The Variable Persuasiveness of Political Rhetoric

Which types of political rhetoric are most persuasive? Politicians make arguments that share common rhetorical elements, including metaphor, ad hominem attacks, appeals to expertise, moral appeals, and many others. However, political arguments are also highly multidimensional, making it difficult to assess the relative persuasive power of these elements. We report on a novel experimental design which assesses the relative persuasiveness of a large number of arguments that deploy a set of rhetorical elements to argue for and against proposals across a range of UK political issues. We find modest differences in the average effectiveness of rhetorical elements shared by many arguments, but also large variation in the persuasiveness of arguments of the same rhetorical type across issues. In addition to revealing that some argument-types are more effective than others in shaping public opinion, these results have important implications for the interpretation of survey-experimental studies in the field of political communication

Four electoral records that might be broken in May

Many observers have suggested that increasing fragmentation of the popular vote could lead to electoral outcomes that break with UK electoral history, but what is the probability that the 2015 election really will be exceptional? In this post, the team from electionforecast.co.uk discuss four electoral records that might be broken in May

SAMPEX payload operation control center implementation

The Solar Anomolous and Magnetospheric Explorer (SAMPEX) satellite was launched in July 1992. It was the first in the NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) series. In building the real-time control center facility, several new mission support challenges had to be met: CCSDS telemetry and command format, 900 Kbps telemetry data, and shorter turn-around time for control center development than previous missions. The SAMPEX Payload Operations Control Ccnter (POCC) was also the first control center for a new satellite to be based on the Transportable Payload Operations Control Center (TPOCC) system architecture and methodology. This approach has both guided the implementation of the SAMPEX control center and provided some of the building blocks. By using the TPOCC architecture to build the SAMPEX POCC, the real-time operations area was miniaturized into one room, whereas previous missions needed multiple large rooms. The development cost of the SAMPEX POCC was reduced from previous missions and will provide for further cost savings in the future SMEX satellites. This paper describes the system as built and some of the enhancements in progress to create this teleoperations environment

What would the election look like under PR?

The further fragmentation of the UK’s party system in 2015 is likely to lead to the most disproportionate outcome of any election in the post-war era. In this post, Jack Blumenau and Simon Hix, along with the team from electionforecast.co.uk, ask what the House of Commons might look like if the election were held under a more proportionate voting system. If members were elected from small multi-member constituencies, the main beneficiaries would be the Liberal Democrats and UKIP, while the main losers would be Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP

Never let a good crisis go to waste: agenda setting and legislative voting in response to the EU crisis

The European Union's policy response to the recent global economic crisis transferred significant powers from the national to the European level. When exogenous shocks make status quo policies less attractive, legislators become more tolerant to proposed alternatives, and the policy discretion of legislative agenda-setters increases. Given control of the EU agenda-setting process by pro-integration actors, we argue that this dynamic explains changes in voting patterns of the European Parliament during the crisis period. We observe voting coalitions increasingly dividing legislators along the pro-anti integration, rather than the left-right, dimension of disagreement, but only in policy areas related to the crisis. In line with more qualitative assessments of the content of passed legislation, the implication is that pro-integration actors were able to shift policy further towards integration than they could have without the crisis

Predicting the polls – April

Each month, the team from electionforecast.co.uk compare new constituency polls as they are released to their estimates of what polls would show in those constituencies. This allows for an assessment of the accuracy of their modeling approach. More information about the overall model can be found here. The results presented in this post use all constituency polls released by Lord Ashcroft in April so far

Focus on… London

In this post, the team at electionforecast.co.uk discuss their current predictions for London. They predict that the Labour Party will increase its share of the seats in the capital, largely at the expense of the Conservatives. Furthermore, it is highly probable that Labour will perform better in London on May 7th than in the rest of England

Focus on… the North East

In this post, the team at electionforecast.co.uk discuss their current predictions for the North East. They find that the traditional two-party system is still strong in the region, and that although Labour may pick up a couple of seats at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, it is unlikely that the partisan distribution of North East MPs will change dramatically in 2015

Predicting the polls – March 17th

Each month, the team from electionforecast.co.uk compare new constituency polls as they are released to their estimates of what polls would show in those constituencies. This allows for an assessment of the accuracy of their modeling approach. More information about the overall model can be found here. The results presented in this post use the constituency polls released by Lord Ashcroft on 17th March 2015

Focus on…Scotland

In this post, the team at electionforecast.co.uk discuss their current predictions for Scotland. In 2010, not a single Scottish seat changed party hands. In 2015, it is likely that 70% of Scottish constituencies will return an MP from a different party to Westinster