Campaigning for authenticity

In the fall of 1976 Jimmy Carter wanted to be an American President... who is not isolated from our people, but a President who feels your pain and who shares your dreams. With humble, hopeful, homey images of Plains, Georgia, campaign advertisements sold Carter as a fresh-off-the-farm, peanut-picking Cincinnatus---an authentic American to whom voters could relate. Authenticity became increasingly important to candidate selection in the late twentieth century for multiple reasons. As a priority of the Babyboom Generation, the value of authenticity informed Americans\u27 relationships to own another and evaluations of their cultural products. Political and cultural upheaval resulting from Vietnam and Watergate challenged Americans\u27 trust in politicians and campaign politics; resulting structural reforms transformed presidential nomination and election processes. The growth of soft news, human interest, and television talk shows required candidates to become personally available in order to connect with voters intimately. This dissertation examines the role of candidate image in recent American presidential elections, focusing on the dominant cultural vocabulary of authenticity. While partisan affiliation, ideology, and economic trends were all essential determinants of election outcomes between 1976 and 2000, no one theme permeated campaign discourse more than authenticity. The bulk of this dissertation is devoted to analyzing the ways in which symbols of authenticity operated during specific election cycles. Although cultural vocabulary evolved between 1976 and 2000, several core themes dominated campaign rhetoric: colloquial language and dress, personal narrative and self-disclosure, and anti-elitism. In defining these authenticities, the project also explores negative constructions of inauthenticity associated with the flip-flop, the Beltway elite, the Ivy League, and the Northeast. Each chapter examines a single general election season to uncover the ways in which Americans assimilated candidate images during that cycle. By examining televised and printed news, commentary, and comedy, along with political polls, campaign documents, manuscript collections, and political advertisements, this dissertation argues that Americans privileged campaign narratives that were authentically representative of themselves and their country

Stabilising liberal societies in a world of radical innovation: committed actors, adaptive rules, and the origins of social order

Long-standing questions about social order, and about liberal democratic capitalist orders in particular, remain unsettled. They are of renewed importance in our age of crisis and democratic backsliding. Adam Smith addressed two such questions at the founding of political economy: First, what are the forces that sustain all societies, and liberal societies in particular? Second, what combination of market and state makes such societies prosperous and powerful? A third question, addressed by Hayek, Polanyi, and Keynes in their own period of crisis and backsliding, pertains to interactions between the two: how does the combination of market and state affect the stability of liberal democracy? If we are to answer these questions, I argue we need a realistic theory of innovation. Real-world innovation is Schumpeterian: it is uncertain and often radical, so the future may unexpectedly break with the past. Real-world innovation is Baumolian: it is socially ambiguous, and may be productive or extractive. Consequently, the innovations of political and economic entrepreneurs bring the rise, but also the fall, of societies. Given the last two decades, we may be more open to the idea that Fukuyama’s “End of History” never arrives. Our task is to stabilise and optimise cooperation in both politics and the market. “Cooperation” is defined as the alignment of private returns with social returns; it is exemplified by Smith’s “invisible hand”, and is the precondition for growth. The usual formal methods for identifying cooperative equilibria fail in a world of Schumpeterian and Baumolian innovation. Beyond the short-run, there are no lasting Nash equilibria. Game forms are destroyed and remade. The institutional forces that we hope will restore cooperative equilibria are themselves subject to innovative attack. How, in this unstable world, is it possible to sustain cooperation over long periods of time? And how can we model and predict cooperation? This thesis adopts an analytic strategy that makes this problem tractable. I borrow concepts and formal models from evolutionary sociobiology, a field that deals with cooperation under radical and ambiguous innovation. As in Acemoglu and Robinson’s Narrow Corridor, the core concept is the adversarial innovation race (the “Red Queen’s race”). Most important in this thesis is the race between 4 innovating cooperators and defectors. Social order becomes the probabilistic outcome of a dynamic process—of whether cooperator or defector innovations are superior in a given period. Under the right circumstances, outcomes are predictable. All complex social orders, anthropic and biological, combine “commitment” and “rules” (which, in the definitions of this thesis, includes institutions) into a self-sustaining system. Commitments are essential. They are motives that are exogenous to the innovation race; while all else changes, they continue to draw the system towards a cooperative equilibrium. They come in two forms: one is an intrinsic interest in others’ payoffs, and one is an extrinsic dependence on others’ payoffs. However, commitments are impotent, and indeed are destroyed, if there are no rules or institutions that can control defectors—or if committed actors fail to invest sufficiently in adapting rules so that they keep up in the race against defectors. In short, social order depends on (A) commitments (i.e. motives to run the race that are innovation-proof) that (B) are channelled into the adaptation of rules, to run the race against defectors. Accordingly, the outcomes of innovation races are predictable under two circumstances: when (A) there is no source of commitment to group payoffs, or (B) when committed actors perversely disinvest from running the race, so play the “sleeping Hare” of Aesop’s fable. In either case, loss of the race and collapse of cooperation is guaranteed. On the first question raised by Smith, I present an impossibility theorem for any society built from rules—from institutions, incentives, and so on—alone. Both liberal and authoritarian orders rest on commitment. Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments is supported: the “very existence” of liberal orders rests on other-regarding preferences (which, I show, is a product of trust). It is the only innovation-proof force available to them. Authoritarian orders can be explained via the ruler’s extrinsic commitments alone, though other-regarding preferences sometimes play an important role. On the second question, every regime of economic regulation is within the innovation race and vulnerable to unanticipated counter-innovations. I show that every regulatory regime can be described as a particular “division of regulatory labour” between institutional actors and market actors. Institutional actors and market actors are essential complements, with distinct comparative advantages. A 5 principal task for the institutional regulator is to structurally simplify complex markets; otherwise, those defectors that have advantages in the innovation race (of which there are many) will predictably exploit both regulator and market actor. Central planners and Hayekian liberals (and libertarians) endorse extreme divisions of labour between regulator and market actor. They are mirror images and fail in predictable ways. Central planners refuse to use market actors, so allocate hyper-complex (and impossible) regulatory tasks to the state. This produces broad inefficiencies and blocks productive innovation. Hayekian liberals refuse to adapt institutions, so allocate hyper-complex (and impossible) tasks to market actors. This produces crises specifically in complex markets—finance, healthcare, insurance, education, and so on—and soaring rents. Its end point is anarchy. Hayekian liberals suppose advance knowledge of the consequences of basic market institutions. But the unforeseeability of innovation, and distributed nature of knowledge, are double-edged swords: markets produce both productive and extractive innovations that the theorist cannot foresee. To block institutional adaptation is to play the sleeping Hare, and guarantees loss of the innovation race. On the third question, central planning and Hayek’s classical liberalism ultimately lead to authoritarianism. In the case of central planning, Hayek’s argument is supported: to attempt the impossible tasks allocated to it, the state must concentrate power, and voters cannot win the political innovation race to control such a state. In the case of Hayekian liberalism, the state cannot run the market innovation race. Market anarchy and crisis erode the commitments on which liberal orders depend, fuelling distrust and parochiality. As Smith observes, “faction” and “fanaticism” are the greatest threats to the liberal order. To use Hayek’s terms, central planning and his own classical liberalism are “fatal conceits”: they suppose access to distributed and future knowledge that no one possesses. They are both “roads to serfdom”: one via excessive control, the other via anarchy. I describe the “middle of the road”, where commitments are channelled into the adaptive, mixed economic strategy advocated by Keynes. As after the Great Depression, this in turn can create economic outcomes that sustain other-regarding commitments. There, the liberal order can make its home

