The Trump Paradox: How Cues from a Disliked Source Foster Resistance to Persuasion

We usually reject information from sources we dislike. But what if those same sources explicitly disagree with that information? Are we more likely to be persuaded by information that is opposed by someone we dislike? We present results from an experimental study with a convenience sample of 199 Dutch students. Respondents were exposed to counter-attitudinal information on climate change in an attempt to generate persuasion, and in a second time exposed to a tweet from the current US president, Donald J. Trump, as a positive or negative endorsement of the counter-attitudinal. Results show that positive endorsements reduce the persuasive power of counter-attitudinal information, whereas negative endorsements (marginally) increase its persuasive power. These results have important implications in today's politics, where "disliked" figures - most of the time referred to as "populists" - play an increasingly central role in framing the terms of the debate on the most salient issues

Dispositioned to resist? The Big Five and resistance to dissonant political views

This article investigates how dispositional traits influence the way individuals resist dissonant political information. More specifically, the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and four resistance strategies (avoidance, contesting, empowering, and negative affect) is explored. To do so, we present new evidence from an online survey where respondents from a Swiss sample (N = 936) were exposed to tailored counterarguments on a political initiative and asked to report their cognitive, behavioral, and affective responses to the dissonant messages. Against our expectations, openness is unrelated to any type of resistance. Conscientious individuals are hesitant to actively resist counter-attitudinal political information, while extraverts defend their attitude by bolstering their preexisting views. Similar tendencies are visible for agreeable respondents, although these individuals primarily rely on avoiding dissonant political content. Individuals high on neuroticism exhibit a strong emotional response by reacting with negative affect to oppositional political information

Tailored negativity. Campaign consultants, candidate personality, and attack politics

To what extent are negative election campaigns “tailored” to the personality of the candidates? And with what electoral consequences? In this article we tackle these questions by focusing on the 2019 Swiss federal election. We estimate the presence of negativity as a function of the personality profile of competing candidates (Big Five) and the presence of professional consultants. Analyses based on data from a candidate survey (Selects 2019) suggest that campaign consultants are likely to take stock of the character of their candidate, and tailor the content of their campaigns accordingly - more aggressive for more energetic candidates (higher plasticity) and for less stable candidates (lower stability). These results, we argue, support our central claim that the role of consultants is to provide the most adequate campaign for the candidate they are promoting (“tailoring hypothesis”). We fail however to find any convincing evidence that such tailoring is electorally successful

European Cybersecurity Centres of Expertise Map - Definitions and Taxonomy

The Commission made a commitment in the Communication adopted in September to launch a pilot phase under Horizon 2020 to help bring national cybersecurity centres together into a network. In this context, the goal of this document is that of aligning the cybersecurity terminologies, definitions and domains into a coherent and comprehensive taxonomy to facilitate the categorisation of EU cybersecurity competencies.JRC.E.3-Cyber and Digital Citizens' Securit

Attack politics from Albania to Zimbabwe: A large-scale comparative study on the drivers of negative campaigning

There is little comparative research on what causes candidates in elections across the world to ‘go negative’ on their rivals – mainly because of the scarcity of large-scale datasets. In this article, we present new evidence covering over 80 recent national elections across the world (2016–2018), in which more than 400 candidates competed. For the first time in a large-scale comparative setting, we show that, ceteris paribus, negativity is more likely for challengers, extreme candidates, and right-wing candidates. Women are not more (or less) likely to go negative on their rivals than their male counterparts, but we find that higher numbers of female MPs in the country reduces negativity overall. Furthermore, women tend to go less negative in proportional systems and more negative in majoritarian systems. Finally, negativity is especially low for candidates on the left in countries with high female representation, and higher for candidates on the right in countries with proportional representation (PR)

The OECD "Pillar.Two" as anti-Tax Avoidance measure against Digitalisation

reservedL’avvento oramai irreversibile delle nuove tecnologie ha prodotto un forte impatto in moltissimi campi di studio, cambiando di fatto le regole del gioco. Non fa eccezione la materia tributaria dove la digitalizzazione ha fatto venir meno il collegamento col territorio ove l’impresa persegue le proprie attività economiche, rendendo più labile l’attrazione ad imposizione dei redditi prodotti nella giurisdizione in cui risulta presente, seppur non fisicamente. Per fronteggiare le nuove sfide in campo fiscale, l’OCSE ha elaborato un modello basato su due pilastri, il Pillar One e il Pillar Two, attraverso i quali cerca di combattere quelle forme di elusione fiscale già presenti prima della rivoluzione digitale, ma che, negli ultimi 15 anni, hanno visto un forte sviluppo. Il secondo Pillar, argomento di questa tesi, mira a costituire una imposta minima globale definita GloBE tax, che va a colpire i redditi prodotti da entità localizzate in una giurisdizione a ridotta imposizione fiscale e facenti parte di un gruppo di imprese dal fatturato superiore a 750 milioni di euro. Rientrano in questa situazione le entità costitutive che hanno un effective tax rate nella giurisdizione inferiore al 15%. In questo caso la normativa interviene tramite due meccanismi di imposta integrativi: l’UTPR e L’IIR. Ad oggi il Pillar 2 è ancora in fase di evoluzione e sarà sicuramente interessante vedere quali saranno gli Stati aderenti e come questi saranno in grado di implementare le regole stabilite in sede internazionale.The now irreversible advent of new technologies has had a strong impact in many areas of study, effectively changing the rules of the game. Tax matters are no exception, because the digitization has broken the connection with the territory where the company carries out its economic activities to be lost, making more vulnerable the taxation principle for whom the company has to be taxed in the jurisdiction where operate, even if not physically. To face the new challenges in the tax field, the OECD has developed a model based on two pillars, Pillar One and Pillar Two, through which it tries to combat those forms of tax avoidance already present before the digital revolution, but which, in the past 15 years, they have seen strong development. The second Pillar, topic of this thesis, aims to establish a global minimum tax defined as GloBE tax, which affects the income produced by entities located in a jurisdiction with low taxation and belonging to a group of companies with revenues exceeding 750 million euros. This situation includes constituent entities that have an effective tax rate in the jurisdiction of less than 15%. In this case the legislation intervenes through two supplementary tax mechanisms: the UTPR and the IIR. Today, Pillar 2 is still in the evolution phase and it will certainly be interesting to see which States will be members and how they will be able to implement the rules established internationally