Extracting Topic-Specific Ideological Positions from News Articles

This is the final version.In this paper, we test three methods of estimating ideological bias in news media stories. This forms the basis for the development of a news reading app. We find that WordScores offers the most reliable estimate and reliability is improved when applied after identifying topic.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

Parenthood and the polarisation of political attitudes in Europe

This is an open access article available via the DOI in this record.Becoming a parent can affect the lives of men and women by introducing salient new social roles and identities, altered social networks and tighter constraints on financial resources and time. Even though modern family life has evolved in many important respects, parenthood continues to shape the lives of men and women in very different ways. Given that parenthood can change the lives of men and women in profoundly different ways, it seems that it would bring about changes in the way women and men think about politics and policy issues. Using data from the Wave 4 of the European Social Survey, this article investigates how parenthood, and the distinctions of motherhood and fatherhood, influence attitudes. The findings suggest that parenthood can have a polarising effect on attitudes, and that the polarising effect is most evident in countries where there is less support from the state for parental responsibilities.The work of Banducci and Stevens was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/H030883/1

Male warriors and worried women? Understanding gender and perceptions of security threats

Differences between women and men in perceptions of security threats are firmly established in public opinion research, with the “male warrior” and the “worried woman” two well documented stereotypes. Yet, we argue in this paper, the differences are not as well understood as such labels, or the search for explanations, imply. One reason for this is the lack of dialogue between public opinion research and feminist security studies. In bringing the two fields into conversation in analyzing mixed methods research data gathered in Britain, we suggest that while the extent of the gender gap in opinions of security is overstated, the gaps that do exist are more complex than previously allowed: men and women define “security” in slightly different ways; women tend to identify more security threats than men not necessarily because they feel more threatened but due to a greater capacity to consider security from perspectives beyond their own; women are more confident about government’s ability to deal with security threats in the future but not simply because of greater faith in government than men. This complexity implies a need to revisit assumptions, methods and analytical approaches in order to develop the field of gender and security further

The authoritarian dynamic and Brexit: Understanding the relationship between authoritarianism and wanting to leave the EU

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData availability statement: The data are available at https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/data-objects/panel-study-data/Individual-level authoritarianism is prominent in explanations of preferences for Brexit. We contend that extant accounts have provided an incomplete theoretical and empirical understanding of this relationship. Drawing on the idea of the ‘authoritarian dynamic’, we show that perceptions of the economic/cultural threat of immigration have stronger effects on the pro-Brexit views of individuals with weak authoritarian predispositions (libertarians). At the same time, perceptions of normative threat, which pertain to concerns like loss of faith in or lack of consensus among established authorities, have a greater impact on the pro-Brexit views of individuals with high authoritarian predispositions (authoritarians). These conditional relationships, which have previously gone unacknowledged, are crucial to understanding which individuals are likely to respond to ‘increased threat’ with pro-Brexit attitudes. We demonstrate these relationships with pro-Brexit views using British Election Study longitudinal panel data. The results clarify the conditional impact of threats and authoritarian predispositions on attitudes

Gender, austerity, and support for EMU across generations

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this recordIncorporating a feminist analytical framework, we examine, from a longitudinal and generational perspective, public support for the euro. Feminist critiques of EMU argue that narratives around the adoption of the euro, the impacts of austerity, as well as the economic recovery have to a large extent ignored women’s experiences. In light of these critiques, we examine the empirical evidence indicating growing support for EMU even after the crisis. Specifically, we examine how women’s experience as participants in the labour force, as well as in the household, influence their support for the euro. We find that the youngest cohorts had significant declines in support post crisis but that the gender gap in support is smaller where labour force experiences are more similar

What Are You Afraid of? Authoritarianism, Terrorism, and Threat

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordResearch on authoritarianism has provided conflicting findings on its relationship with threat. Some studies indicate that in the face of heightened threat individuals with stronger authoritarian predispositions express more right-wing and illiberal preferences; others suggest that it is individuals at the other end of the continuum, with weak authoritarian dispositions—libertarians—who are most likely to change and express such attitudes. Extant efforts to reconcile the differences have been unsatisfactory. We offer a new perspective in which both processes may occur simultaneously. Higher authoritarians are responsive to elevated “normative threat,” characterized by dissatisfaction with established parties and their leaders and perceptions of “belief diversity,” while libertarians respond with more right-wing and illiberal preferences to heightened physical and personal threat, such as from terrorism, which does not affect high authoritarians. We suggest different contexts in which normative threat and personal threat vary, and we are thus likely to see change either in individuals toward one or other end of the authoritarian continuum or among both. Drawing on data in the quasi-experimental context of the 2017 general election in Britain, during which there were two terror attacks, we confirm this pattern in a setting in which both personal and normative threat were elevated

