Uplifting manhood to wonderful heights? News coverage of the human costs of military conflict from world war I to Gulf war Two

Domestic political support is an important factor constraining the use of American military power around the world. Although the dynamics of war support are thought to reflect a cost-benefit calculus, with costs represented by numbers of friendly war deaths, no previous study has examined how information about friendly, enemy, and civilian casualties is routinely presented to domestic audiences. This paper establishes a baseline measure of historical casualty reporting by examining New York Times coverage of five major wars that occurred over the past century. Despite important between-war differences in the scale of casualties, the use of conscription, the type of warfare, and the use of censorship, the frequency of casualty reporting and the framing of casualty reports has remained fairly consistent over the past 100 years. Casualties are rarely mentioned in American war coverage. When casualties are reported, it is often in ways that minimize or downplay the human costs of war

Immigrants' Political Suitcases: A Theory of Imported Socialization

People???s experiences throughout their lives influence their later thoughts and actions, including thoughts and actions about politics. This straightforward logic motivates attention to childhood political socialization, habitual voting, and a host of other phenomena. Yet, when it comes to studies concerning the political behaviors of immigrants to the United States, the scholarly norm has been to assume that these individuals entered the nation as political blank slates; that is, we ignore the possible influence of experiences in immigrants??? nations of origin. By contrast, this study develops and tests a theory of imported socialization in an effort to understand how immigrants??? political socialization experiences before they left their countries of origin shape the way they view the new polity after migration; the extent to which this imported socialization affects their degree of post-migration political engagement; and finally for how long the content of immigrants??? political suitcases remains consequential during their civic lives in their new home. Specific questions examined include the extent to which immigrants??? political baggage affects the intensity and the directionality of that post-migration political engagement. My findings suggest that political suitcases indeed play a key role on the political acculturation of the newcomers

Love Thy Neighbor? Trust in Foreigners and Support for Transnational Policies

This study assesses the extent to which individual levels of trust in foreigners relate to preferences about regional transnational policies. We use a nationally representative survey from Mexico (2003), an emerging democracy with relatively high levels of nationalism and several multinational trade agreements. We argue that clarifying the target of social trust is essential for understanding the attitudes of citizens of less powerful countries toward the international policy realm. Statistical analysis strongly suggests that in fact trust in foreigners, above generalized trust, is key to understanding such attitudes. Our results indicate that trust in foreigners among Mexican respondents is positively associated with support for open immigration policies, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and political union with the United States

Personality, Political Behavior, and Political Views about Mexico’s 2012 Presidential Election

People’s electoral behavior is understood as political predispositions and attitudes in specific institutional contexts. Recent scholarly work has included personality as a key explanatory factor in individual-level models of political participation. In this paper we build upon these recent efforts. We utilize the Big Five approach to assess the effects of different personality traits on people’s likelihood of political engagement during the 2012 presidential election in Mexico. We focus on the effects of personality on voting in the election and on individual views about the integrity of the electoral process. We use post election survey data collected for the Comparative National Elections Project in the 2012 Mexican presidential election. Our findings show that extraversion is a critical individual-level factor accounting for the propensity to turnout in this election as well as to encourage political discussion with family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.People’s electoral behavior is understood as political predispositions and attitudes in specific institutional contexts. Recent scholarly work has included personality as a key explanatory factor in individual-level models of political participation. In this paper we build upon these recent efforts. We utilize the Big Five approach to assess the effects of different personality traits on people’s likelihood of political engagement during the 2012 presidential election in Mexico. We focus on the effects of personality on voting in the election and on individual views about the integrity of the electoral process. We use post election survey data collected for the Comparative National Elections Project in the 2012 Mexican presidential election. Our findings show that extraversion is a critical individual-level factor accounting for the propensity to turnout in this election as well as to encourage political discussion with family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers

Assumed Transmission in Political Science: A Call for Bringing Description Back In

News outlets cannot serve as reliable conveyors of social facts, nor do their audiences crave such content. Nonetheless, much political science scholarship assumes that objective information about social, political, and economic topics is routinely transmitted to the mass public through the news. This article addresses the problem of selection bias in news content and illustrates the problem with a content analytic study of New York Times coverage given to American war deaths in five major conflicts that occurred over the past century. We find that news coverage of war deaths is unrelated to how many American combatants have recently died. News coverage is more likely to mention war deaths when reporting combat operations and less likely to mention them when a war is going well. These findings underscore the need to document selection biases in information flows before theorizing about proximate causes underlying the relationships between political systems and public opinion

Replication data for: "A Neglected Nexus: Human Rights and Public Perceptions."

Replication data for: "A Neglected Nexus: Human Rights and Public Perceptions.