The declining representativeness of the British party system, and why it matters

In a recent article, Michael Laver has explained ‘Why Vote-Seeking Parties May Make Voters Miserable’. His model shows that, while ideological convergence may boost congruence between governments and the median voter, it can reduce congruence between the party system and the electorate as a whole. Specifically, convergence can increase the mean distance between voters and their nearest party. In this article we show that this captures the reality of today’s British party system. Policy scale placements in British Election Studies from 1987 to 2010 confirm that the pronounced convergence during the past decade has left the Conservatives and Labour closer together than would be optimal in terms of minimising the policy distance between the average voter and the nearest major party. We go on to demonstrate that this comes at a cost. Respondents who perceive themselves as further away from one of the major parties in the system tend to score lower on satisfaction with democracy. In short, vote-seeking parties have left the British party system less representative of the ideological diversity in the electorate, and thus made at least some British voters miserable

Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis in wild songbirds: the spread of a new contagious disease in a mobile host population.

A new mycoplasmal conjunctivitis was first reported in wild house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) in early 1994. The causative agent was identified as Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG), a nonzoonotic pathogen of poultry that had not been associated with disease in wild songbirds. Since the initial observations of affected house finches in the mid-Atlantic region, the disease has become widespread and has been reported throughout the eastern United States and Canada. By late 1995, mycoplasmal conjunctivitis had spread to an additional species, the American goldfinch (Carduelis tristis). This new disease exemplifies the rapid spread of a pathogen following introduction into a mobile wildlife population and provides lessons that may apply to emerging human diseases

Thinking about politics

There are distinctive modes of thinking about politics, three of which are discussed here. A mode consists of a characteristic domain of relevance, filing system, and grammar of beliefs. A person relying on Mode A treats politics as an extension of interpersonal experience. A person relying on Mode B organizes political thinking around a set of salient group identifications. A person relying on Mode C views public objects in terms of their consequences for collective goods. The three modes are illustrated by applying them to concrete issues in a hypothetical manner: Vietnam, bussing, and attitudes toward presidential candidates. The concept of surrogate attitudes is developed and various implications of the theoretical argument are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45481/1/11109_2004_Article_BF00988519.pd

Questionnaire study to gain an insight into the manufacturing and fitting process of artificial eyes in children: an ocularist perspective

Purpose To gain an insight into the manufacturing and fitting of artificial eyes in children and potential improvements to the process. Method An online qualitative survey was distributed to 39 ocularists/prosthetists in Europe and Canada. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling, specifically maximum variation sampling from the researcher’s contacts and an online search. Results The findings highlighted the current impression technique as being the most difficult yet most important part of the current process for both the ocularist and child patient. Negatively affecting obtaining a good impression, the child patients distress can be reduced by their parents by providing encouragement, reassurance, practicing the insertion and removal of the artificial eye and being matter of fact. Whilst improvements to the current process provided mixed views, the incorporation of current technology was perceived as not being able to meet the requirements to produce aesthetically pleasing artificial eyes. Conclusion The current artificial eye process can be seen as an interaction with its success being dependent on the child patient’s acceptance and adjustment which is dependent on the factors associated to the process. Investigation into the needs of the patient and whether technology can improve the process are the next steps in its advancement

Does Health Affect Party Identification? : Evidence from German Panel Data

Recent research has shown the effect of health on voter turnout, arguing that attenuated health depresses voting. However, we know little about how health is connected to the psychological factors, such as party identification, that precede actual political participation. Employing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that when a person’s health deteriorates, the degree of partisan attachment declines, whereas health improvement does not automatically restore the level of party identification to previous levels.Peer reviewe

Using intercultural videos of direct contact to implement vicarious contact: A school-based intervention that improves intergroup attitudes

We aimed to create an engaging and dynamic intervention for schools that uses videos of direct school peer contact to implement a vicarious contact intervention. Participants were ethnic majority (Italian) and minority (immigrant) high-school students (N = 485, age ranging from 14 to 22 years old, mean age = 17.24 years), who were asked to watch and evaluate videos created by peers from their school for a competition for the best video on intercultural friendships. Results revealed that vicarious contact, relative to a control condition where participants were not shown any videos, improved outgroup attitudes, reduced negative outgroup stereotypes, and increased willingness to engage in contact with the outgroup. These effects only emerged when intercultural friendships in the videos were salient. Inclusion of the other in the self, but neither intergroup anxiety nor fear of rejection by the outgroup, significantly mediated the effect of the videos on outcomes. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings

Power Versus Affiliation in Political Ideology

Posited motivational differences between liberals and conservatives have historically been controversial. This motivational interface has recently been bridged, but the vast majority of studies have used self-reports of values or motivation. Instead, the present four studies investigated whether two classic social motive themes—power and affiliation—vary by political ideology in objective linguistic analysis terms. Study 1 found that posts to liberal chat rooms scored higher in standardized affiliation than power, whereas the reverse was true of posts to conservative chat rooms. Study 2 replicated this pattern in the context of materials posted to liberal versus conservative political news websites. Studies 3 and 4, finally, replicated a similar interactive (ideology by motive type) pattern in State of the State and State of the Union addresses. Differences in political ideology, these results suggest, are marked by, and likely reflective of, mind-sets favoring affiliation (liberal) or power (conservative). </jats:p

Contextual effects of immigrant presence on populist radical right support: testing the ‘halo effect’ on Front National voting in France

This paper examines the relationship between immigration and populist radical right (PRR) support, based on an analysis of the contextual effects of immigrant presence on Front National vote in France in 2017. Using a unique set of survey data geolocalising respondents at the subcommunal level, it finds evidence for the existence of a curvilinear “halo effect,” with substantial increases in the probability of PRR vote in areas surrounding communities with significantly higher-than-average immigrant populations, and independent of other socio-economic context, as well as individual socio-demographic characteristics. Most importantly, a path analysis confirms the presence of individual attitudinal mediators of this halo effect on PRR vote, thus testing the foundation of the halo, namely that the contextual effects of immigrant presence act on attitudes which drive PRR support. These findings provide a significant step forward in understanding the mechanisms linking subjective experience of immigration with voting for the populist radical right

Religion, Partisanship, and Attitudes Toward Science Policy

We examine issues involving science which have been contested in recent public debate. These “contested science” issues include human evolution, stem-cell research, and climate change. We find that few respondents evince consistently skeptical attitudes toward science issues, and that religious variables are generally strong predictors of attitudes toward individual issues. Furthermore, and contrary to analyses of elite discourse, partisan identification is not generally predictive of attitudes toward contested scientific issues