Examining Women’s Experiences on the Campaign Trail: Campaign Ethnographies in English Local Elections 2022 & a Parliamentary By-Election. A Pilot Study for TWICEASGOOD

This is the final version.Local elections are an important feature of the electoral calendar. The provide an opportunity for voters to express preferences for local leaders, to hold incumbent councils and councilors accountable and they can also serve as referendums on the national government. To be a candidate in a local election requires a great deal of commitment, long hours of campaigning, contesting a local party selection process and negotiating often fractious local politics. During the campaign leading up to the 2022 English local elections, we conducted a pilot study for our European Commission funded project on women’s political leadership. Our objective was to establish whether quick campaign ethnographies (e.g., shadowing candidates, observing campaign events) was feasible, identify challenges and opportunities and assessing whether candidates would engage with our research. This report summarises our methods and initial key findings. We are grateful to our participants as through their engagement we were able to meet our objectives. Additionally, they also lead us to a deeper understanding of the campaign process which we would not have achieved without their participation.European Union Horizon 202

Gender in Contemporary Europe: Rethinking Equality and the Backlash

European Social Survey Round 11: Question Module Design Teams (QDT) - Stage 2 ApplicationDecades of policy efforts and campaigns by governments, international organizations and social movements have brought significant progress towards gender equality. Many would argue, however, that gender equality still remains largely out of reach. Furthermore, there are visible backlashes against gender equality partly driven by the rhetoric of the radical right against “gender ideology”. Additionally there is evidence there has been retrenchment on key indicators measuring the status of women in society. In response to these seemingly countervailing trends, we propose a module that will allow researchers to examine contemporary attitudes about gender and gender equality, sexism, gender-based discrimination and policy responses to gender equality. We propose measuring five dimensions: identity, sexism, experiences, salience and policy instruments. While these five dimensions draw on a wealth of existing measures about gender attitudes, the proposed module would, we argue, redress some blind spots in current cross-national survey items such as experiences of gender-based discrimination, perceptions of masculinity and femininity; and attitudes about the role of gender equality in society

Citizens' attitudes to contact tracing apps

Citizens’ concerns about data privacy and data security breaches may reduce the adoption of COVID-19 contact tracing mobile phone applications, making them less effective. We implement a choice experiment (conjoint experiment) where participants indicate which version of two contact tracing apps they would install, varying the apps’ privacy-preserving attributes. Citizens do not always prioritise privacy and prefer a centralised National Health Service system over a decentralised system. In a further study asking about participants’ preference for digital-only vs human-only contact tracing, we find a mixture of digital and human contact tracing is supported. We randomly allocated a subset of participants in each study to receive a stimulus priming data breach as a concern, before asking about contact tracing. The salient threat of unauthorised access or data theft does not significantly alter preferences in either study. We suggest COVID-19 and trust in a national public health service system mitigate respondents’ concerns about privacy

Identities in flux? National and other changing identities during the Covid-19 pandemic

Social identities, such as identification with the nation, are regarded as core variables in explanations of political attitudes and behaviours. In these accounts, increases in the importance of an identity such as “Englishness” are often seen to be accompanied by decreases in the importance of other, more inclusive, identities such as “British” or “European”. At the same time, increases in exclusive national identities like “Englishness” present challenges to democratic states because they are associated with preferences such as support for Brexit and intolerance of outgroups. Yet we know comparatively little about the relative importance to individuals of different social identities, the extent of changes in the strength of those social identities with contextual shifts, the interrelationships between different social identities, and the influences on different social identities. In this paper, we address each of these questions using a five-wave online panel study administered over two years of the Covid-19 pandemic in England from 2020-22, in which we asked about the importance of eight identities—Europeanness, Britishness, Englishness, the local area, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and social class. We show that national identity is consistently less important to individuals than the social identities of gender and age, though more important than race/ethnicity and social class. We also show that there were general increases in identification with almost all these groups during Covid. We consider why and discuss the implications for our understanding of increases in the strength of national identity as a challenge to democratic states