Shaping Public Opinion about Regional Integration: The Rhetoric of Justification and Party Cues

Vössing, Konstantin

doi:10.1177/0032321720905130

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Similar patterns have been observed in the USA 294 . Anti-immigration attitudes were shaped by social-communicative processes, including elite rhetoric and partisan cue-taking 337 . All of this parallels polarization trends in other regions, including Europe 338 , the Middle East 11 , and Latin America 11 .…”

Section: Summary and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

Jost

Baldassarri²,

Druckman³

2022

Nat Rev Psychol

109

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Healthy democratic polities feature competing visions of a good society but also require some level of cooperation and institutional trust. Democracy is at risk when citizens become so polarized that an ‘us versus them’ mentality dominates. Despite a vast multidisciplinary literature, no coherent conceptual framework of the microlevel dynamics that increase or decrease polarization has been presented. In this Review, we provide a conceptual framework to integrate scientific knowledge about cognitive–motivational mechanisms that influence political polarization and the social-communicative contexts in which they are enacted. Ego-justifying and group-justifying motives lead individuals to defend their own pre-existing beliefs and those of their in-group, respectively. However, a distinct class of system-justifying motives contributes to asymmetric forms of polarization. Whereas conservative-rightist ideology is associated with valuing tradition, social order and maintenance of the status quo, liberal-leftist ideology is associated with a push for egalitarian social change. These cognitive–motivational mechanisms interact with social influence processes linked to communication source, message and channel factors, all of which might contribute to increased or decreased polarization. We conclude with a discussion of unanswered questions and ways in which our framework can be extended to the study of culture and institutions.

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Section: Summary and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

Jost

Baldassarri²,

Druckman³

2022

Nat Rev Psychol

109

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show abstract

“…Politicians' messages can also improve the consistency of citizen's values, attitudes and opinions (Levendusky, 2010;Petersen et al, 2010). Such processes have been shown to be relevant for EU-related attitudes as well (Hellström, 2008;Pannico, 2017;Stoeckel & Kuhn, 2018;Vössing, 2020), especially for less knowledgeable citizens and harder issues (Pannico, 2017), even when the political elites are divided (Stoeckel & Kuhn, 2018).…”

Section: Existing Research and Theoretical Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Ideology, Policy Attitudes and Public Support for European Integration

Toshkov¹

2023

Preprint

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How does support for European integration relate to left-right political ideology? Studies of political parties and elites often find that the relationship resembles an inverted U-curve, with support highest at the center of the scale and falling both towards the extreme left and extreme right ends. The same ‘horseshoe’ pattern has been observed with respect to public opinion as well, but recent studies question its generalizability across countries, time periods and measures of support for European integration. This article reports the most comprehensive study to date of the relationships between support for European integration (operationalized in several different ways) with self-placement on the left-right ideological scale and policy preferences for redistribution, immigration and gay rights. Based on data from the European Social Survey and Eurobarometer, I chart the patterns of covariation for all countries in the European Union between 2004 and 2020. The analysis introduces the use of flexible non-parametric methods (generalized additive models) and more appropriate measures of dependence (the distance correlation coefficient) than the usually-employed Pearson’s correlation and regression coefficients. I find that the relationship between public support for European integration and left-right ideology is weak and extremely heterogeneous across countries. The exact form of the relationship depends on the operationalization of European integration support, the country and the time period, but it rarely resembles the classic inverted U-curve. In fact, EU support is typically highest at the moderate left rather than at the center. The relationship of support for European integration with immigration attitudes is much stronger, stable and almost linear; with support for gay rights is also linear but considerably weaker than with immigration; with support for redistribution there is practically no relationship at all. There is some evidence that the strength of the link with different policy preferences peaks when the salience of the policy issue is highest. But there is much remaining variation that calls for an explanation.

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“…Third, because election periods teem with political information that exceeds the voter's ability to process, the voter's perceptions will pass through an editing process, during which the voter will restrict her attention only to relevant and salient pieces of information, while 'pruning' irrelevant or muddy ones (Lau and Redlawsk, 2006, p.27). Previous research has extensively shown how cue-taking from parties affects voters' perceptions (Vössing, 2020), a process I may extend to forming the substance of party ideologies. Therefore, clear, consistent, and recurrent sig-nals have better chances to influence the voter's perceptions than noisy or occasional signals.…”

Section: The Role Of Party Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voter perceptions of parties’ left–right positions: The role of party strategies

Nasr

2020

Electoral Studies

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Shaping Public Opinion about Regional Integration: The Rhetoric of Justification and Party Cues

Cited by 8 publications

References 62 publications

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

Political Ideology, Policy Attitudes and Public Support for European Integration

Voter perceptions of parties’ left–right positions: The role of party strategies

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