tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/liberals-36271/articlesLiberals – The Conversation2024-03-27T03:24:35Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2267132024-03-27T03:24:35Z2024-03-27T03:24:35ZThe consequences of the government’s new migration legislation could be dire – for individuals and for Australia<p>The Albanese government came to power with <a href="https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1154510763433684992?lang=en">a promise</a> to be “strong on borders without being weak on humanity”. </p>
<p>But there was little humanity in parliament yesterday as the government tried to force through some of the most draconian migration laws this country has seen in decades. The draft legislation was distributed to MPs and introduced in the lower house for debate <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-26/government-suddenly-brings-on-legislation-deportation-powers/103632704">just hours</a> later.</p>
<p>Today, the senate <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-27/coalition-wont-support-immigration-legislation/103638462">stopped the bill</a> in its tracks, referring it to a committee instead of passing it just before a parliamentary break.</p>
<p>In a radical departure from the existing framework, the government is seeking to further criminalise the migration system. The consequences could be disastrous.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-fighting-a-new-high-court-case-on-immigration-detainees-whats-it-about-and-whats-at-stake-226120">The government is fighting a new High Court case on immigration detainees. What's it about and what's at stake?</a>
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<h2>What would the laws do?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r7179">Migration Amendment (Removal and Other Measures) Bill</a> proposes amendments to the Migration Act to deal with situations where non-citizens subject to removal are not cooperating with government authorities, or where their own government refuses to take them back. </p>
<p>It is widely understood to be a response to the High Court’s ruling in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-has-decided-indefinite-detention-is-unlawful-what-happens-now-217438">November 2023</a> that found indefinite immigration detention to be unlawful. </p>
<p>It’s also considered an attempt to pre-empt <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-sweats-on-critical-new-court-challenge-on-immigration-detainees-20240315-p5fcro.html">further litigation</a> scheduled in the High Court. The case of an Iranian man refusing to cooperate in his deportation is due before the court <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-fighting-a-new-high-court-case-on-immigration-detainees-whats-it-about-and-whats-at-stake-226120">next month</a>.</p>
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<p>However, the amendments introduced in the bill go far beyond addressing this issue. They have wide-ranging impacts for how non-citizens are treated in Australia, and indeed for Australia’s relationship with governments around the world. </p>
<p>As such, it is particularly concerning the government tried to rush the bill through parliament without the opportunity for proper scrutiny or review. While a senate committee hearing is a welcome development, it won’t fix everything. </p>
<h2>Criminalising non-cooperation</h2>
<p>The bill gives the minister new powers to compel people who have exhausted their options to stay in Australia to cooperate and take steps towards their own removal. This would apply not only to people affected by the High Court’s ruling last year, but also to certain bridging visa holders. </p>
<p>Extraordinarily, it would also apply to “any other non-citizens” the minister might seek to designate through the migration regulations. </p>
<p>The powers include directing individuals to sign and submit documents to facilitate their departure, attend appointments, and provide any other information as required. In the case of families, if the parents are affected non-citizens, they can be directed to help facilitate the removal of their children, irrespective of whether it is in the child’s best interests.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-rushing-through-bill-to-crack-down-on-uncooperative-non-citizens-it-is-trying-to-remove-226615">Government rushing through bill to crack down on 'uncooperative' non-citizens it is trying to remove</a>
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<p>Anyone who fails to comply with these directions without a “reasonable excuse” will face a mandatory jail term of between one and five years, a A$93,900 fine, or both. The fact that someone faces a real risk of persecution or other serious harm will not be considered a reasonable excuse. </p>
<p>These are extraordinary provisions without precedent in Australia. Even in the context of terrorism offences, a failure to comply with a direction does not result in mandatory imprisonment. </p>
<p>The closest comparisons are offences under various state laws concerning failure to disclose identity, which may be punished by up to 12 months’ imprisonment. In some states, reportable offenders, such as child sex offenders, who fail to produce electronic devices when directed by police, may face up to five years in prison. </p>
<p>However, in all these cases, these are maximum sentences, not a mandatory minimum sentence. As the Law Council of Australia President <a href="https://lawcouncil.au/media/media-releases/removal-bill-causes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-concerns">put it</a>: “In effect, this Bill will implement mandatory sentencing”.</p>
<h2>Concerns for fast-track asylum seekers</h2>
