clustering algorithm. In addition, a measurement method of hot topic is defined to calculate the heat value of political public opinion. Dictionary and rule based method is used to improve the accuracy of sentiment tendency analysis. The experimental results demonstrate that the effect of topic detection and positioning based on LDA & Word2Vec and Single-pass & HAC algorithm is better than other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the linguistics column that Juan B. Selva published in the pedagogical journal La Obra between 1923 and 1927, with the aim of examining both the criteria of authority regarding linguistic knowledge, as well as the ideological assessments and attitudes expressed by the author in relation to the linguistic phenomena he describes. The analysis of the column (which was published in a context in which Argentina was witnessing the institutionalization of linguistics and the expansion of debates on language in the press) allows us to corroborate the centrality of normative issues, a characteristic feature of the genre. However, it also reveals the emergence of a discourse that rejects prescriptive positions and, instead, seeks scientific explanations for the linguistic phenomena it records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is an exploratory attempt to assess the relationship between individuals' objective class position and subjective social positions in the South African hierarchy. While objective class dynamics have received much attention in South Africa, less is known about the subjective social position individuals place themselves. The study aims to make use of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) dataset and assess the relationship between objective and subjective class positions in South Africa. The results show considerable variation between objective and subjective class positions, with a strong middling tendency among all objective class groups in South Africa. The study also shows that this middling tendency has increased in the last decade in South Africa, predominantly due to individuals overestimating their social positions. With a large share of South Africans living close or below the poverty line, there is a clear biasedness of South Africans placing themselves in the middle of society, deviating from their lower objective position. The study further measures the variation between objective and subjective social positions to create a novel class scheme of inflated, deflated, and concordant class perceptions. These biased perceptions are then compared to socio-economic characteristics, showing that gender, race, and education are closely related to bias perceptions in South Africa. Furthermore, the increasing nature of high inequality and social unrest events in South Africa prompts the study also to assess the different social and political attitudes by varying objective and subjective class schemes. The results show that among the subjective class identification, individuals in higher perceived class positions tend to be less angered towards inequality, have lower redistribution preferences, and perceive a weaker conflict between the rich and the poor. These results confirm the impact perceived social positions and biased perceptions could have on social and political attitudes in South Africa. Attitudes that have been considered relevant in voting behavior and social policy formulation models. The results of the paper provides some vital information for policy makers on the dynamics behind subjective class and bias perceptions in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the opinion columns on the political management of the crisis that arose from the COVID-19 pandemic and finds out what differences are detected in the attacks on the ruling political class about the ideological orientation of the newspaper of origin. Starting from the theoretical-methodological framework of discourse analysis with a linguistic-pragmatic approach and through digital humanities, a qualitative analysis of forty opinion columns is carried out. These texts are useful for the analysis of the main linguistic, argumentative and discursive resources in use. Even though criticism of the government is present in all the articles in the corpus, the results show that the most violent and rude attacks come from newspapers of opposite political ideology and are aimed at delegitimizing the measures taken to deal with the situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study is an exploratory attempt to assess the relationship between individuals' objective class position and subjective social positions in the South African hierarchy. While objective class dynamics have received much attention in South Africa, less is known about the subjective social position individuals place themselves. The study aims to make use of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) dataset and assess the relationship between objective and subjective class positions in South Africa. The results show considerable variation between objective and subjective class positions, with a strong middling tendency among all objective class groups in South Africa. The study also shows that this middling tendency has increased in the last decade in South Africa, predominantly due to individuals overestimating their social positions. With a large share of South Africans living close or below the poverty line, there is a clear biasedness of South Africans placing themselves in the middle of society, deviating from their lower objective position. The study further measures the variation between objective and subjective social positions to create a novel class scheme of inflated, deflated, and concordant class perceptions. These biased perceptions are then compared to socio-economic characteristics, showing