AMERICAN JOURNALISM AND THE DEVIANT VOTER: ANALYZING AND IMPROVING COVERAGE OF THE ELECTORATE IN THE TRUMP ERA

This study examined media coverage of the 2016 presidential election to identify whether Trump voters were framed as deviant as defined by Daniel Hallin’s Sphere Theory (1986). In a content analysis of 384 reports produced in the last six weeks of the election by national and local outlets, this study found that journalists framed Trump voters as outside the political norm through the use of delegitimizing cues. Previous scholarship (Luther and Miller 2005; Robinson et. al. 2008; Taylor 2014; Billard 2016) has defined delegitimizing cues as frames that signal negativity to the news consumer. Using a coding system and a qualitative examination of the media reports, this study operationalized deviance through the identification of six delegitimizing cues applied to the Trump voter. The conclusion was that the media framed Trump voters using delegitimizing cues that differed from the coverage of Clinton voters and signaled deviance to the news consumer.Hallin defined three spheres of normative practice for journalists: consensus, legitimate controversy and deviance. Each sphere has different normative practices and goals. According to Hallin’s theory, most political coverage falls into the sphere of legitimate controversy. This study suggests that when journalists were confronted with voters considered a threat to democracy, normative practices shifted and coverage of the Trump voter moved into the sphere of deviance. This framing then contributed to a misunderstanding of the electorate by the media. An examination of differences in national and locally-based reporting in this study found that local media framed voters in a more nuanced manner. In addition, local media reports included details suggesting that political polls were an inaccurate descriptors of local voters. Also included in this dissertation is a summary of the media debate that followed the 2016 election and suggests political reporters were unaware of the shifting roles and practices during the campaign. Finally, this study suggests that framing voters as deviant contributes to the polarization of the U.S. political system. It aims to analyze the media coverage of the 2016 voter with the goal of illuminating current practices and suggesting improvements in the relationship of the media and the voters

Bosses, bullets and ballots : electoral violence and democracy in Thailand, 1975-2011