<p>Section 199D of the bill attempts to ensure that the new powers are not used to remove individuals to a country where they would face a real risk of persecution or other serious harm. </p>
<p>But there is a risk the bill could still lead to people who do have protection claims being forced to return to countries where their life or freedom is threatened. There are particular concerns for people assessed under Australia’s fast-track asylum processes. </p>
<p>The Labor party has acknowledged these processes have not been <a href="https://alp.org.au/media/2594/2021-alp-national-platform-final-endorsed-platform.pdf">“fair, thorough and robust”</a>, meaning people with genuine refugee claims may have been denied protection. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-governments-preventative-detention-bill-heres-how-the-laws-will-work-and-what-they-mean-for-australias-detention-system-219226">What is the government's preventative detention bill? Here's how the laws will work and what they mean for Australia's detention system</a>
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<p>Others could also be at risk of removal contrary to Australia’s protection obligations if their personal circumstances or the situation in their home country has changed since their original protection claim was determined. </p>
<p>The Refugee Council of Australia has warned about these risks and shared its <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/new-legislation-puts-refugees-failed-by-fast-track-process-at-risk/">concerns</a> that “those who do have strong claims, but have not had a fair hearing or review, will be sent back to real harm.” </p>
<h2>Countries can be blacklisted</h2>
<p>The bill also gives the minister a new power to “blacklist” entire countries and prevent their citizens from applying for Australian visas.</p>
<p>This is a discretionary power that requires little consultation and is unlikely to be subject to administrative or judicial review. The only limitations on this power are that the minister first consults with the prime minister and minister for foreign affairs. The immigration minister must also detail why they think it is in the national interest to make such a decision.</p>
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<p>The travel bans are intended to force targeted countries to cooperate and accept the return of their own nationals. But in practice, they will prevent people who may wish to work, study in or visit Australia from leaving – through no fault of their own. </p>
<p>Travel bans could also have unintended consequences. Diplomatic relations between countries may sour following such decisions, and countries may opt to <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/homesec/IF11025.pdf">retaliate</a> in other ways, whether through trade, tourism or other matters of international concern. </p>
<p>The issue of international cooperation concerning the return of nationals to their home country is a diplomatic one that should be negotiated in good faith between political leaders. It is quite likely that inducements rather than threats would work better. </p>
<p>Other countries may also simply be unmoved to take any further steps to facilitate returns, or may even welcome their citizens not being able to visit Australia. It is important to remember that not all countries wish for their citizenry to be able to leave.</p>
<h2>Walking the walk</h2>
<p>At a time when the immigration minister has <a href="https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/AndrewGiles/Pages/refugee-communities-assoc-aust-conf-21092023.aspx">emphasised</a> the “importance of lived experience in shaping national and international dialogue and policy” and claimed that the “government walk the walk on meaningful participation for refugees”, it is disappointing to see attempts to rush this bill through parliament without any consultation with refugee communities and other stakeholders, and very limited scrutiny. </p>
<p>The Albanese government is continuing the tradition of governments before it by attempting to ram legislation through parliament that severely curtails human rights and is disproportionate to its stated objectives. Both the government and the opposition have a vested interest in passing laws that further expand the minister’s discretionary powers, which are already ill-suited to a liberal democracy. </p>
<p>But the changes will have far-reaching consequences for both our migration program and our foreign policy objectives, and demand further democratic scrutiny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the expert sub-committee of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Skilled Migration. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Ghezelbash receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Government. He is a member of the management committee of Refugee Advice and Casework Services and Wallumatta Legal, and a Special Counsel at the National Justice Project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Gleeson and Tristan Harley do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government has failed in its attempt to ram unprecedented changes to the migration act through parliament. The laws, now being reviewed by a senate committee, could be disastrous.Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyDaniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW SydneyMadeline Gleeson, Senior Research Fellow, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyTristan Harley, Senior Research Associate, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2228312024-02-21T13:18:19Z2024-02-21T13:18:19ZMaking it personal: Considering an issue’s relevance to your own life could help reduce political polarization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576054/original/file-20240215-28-zbjze5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C1720%2C1732&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thinking about issues’ impact on their own lives can help people envision more common ground.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/polarization-in-the-united-states-royalty-free-image/1436162554?phrase=political+polarization&adppopup=true">wildpixel/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Political polarization can be reduced when people are told to think about the personal relevance of issues they might not care about at first glance.</p>