that gender, race, and education are closely related to bias perceptions in South Africa. Furthermore, the increasing nature of high inequality and social unrest events in South Africa prompts the study also to assess the different social and political attitudes by varying objective and subjective class schemes. The results show that among the subjective class identification, individuals in higher perceived class positions tend to be less angered towards inequality, have lower redistribution preferences, and perceive a weaker conflict between the rich and the poor. These results confirm the impact perceived social positions and biased perceptions could have on social and political attitudes in South Africa. Attitudes that have been considered relevant in voting behavior and social policy formulation models. The results of the paper provides some vital information for policy makers on the dynamics behind subjective class and bias perceptions in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occupation of Crimea determined the Crimean Tatars to react with obvious and clear-cut response: condemning the Russian aggression against the Ukrainian territorial integrity. This paper aims to analyze the post-2014 Crimean hybrid conflict situation of the Crimean Tatars, by investigating how the Crimean Tatars conditions have evolved under the Russian invasion forces for the last five years. In order to understand the post-2014 situation, the paper also focuses and examines the forced deportation (Sürgün or the Soviet Genocide), as well as Turkey's foreign policy reactions toward this regional conflict. Civil disobedience and nonviolent strategy of the Crimean Tatars have been used to pressure the Russian public opinion and political elites regarding the unlawful and unfair act toward the Ukrainian and Crimean sovereignty. In addition, the Crimean Tatars have voiced their concerns and demands in the international political arenas. Overall, the paper focuses on the repercussions of the Crimean crisis from political, psycho-social and international perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The COVID‐19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study aims to assess the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the adult population in multiple countries. This paper describes the third wave of the UK survey (the 'parent' strand of the Consortium) during July‐August 2020. Methods: Adults (N = 2025) who participated in the baseline and/or first follow‐up surveys were reinvited to participate in this survey, which assessed: (1) COVID‐19 related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours; (2) the occurrence of common mental disorders; as well as the role of (3) psychological factors and (4) social and political attitudes, in influencing the public's response to the pandemic. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure that the cross‐sectional sample is nationally representative in terms of gender, age, and household income, and representative of the baseline sample characteristics for household composition, ethnicity, urbanicity and born/raised in UK. Results: 1166 adults (57.6% of baseline participants) provided full interviews at Wave 3. The raking procedure successfully re‐balanced the cross‐sectional sample to within 1% of population estimates across selected socio‐demographic characteristics. Conclusion: This paper demonstrates the strength of the C19PRC Study data to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research addressing important public health questions relating to the COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party elite cues are among the most well-established influences on citizens' political opinions. Yet, there is substantial variation in effect sizes across studies, constraining the generalizability and theoretical development of party elite cues research. Understanding the causes of variation in party elite cue effects is thus a priority for advancing the field. In this paper, I estimate the variation in party elite cue effects that is caused simply by heterogeneity in the policy issues being examined, through a reanalysis of data from existing research combined with an original survey experiment comprising 34 contemporary American policy issues. My estimate of the between-issue variation in effects is substantively large, plausibly equal to somewhere between one-third and two-thirds the size of the between- study variation observed in the existing literature. This result has important implications for our understanding of party elite influence on public opinion and for the methodological practices of party elite cues research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the whole world is confronted with a geometric increase in the human population without a corresponding increase in the agricultural land resource to meet the human demands for food and clothing which are primarily sourced from agricultural industry. Therefore, it is needful for every country to search the importance of agroforestry and make haste to adopt it as it is the only option and panacea with which to combat the world ever increasing human population with limited and dwindling agricultural land resource. Agroforestry is more intentional, intensive, interactive and integrated than agriculture per se. Improved agro-forestry practice is eco-friendly, job creative and lucrative. It also promotes wider biodiversity and high yields of crops and livestock through proper soil management. Agroforestry is a multidisciplinary science encompassing agronomy, physiology, horticulture, apiculture, soil management, ecology, agrisilviculture, silvopasture, agrosilvopasture, and apisilvoculture have made it more comprehensive than other farming systems. The most glaring importance of agroforestry is