Internet Information and Communication Behavior during a Political Moment: The Iraq War, March 2003

This article explores the Internet as a resource for political information and communication in March 2003, when American troops were first sent to Iraq, offering us a unique setting of political context, information use, and technology. Employing a national survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life project. We examine the political information behavior of the Internet respondents through an exploratory factor analysis; analyze the effects of personal demographic attributes and political attitudes, traditional and new media use, and technology on online behavior through multiple regression analysis; and assess the online political information and communication behavior of supporters and dissenters of the Iraq War. The factor analysis suggests four factors: activism, support, information seeking, and communication. The regression analysis indicates that gender, political attitudes and beliefs, motivation, traditional media consumption, perceptions of bias in the media, and computer experience and use predict online political information behavior, although the effects of these variables differ for the four factors. The information and communication behavior of supporters and dissenters of the Iraq War differed significantly. We conclude with a brief discussion of the value of "interdisciplinary poaching" for advancing the study of Internet information practices

Voting home or abroad? Comparing migrants' electoral participation in countries of origin and of residence

The political participation of immigrants has received increased scholarly attention over recent decades. However, comparisons between the electoral behavior of immigrants in their countries of origin and of residence are still limited. This article addresses this gap in the literature and seeks to identify the determinants of Romanian immigrants’ electoral participation in the local elections of four West European countries (Germany, France, Italy, and Spain) as compared to their turnout in their home country's legislative elections. Looking through the lenses of exposure theory, we hypothesize that contact with institutions, people, and values from the countries of residence are likely to have different effects in the two types of elections. We test the explanatory power of four main variables – time spent in the host country, social networks, degree of involvement in the local community, and the type of relationship with citizens of their host countries – to which we add a series of individual-level controls such as age, education, gender, and media exposure. To assess our claim, we employ binary logistic regression to analyze original web survey data collected in the summer of 2013. The result supports the empirical implications of exposure theory

Civil Society, Public Action and Accountability in Africa

This paper examines the potential role of civil society action in increasing state accountability for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. It further develops the analytical framework of the World Development Report 2004 on accountability relationships, to emphasize the underlying political economy drivers of accountability and implications for how civil society is constituted and functions. It argues on this basis that the most important domain for improving accountability is through the political relations between citizens, civil society, and state leadership. The evidence broadly suggests that when higher-level political leadership provides sufficient or appropriate powers for citizen participation in holding within-state agencies or frontline providers accountable, there is frequently positive impact on outcomes. However, the big question remaining for such types of interventions is how to improve the incentives of higher-level leadership to pursue appropriate policy design and implementation. The paper argues that there is substantial scope for greater efforts in this domain, including through the support of external aid agencies. Such efforts and support should, however, build on existing political and civil society structures (rather than transplanting "best practice" initiatives from elsewhere), and be structured for careful monitoring and assessment of impact.

Civil society, public action and accountability in Africa

This paper examines the potential role of civil society action in increasing state accountability for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. It further develops the analytical framework of the World Development Report 2004 on accountability relationships, to emphasize the underlying political economy drivers of accountability and implications for how civil society is constituted and functions. It argues on this basis that the most important domain for improving accountability is through the political relations between citizens, civil society, and state leadership. The evidence broadly suggests that when higher-level political leadership provides sufficient or appropriate powers for citizen participation in holding within-state agencies or frontline providers accountable, there is frequently positive impact on outcomes. However, the big question remaining for such types of interventions is how to improve the incentives of higher-level leadership to pursue appropriate policy design and implementation. The paper argues that there is substantial scope for greater efforts in this domain, including through the support of external aid agencies. Such efforts and support should, however, build on existing political and civil society structures (rather than transplanting"best practice"” initiatives from elsewhere), and be structured for careful monitoring and assessment of impact.Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Parliamentary Government,Social Accountability,Civil Society,ICT Policy and Strategies

Political Involvement in “Mobilized” Society: The Interactive Relationships Among Mobile Communication, Network Characteristics, and Political Participation

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89468/1/j.1460-2466.2011.01601.x.pd

POLITICAL SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN JAPAN

Social media has become a powerful platform for political communication across the world. However, despite high internet and social media penetration rates in Japan, research has shown political social media use to be significantly lower in Japan when compared to other Asian states with similar social, political, and cultural characteristics. This thesis seeks to understand why political social media use in Japan has remained low by using a comparative approach to examine polarization levels, conventional media environments, and government systems across Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. It concludes that Japan’s low political social media use arises from a combination of its low levels of political polarization, the strength of the conventional media, and its stable government structure, institutions, and norms.Major, United States Air ForceApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

The Politics of Repeal and Replace: Testing the Limits of the Affordable Care Act\u27s Behavioral Policy Feedbacks

What happens when a policy with millions of beneficiaries is threatened? The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been under attack since before it was signed into law, culminating in its only legislative challenge under the Trump administration in 2017. While we know that policies like the ACA produce policy feedbacks that affect policymaking and shape policy attitudes, less is known about behavioral feedback effects that serve to mobilize beneficiaries to protect and maintain their health insurance benefits in the face of ACA threat. This dissertation leverages a 3-paper design to evaluate under what conditions threat facilitates behavioral change, and how to identify beneficiaries for purposes of political mobilization. The first paper relies on survey data to examine perceptions of threat among self-reported ACA beneficiaries and how this affects political participation, while the third paper examines how threat produces behavioral change using an original survey experiment comparing threat messaging to opportunity messaging around a fictitious ACA amendment. While findings across these two studies are mixed, results generally suggests that ACA threat leads individuals, particularly those who benefit from the policy, to increase their political participation to protect against perceived policy threat. The second paper evaluates challenges with surveys that rely on self-reported policy benefits, and examines what factors affect misreporting of benefits – offering one solution to predict ACA beneficiaries using known demographic predictors of ACA benefit. Together, the findings of the three papers, while supportive of threat as a key motivator of protective political behaviors, draw attention to the limitations of survey data and our reliance of self-reports in studies of policy change and political behavior