<p>We, <a href="https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/our-faculty/directory/faculty-detail/Rebecca-Dyer">a social psychologist</a> and <a href="https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/our-faculty/directory/faculty-detail/keelah-williams">an evolutionary psychologist</a>, decided to investigate this issue with two of our undergraduate students, and recently published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296177">our results</a> in the science journal PLOS One.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015141">Previous research</a> has found that conservatives tend to judge “disrespecting an elder” to be more morally objectionable behavior than liberals do. But when we had liberals think about how “disrespecting an elder” could be personally relevant to them – for example, someone being mean to their own grandmother – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296177">their immorality assessments increased</a>, becoming no different than conservatives’.</p>
<p>When people consider how an issue relates to them personally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000567">an otherwise neutral event seems more threatening</a>. This, in turn, increases someone’s perception of how morally objectionable that behavior is.</p>
<p>The pattern was different with conservative participants, however. When conservatives considered the personal relevance of what is typically considered a more “liberal” issue – a company lying about how much it is contributing to pollution – their judgments of how immoral that issue is did not significantly change. </p>
<p>Contrary to what we expected, both conservatives and liberals cared relatively equally about this threat even without thinking about its personal relevance. While some people did focus on the environmental aspect of the threat, as we intended, others focused more on the deception involved, which is less politically polarized. </p>
<p>All participants, no matter their politics, consistently rated more personally relevant threats as more immoral. The closer any threat feels, the bigger – and more wrong – someone considers it to be.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>In the United States today, it can feel like conservatives and liberals are <a href="https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/political-divide-america-beyond-polarization-tribalism-secularism">living in different realities</a>. Our research speaks to a possible pathway for narrowing this gap. </p>
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<span class="caption">Thinking about issues as closer to your own life – happening sooner, nearer or to people you care about – can change how you view them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rear-view-photo-of-audience-listening-to-panel-royalty-free-image/1179025358?phrase=%22town+hall%22+meeting&adppopup=true">SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>People often think of moral beliefs as relatively fixed and stable: Moral values feel ingrained in who you are. Yet our study suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296177">moral beliefs may be more flexible</a> than once thought, at least under certain circumstances. </p>
<p>To the extent that people can appreciate how important issues – like climate change – could affect them personally, that may lead to greater agreement from people across the political spectrum.</p>
<p>From a broader perspective, personal relevance is just one dimension of something called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963">psychological distance</a>.” People may perceive objects or events as close to or far away from their lives in a variety of ways: for example, whether an event occurred recently or a long time ago, and whether it is real or hypothetical.</p>
<p>Our research suggests that psychological distance could be an important variable to consider in all kinds of decision-making, including financial decisions, deciding where to go to college or what job to take. Thinking more abstractly or concretely about what is at stake might lead people to different conclusions and improve the quality of their decisions.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Several important questions remain. One relates to the differing pattern that we observed with conservative participants, whose assessments of a stereotypically “liberal” threat did not change much when they considered its relevance to their own lives. Would a different threat – maybe gun violence or mounting student loan debt – lead to a different pattern? Alternatively, perhaps conservatives tend to be more rigid in their beliefs than liberals, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000446">as some studies have suggested</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, how might these findings contribute to actual problem-solving? Is increasing the personal relevance of otherwise-neutral threats the best way to help people see eye to eye?</p>