centered on its ability to adapt to climate change, especially now it has become a case study in the world as its adverse effects on both living and non-living things cannot be neglected. So, this review paper is aimed at sensitizing and encouraging worldwide farmers and non-farmers to adopt the modern agro-forestry practices as improved means for promoting food security and checking deforestation with its associated adverse effects in the world. However, there are numerous challenges confronting the establishment of agroforestry and basically among them are - scarcity of land, improved seeds/seedlings, and conservative attitudes of the farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular political attitudes surveys have been conducted globally for several decades, but the Pacific region remains an exception. This paper presents the findings of the first Pacific Attitudes Survey (PAS), conducted in Samoa from December 2020‐January 2021. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of Samoans of voting‐age (n = 1319) the PAS gauges the attitudes of ordinary Samoans to their democracy, levels of popular trust in institutions, attitudes towards the role of government, and to women's participation in politics. Findings reveal high levels of support for democracy and trust in democratic institutions. At the same time, popular political attitudes highlight a distinct model of Samoan democracy, in which respect for modern democratic norms is tempered and entwined with deeper traditions of Samoan community and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with leadership capacity at national level to mobilise society to take up challenges. It uses empirical analysis to explain how, in a European context, this capacity covaries with the development of strategic state capabilities. The evidence is used to explore the conditions in which strategic state capabilities have a positive effect on the capacity of leadership to mobilise society. These conditions include factors related to the public: social capital, average subjective wellbeing (happiness), and political attitudes relating to government and democracy (having a voice that was listened to, public trust in the government, and the public's satisfaction with the working of democracy). It is suggested that strategically led governments with high levels of coordination in the civil service, with practices and abilities consistent with learning and agility, and with good engagement with, and good support from, the public and the organisations of civil society, tend to have national leadership elites that have a strong capacity for mobilization of society to take up challenges. In the conclusions it is stated that the democratic cultures of Europe may require more 'open government' and more inclusiveness so that their embryonic strategic states can better leverage information and resources of society, so that governments can offer more powerful societal leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of digital media has increased the opportunities for individuals to self-select political content online. This development has stimulated empirical research on how people select political information, especially when political beliefs are at stake. In the present paper, we tested a series of theory-derived assumptions about antecedents and consequences of selective exposure to confirmative political information and opinions in the digital arena. We conducted an online survey with German Internet users (N = 897, April 2016) and assessed political attitudes, media use and general beliefs in the context of the so-called "migration crisis". 28% of the participants in our sample reported exposure to a confirmative information environment. They are more likely to hear or read about political opinions on migration and political asylum that are similar to their own compared to cross-cutting content. We found no evidence for the assumption that the technological affordances of the Internet foster this form of selective political exposure. Instead, our analyses indicate that conservatism is a positive predictor of selecting confirmative information environments when it comes to migration and political asylum. We also gathered evidence that this relation is mediated by perceived threat and that selective political exposure is linked to truly false consensus beliefs. Our findings inform supply- and demand-side explanations of selective political exposure online. We discuss the relevance for psychological theories about the motivational underpinnings of selective exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2018 referendum produced a debate on other amendments for complete political reform. The 1993 Constitution and its twenty-eight years of validity have been developing, but it awaits a revision regarding its political system. It is about discussing some adjustments after the behavior of its form of government. Parliamentary non-reelection does not seem the most appropriate correction. The elimination of immunity has produced the setback after excluding an institutional guarantee confused with congressional privilege associated with impunity. This paper offers an opinion about the political financing to promote equal competition to a publicity diffusion of government programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the perceptions of the parliamentary elites in 17 Latin American countries on moral and gender issues through surveys conducted between 2012 and 2019. In particular, it analyses opinions on inequality between men and women, public policies to reduce it, the possibility of building a career within the party, and abortion and same-sex marriage. The analysis shows the differences between countries and whether gender, party ideology and age variables help explain the