My research examines the relationship between political violence and democratic structures in Thailand since 1975. To examine this relationship, I focus specifically on violence in Thai electoral politics. The main objective of my research is to identify the primary factors and processes that enable or foment violence in elections and to explain the variation in Thai electoral violence across time and space. Since democratization began in the mid-1970s, electoral processes in Thailand have been tainted with various forms of violence. Apart from targeted assassinations, other forms of election-related violence include attacking polling stations on election day, bombing candidates' and vote canvassers' houses, threatening election-related personnel, burning of political parties' headquarters, and post-election mass protests. In the last fourteen national general elections from January 1975 to July 2011, including several local ones within the same period, hundreds of people have died or been injured as a result of election-related violence. Arising from this are two important elements of variation that call for investigation. First, the patterns and degrees of violence have shifted over time. Election-related violence first manifested itself in the 1975 and 1976 elections. The intensity and degree of violence increased in the 1980s and remained relatively constant until the late 1990s. Thai society then observed a sharp rise in violence in the 2001 and 2005 elections. Despite predictions that the deep political polarization which occurred after the 2006 military coup would intensify electoral competition and produce higher levels of bloodshed during polling, electoral violence declined in 2007 and 2011. In explaining the changes in forms and patterns of violence over time, I focus on the patrimonial characteristics of the state, the changes in electoral and party systems, the impact of decentralization, and the relative importance of ideological politics. These factors help to explain cross-temporal variation in electoral violence nationwide. Second, electoral violence in Thailand is unevenly distributed in spatial terms. National-level factors cannot account for the very substantial geographical variation in levels of violence across the country, as data show that some provinces are more violent than others. Since electoral violence in Thailand is province-specific, my research focuses specifically on the local factors that promote violent conflict. In short, rather than merely examining the macro-political picture at the national level, this research explores micro-political-economic conditions and micro-power structure at the provincial level of Thai politics, and the way in which national and local power interact. I compare three provinces harboring chronic electoral violence, namely Phrae, Nakhon Sawan, and Nakhon Si Thammarat, with three provinces that are relatively peaceful: Phetchaburi, Buriram, and Sa Kaeo. Each case represents different regional locations, socio-economic conditions, and political environments of provincial politics in Thailand. Collectively, they illuminate the dynamics of political contestation and violence in other provinces throughout the country

University of San Diego News Print Media Coverage 2004.11

Printed clippings housed in folders with a table of contents arranged by topic.https://digital.sandiego.edu/print-media/1022/thumbnail.jp

Forschungsbericht Universität Mannheim 2006 / 2007

Sie erhalten darin zum einen zusammenfassende Darstellungen zu den Forschungsschwerpunkten und Forschungsprofilen der Universität und deren Entwicklung in der Forschung. Zum anderen gibt der Forschungsbericht einen Überblick über die Publikationen und Forschungsprojekte der Lehrstühle, Professuren und zentralen Forschungseinrichtungen. Diese werden ergänzt um Angaben zur Organisation von Forschungsveranstaltungen, der Mitwirkung in Forschungsausschüssen, einer Übersicht zu den für Forschungszwecke eingeworbenen Drittmitteln, zu den Promotionen und Habilitationen, zu Preisen und Ehrungen und zu Förderern der Universität Mannheim. Darin zeigt sich die Bandbreite und Vielseitigkeit der Forschungsaktivitäten und deren Erfolg auf nationaler und internationaler Ebene

Bowdoin Orient v.121-122, no.1-21 (1991-1992)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-1990s/1003/thumbnail.jp

Senate journal, 1 December 2004.

Titles and imprints vary; Some volumes include miscellaneous state documents and reports; Rules of the Senat

Play as an indicator of public opinion in online political commentary : a content analysis of online news forums leading up to the 2014 South African General Elections

This study seeks to look at play as an indicator of public opinion in online political commentary of online news forums leading to the 2014 South African general elections. A qualitative content analysis was used to analyse viewers’s comments about 2014 South African general elections posted online. The concepts of critical discourse analysis, frame analysis play theory and network analysis were applied to extend and inform the study. A corpus of all commentary appended to 2014 South African general election news reports published online by Media24, Times Media Group, Mail &Guardian, Independent Newspapers, Caxton CTP, and TNA Media were selected. The study employed a purposive sampling technique and 1000 comments were extracted. The sample began four weeks before the election and ended two weeks after the event. NVIVO 11 was utilized to code these readers’ comments into their respective categories. The core findings of this thesis reflect that online readers do not just engage in play but are more interactive and participative on these online public forums and their political discourse echo political affiliations with different political parties, bearing in mind that South Africa has 13 political parties that participated and are represented in parliament. In addition, the findings revealed that, play cannot be parted with and remains inseparable with "what is real"; instead, play renews the real world by giving it sense and meaning. Play does not "re-present" nor falsify certainty but it enunciates certainty. The findings also revealed that most participants identify themselves with the ANC as the ruling party, the DA as the main opposition, the EFF as the most vocal party and then other parties. The findings further revealed that participants have different perspectives on different economic and socio-political matters such as, entertainment, slate politics, and political affiliation, cadre deployment, political bias, economic meltdown, diaspora, and western influence, abuse of power by those in high places, land reform programme, political power struggles, leadership change and corruption