answers. The findings suggest that in many countries gender is a factor in explaining the differing opinions on the inequality between men and women and, to a lesser extent, same-sex marriage. Ideology is the variable that influences the perception of the other three issues. The conclusions reflect on programmatic and descriptive representation for each topic and country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore the political messages painted on Madrid's walls by urban artists from the beginning of this artistic and political movement (the end of the 1990s) to the present day. We developed an extensive field-work that has helped us to create the first compilation of the key political messages of urban art in Madrid, based on an exploratory research approach complemented by the use of social media search. This descriptive and documentary approach was followed while keeping in mind that a wall is a public channel open to all and an outstanding method for expressing any political opinion with the greatest amount of visibility. Over the time span analyzed, the investigation discovered 15 urban artists with political content in their artistic production. The findings indicate that the political theme of these artists' works focuses primarily on condemning the Spanish government for current issues such as corruption or the economic crisis, as well as past events such as the Iraq War. Other recurring themes include social criticism of municipal policies and the living conditions of underprivileged groups such as refugees and beggars, as well as support for feminism and critiques of the rapid gentrification process of certain historic Madrid neighborhoods, such as Malasaña and Lavapiés. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The C19PRC study aims to assess the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the adult population of the UK, Republic of Ireland, and Spain. This paper describes the conduct of the first two waves of the UK survey (the "parent" strand of the Consortium) during March–April 2020. Methods: A longitudinal, internet panel survey was designed to assess: (1) COVID‐19 related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors; (2) the occurrence of common mental health disorders as well as the role of (3) psychological factors and (4) social and political attitudes, in influencing the public's response to the pandemic. Quota sampling (age, sex, and household income) was used to recruit a nationally representative sample of adults. Results: Two thousand and twenty five adults were recruited at baseline, and 1406 were followed‐up one‐month later (69.4% retention rate). The baseline sample was representative of the UK population in relation to economic activity, ethnicity, and household composition. Attrition was predicted by key socio‐demographic characteristics, and an inverse probability weighting procedure was employed to ensure the follow‐up sample was representative of the baseline sample. Conclusion: The C19PRC study data has strong generalizability to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research on important public health questions relating to the COVID‐19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Public attitudes continue to portray youths in Western societies as being passive and disengaged. Critical scholars are largely unanimous in that the misrecognition of and disrespect for young people's everyday experiences and activities form a major reason why they appear detached from politics and public life. Contributing to this debate, this paper traces the everyday experiences of some Finnish urban youths, and argues that their lived worlds differ notably from the worlds of the public administration that seeks to address youths as active citizens. Based on these findings, the paper proposes the pragmatically oriented concepts of “issue publics” and “topological connectives” for rethinking youth participation and democratic life more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group divisions are a continual feature of human history, with biases toward people's own groups shown in both experimental and natural settings. Using a within-subject design, this paper deconstructs group biases to find significant and robust individual differences; some individuals consistently respond to group divisions, while others do not. We examined individual behavior in two treatments inwhich subjects make pairwise decisions that determine own and others' incomes. In a political treatment, which divided subjects into groups based on their political leanings, political party members showed more in-group bias than Independents who professed the same political opinions. However, this greater bias was also present in a minimal group treatment, showing that stronger group identification was not the driver of higher favoritism in the political setting. Analyzing individual choices across the experiment, we categorize participants as "groupy" or "not groupy," such that groupy participants have social preferences that change for in-group and out-group recipients, while not-groupy participants' preferences do not change across group context. Demonstrating further that the group identity of the recipient mattered less to their choices, strongly not-groupy subjects made allocation decisions faster. We conclude that observed in-group biases build on a foundation of heterogeneity in individual groupiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is reason to believe that an increasing proportion of the news consumers receive is not from news producers directly but is recirculated through social network sites and email by ordinary citizens. This may produce some fundamental changes in the information environment, but the data to examine this possibility have thus far been relatively limited. In the current paper, we examine the changing information environment by leveraging a body of data on the frequency of (a) views, and recirculations through (b) Twitter, (c) Facebook, and (d) email of New York Times stories. We expect that the distribution of sentiment (positive-negative) in news stories will shift in a positive direction as we move from (a) to (d), based in large part on the literatures on self-presentation and imagined audiences. Our findings support this expectation and have important implications for the information contexts increasingly shaping public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, there is an emerging interest for the potential role of hermeneutics in reflecting on the practices related to digital technologies and their consequences. Nonetheless, such an interest has neither given rise to a unitary approach nor to a shared debate. The primary goal of this paper is to map and synthetize the different existing perspectives to pave the way for an open discussion on the topic. The article is developed in two steps. In the first section, the authors analyze digital hermeneutics "in theory" by confronting and systematizing the existing literature. In particular, they stress three main distinctions among the approaches: (1) between "methodological" and "ontological" digital hermeneutics; (2) between data- and text-oriented digital hermeneutics; and (3) between "quantitative" and "qualitative" credos in digital hermeneutics. In the second section, they consider digital hermeneutics "in action", by critically analyzing the uses of digital data (notably tweets) for studying a classical object such as the political opinion. In the conclusion, we will pave the way to an ontological turn in digital hermeneutics. Most of this article is devoted to the methodological issue of interpreting with digital machines. The main task of an ontological digital hermeneutics would consist instead in wondering if it is legitimate, and eventually to which extent, to speak of digital technologies, or at least of some of them, as interpretational machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'cultural icon' is generally used to refer to individuals or images, objects, visual sign, monuments, space and so on. In semiotics the term 'icon' is used to refer to a sign that bears close resemblance to the object that it stands for. Icons are particularly influential signifiers because they are immediately identifiable and carry complex cultural codes in a compact image. In this paper the understanding of 'cultural icon' is not limited to semiotics. Following Keyan Tomaselli and David Scott in Cultural Icons (2009), we believe that cultural icons are purposive constructions. An attempt has been made in this paper to analyze the association of 'desirable' meanings to a cultural icon (while dropping 'undesirable' ones); thus, it is imperative that we look at the changing socio-political contexts behind such purposive constructions. With this in mind, we look at the iconic figure of Bishnuprasad Rabha who has been one of the most revered figures in the cultural history of Assam and has been appropriated as a cultural icon in different discourses of the national life of Assam that have emerged in recent times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Colombia, social networks have become a powerful tool to disseminate political opinions, especially during the campaign period in the national presidential elections. This paper proposes a hybrid model to predict the outcome of the first round of presidential elections in Colombia in 2018, which aims to minimize absolute error and improve the quality of the final prediction. User activities on Twitter and Facebook were recorded and analyzed with artificial intelligence algorithms, resulting in an accurate prediction consistent with reality. As a core result is highlighted that the RMSE of the hybrid model is around 2.47%, surpassing on average the RMSE of the country's most prominent traditional polling firms. Additionally, the value of electoral abstentionism was also predicted with a differential error of 1.72% in relation to the real value, demonstrating the reliability of the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expression has the power to shape how we see ourselves. In this paper, we argue that the dynamics of political expression on social media can influence not only political behavior, but also citizens' more fundamental political self-concepts. Specifically, political expression on social media can entail a public commitment to a political self-presentation, which may lead individuals to perceive themselves as politically active, interested, efficacious, and knowledgeable. Analyzing panel survey data from the 2016 U.S. election, we find that political expression on social media increases users' motivations to present themselves as politically active on social media. Political self-presentation motivations are, in turn, positively associated with strengthened dimensions of political self-concepts (i.e. political interest, political self-efficacy, and perceived participation). Findings emphasize the role of expression in shaping political self-concepts, and further hint that this relationship may depend on whether the expressive behavior constitutes a clear, public commitment to a political self-presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the influence of online news consumption on attitudes toward the European Union in a context of protracted economic crisis. Using data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study, we combine location-specific information on broadband availability with respondent geo-location data, which facilitates causal inference about the effects of online news consumption via instrumental variable models. Results show that Irish citizens who source political information online are more prone to blame the EU for the poor state of the economy than those who do not. There is evidence of preference reinforcement among those with negative predispositions toward the EU, but not among pro-EU citizens. We complement this analysis with a study of voting behavior in the European Fiscal Compact Referendum, employing a similar methodological approach. The results from this second survey confirm the anti-EU influence of online news consumption among Irish citizens, although evidence suggests a pro-EU effect among voters who browsed the website of the politically neutral Irish Referendum Commission. Our paper contributes to the literature on public opinion, the EU, and political attitudes in times of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of smart electricity consumption technology, consumers can benefit from an economically optimized home energy management system, considering their well-being and utilizing electrical appliances. The multi-objective modelling of energy management in smart buildings with the presence of electric vehicles is the main topic of this paper, which also takes risk and economic considerations into account. To make the problem more realistic, various practical and nonlinear constraints are taken into account, such as production limits, flexible loads, and cost-risk limitations and indicators. Since solving this problem with classical methods is challenging and prone to suboptimal solutions, a developed whale optimization algorithm is suggested. In the proposed developed approach, efforts are made to enhance its capabilities and prevent it from converging to local points using local search. Finally, the proposed method and model are discussed and examined under different scenarios. The results demonstrate that when consumers have a positive attitude towards energy consumption, the net cost significantly decreases compared to a conservative attitude. The battery is used during times of favourable prices when users perceive more solar energy availability. Moreover, when users adopt different price risk indicators, these indicators have varying effects on the electricity purchasing strategy of the user. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern debates concerning the protections afforded by the Suspension Clause of the U.S. Constitution have taken place within the Supreme Court's chosen methodological approach in this context, which openly calls for careful attention to the historical backdrop against which the Clause was drafted. This approach is hardly surprising given that long ago Chief Justice John Marshall declared that when the Founding generation constitutionalized "this great writ," they invoked "[t]he term...in the [C]onstitution, as one which was well understood." No matter how well the Founding generation understood the content, reach, and application of the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus," however, significant portions of the relevant historical backdrop to the ratification of the Suspension Clause remain lost to the annals of history. In particular, the details surrounding one of the most consequential periods in the history leading up to the adoption of the Suspension Clause--namely, the treatment and legal classification of the American colonists by the British during the American Revolutionary War--remain largely unexplored in legal scholarship. Professor Tyler seeks to recover and tell this story here by drawing upon a wealth of sources, including archival documents, parliamentary debates, contemporary press accounts, colonial papers, diaries and private papers of key participants, and significant decisions and rulings of the British courts. As these materials reveal, determinations regarding the reach and application of the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, rather than solely the common law writ of habeas corpus, were of tremendous consequence during this important period in Anglo-American legal history. Where the Act was in force and where prisoners could claim its protections, the legal framework demanded that such persons be charged criminally and tried in due course or otherwise be discharged. Significantly, the privilege associated with the English Act did not speak merely to process; it further imposed significant substantive constraints on what causes would be deemed legal justification for detention in the first instance. The important role that the Act played in the Revolutionary War legal framework, moreover, suggests that modern jurisprudence has underappreciated the Act's enormous influence upon the development of habeas law in the Anglo-American tradition. Finally, the history recovered here demonstrates more generally that during the Revolutionary War, suspension, geography, and allegiance each played significant roles in determining the availability of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to those who would claim its protections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders the abstract concepts of citizenship and clientelism based on the political attitudes and everyday practices of people living in Ghana. Drawing on survey and ethnographic research at the village level in Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana as well as two rounds of Afrobarometer data, the paper reveals a hybrid conception of politics that departs strikingly from scholarly theories. I argue that the particular patterns of hybridity highlight the importance over time of the historical construction of the colonial and post-colonial state. Overall, the paper emphasizes that future scholars and policymakers need to understand indigenous conceptualizations of everyday politics rather than assuming that African practices exemplify or fall short of an externally imposed normative ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the material and post-material values described by Inglehart (in his book "The silent revolution, changing values and political styles among western publics") and applies the methods developed by Schwartz (in his 1992 article "Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries") to identify distinct dimensions of human values in the Mexican case. This paper focuses on materialist and post-materialist values, human values and their effect on instrumental and symbolic political participation. The analysis also investigates the implications of birth cohort on political participation and the impact of attachment to distinct values within generations on those two forms of political action. This suggests a change in the country's democratic culture or at least a democratic political culture, which is distinctly larger than the one observed in the post-revolutionary era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an outline of the history of Constantin Noica's ideas in order to identify the origin of his thoughts and discover the place of his writings on Romanian cultural identity within his philosophical system. I will prove that in his first writings (from the 1930s) Noica follows Kantian idealism, while in his later work (1940s, and mainly beginning with 1950) he is closer to Hegel, also announcing the premises and the structure of his future ontological system, while his texts dedicated to Romanian cultural identity (1970-1978) are dependent in their ideas both on Hegelian idealism and organicism and on the Romanticist philosophy of language. At the same time, I will demonstrate that Noica's anti-political attitude is a result of his philosophy as well as of his philosophical biography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A majority of Americans identify as sports fans, and sports broadcasts attract substantially larger audiences than news on both broadcast and cable television. But despite the outsize role of sports in American life, we know little about how--or whether--sports fandom is related to political attitudes. This paper draws on a representative survey to examine (1) the association between sports fandom and political opinions; and (2) opposition to the "politicization" of sports. Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to follow sports closely. However, sports fandom is positively associated with individualistic attributions for economic success and support for the US military. In addition, conservatives are more likely to resist the intrusion of partisan politics into sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what degree have generational differences contributed to partisan changes in the American electorate, and what role did they play in the emergence of the gender gap in party identification? This paper sheds light on parallel and contradicting partisan trends among subgroups of the American electorate that affected the partisan gender gap over the past decades. By unpacking the gap by region, race, and generations, the analysis reveals that the effect of generational replacement on the gender gap varied in terms of size and direction between different subgroups. While in the South newer generations of white women diverged from the New Deal generation, consequently having a greater effect on the gender gap, in the rest of the country shifts among white men affected the gap to a greater extent than shifts among white women. Among African Americans, a decline in Democratic support was shown among newer generations of men, but less so among women. The findings highlight the importance of such political and historical contexts, and raise questions about the future of the partisan gender gap as the New Deal generation is replaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts to test the hypothesis that Mexican citizens are dissatisfied with its government because it has not fulfilled expectations, mainly in regard to economy and security, since political discontent with Mexican government has become a problem for democracy in this country. Using data from the Latinobarómetro, it was found that those with worse opinions of economy and security are actually those who held the worse opinion of the government However, this relationship did not appear when real economic and security data were considered instead of the perception of these, so qualitative interviews were conducted, and it was found that citizens have a moral expectation of their officials that seems to determine their opinions and expectations. This moral demand doesn't appear to be related to pragmatic government performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effects of the open primary elections system at Argentina and Uruguay as a key element during the last Latinamerican political reforms. The presumed benefits of this practice are considered-improving internal party life and ordering the party system, evaluating its functioning in all the elections since its incorporation and comparing the results to ascertain the evolution of its implementation. We note that these benefits have not been obtained so far, particularly in Argentina, where the incorporation of this mechanism was based on contradictory principles with antagonistic points of view about political parties which only hinders a rightful appraisal of them. All this rises the establishment of a kind of competition that is not party-ruled, personalized or divided into sectors, which ends up promoting fragmentation, internal inconsistencies and loss of relevance of the political parties, both in terms of their internal structure as well as their position and behaviour within the general overview of democratic institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]