<p>Another possibility might be to push things in the opposite direction. Making potential threats seem less personally relevant, not more, might be an effective way to bring people together to work toward a realistic solution.</p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Changing the ‘psychological distance’ someone feels toward an issue can shift their attitudes in ways that might help people on opposite sides of an issue see more eye to eye.Rebecca Dyer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology, Hamilton CollegeKeelah Williams, Associate Professor of Psychology, Hamilton CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236392024-02-15T09:30:27Z2024-02-15T09:30:27ZGrattan on Friday: Morrison’s departure will help Liberals ‘move on’ but Nationals can’t ‘move on’ until Barnaby does<p>Scott Morrison will say his farewell to parliament the week after next. This timing happens to follow neatly Monday’s final episode in the ABC’s Nemesis series, in which some Coalition figures excoriated their former leader and Morrison defended his record. </p>
<p>For the Liberals, Morrison’s departure is a significant symbolic “moving on” moment. It’s not that he has had any influence, or been disruptive, since the election. But even though he’s been hardly noticed publicly, his presence in the parliamentary party has been a reminder of all that went wrong last term. </p>
<p>The Coalition Morrison is exiting is a mixed bunch, in terms of performance, illustrated by the first weeks of this year. </p>
<p>The opposition could not have avoided being outfoxed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s bold reworking of the tax cuts. But it could have prevented the Liberals’ deputy leader, Sussan Ley, impulsively suggesting a Dutton government would roll back the tax cuts, which a nanosecond of thought would have told her would never happen. It was typical of Ley, and a bone Labor hasn’t stopped chewing.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the row over the ex-detainees – released by the government from immigration detention after a High Court decision last year – has shown how an opposition working effectively can have a minister squirming. </p>
<p>The Liberals used material from this week’s Senate estimates hearing to pound Immigration Minister Andrew Giles in the House of Representatives. Although the issue probably doesn’t have its pre-Christmas resonance with the public, the operation reminded that Liberal Senator James Paterson is one of the opposition’s best-performing frontbenchers. Paterson is on top of a broad national security brief and (regardless of whether you agree with him or not) conveys his points effectively in media interviews. </p>
<p>In contrast, the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, still struggles to cut through. Despite performing better than last year, Taylor is unable to land a blow on Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Given the centrality of the economic debate, this is a serious problem for Peter Dutton. </p>
<p>Taylor is lucky there’s no colleague stalking for his job. Those with long memories will recall Julie Bishop’s fate as shadow treasurer under Malcolm Turnbull. When she floundered, Joe Hockey was there coveting her post and inevitably she had to agree to move. </p>
<p>Finance spokeswoman Jane Hume is diligent, prominent in the media and improving. She does best when she limits the gratuitous political attacks. </p>
<p>Michael Sukkar, shadow minister for housing, seems largely missing in action on the red-hot issue of housing, a crucial battleground for the election. The opposition shouldn’t just be more active in the day-to-day debate – it should be releasing an alternative policy sooner rather than later. A comprehensive housing policy should logically be at the core of an agenda for the “aspirationals” the Liberals like to talk about.</p>
<p>We don’t hear as much as we should on education from spokeswoman Sarah Henderson. While education is often considered a “Labor” issue, poor results and declining retention rates at school level and key issues facing higher education are meaty areas for debate. </p>
<p>Andrew Hastie is well qualified on defence but not as much to the fore as might be expected. Prominent in the conservative wing of the Liberal Party, Hastie also needs to broaden his profile for the future. </p>
<p>Anne Ruston could make more of her health and aged care remit. There are many questions around the post-pandemic management of COVID, and the long-term sustainability of Medicare. Ruston will soon have a ready-made issue in aged care, when the government finally releases the report it is sitting on, canvassing ways forward for the sector’s financing. The Howard, Hawke and Morrison governments all found aged care perilous. </p>
<p>Among the Nationals, their Senate leader, Bridget McKenzie, has proved very effective this term, notably on Qantas and Qatar Airways. </p>
<p>Jacinta Price was a highly successful “no” campaigner in the referendum, but the harder test will be whether she can find some credible positive answers for improving Indigenous people’s conditions. Her proposed audit of spending might have some merit, but it falls short as a policy.</p>
<p>Dutton needs to reshuffle his frontbench ASAP. He hasn’t even filled the vacancy left by last year’s resignation from parliament of the Robodebt-tainted Stuart Robert, who was shadow assistant treasurer. Marise Payne’s departure left vacant the spot of shadow cabinet secretary.</p>
<p>The frontbench certainly would benefit from some new talent. Constraints such as state representations complicate things, but if merit were the criterion, Zoe McKenzie and Keith Wolahan, both Victorians, are deserving. </p>
<p>Julian Leeser, who stepped down to the backbench to campaign for “yes” in the referendum, now appears to have less chance of a return in a reshuffle than was initially thought. That’s unfortunate, because restoring him as shadow attorney-general would be sensible. Having Michaelia Cash in that job as well as workplace relations is overload on steroids. </p>
<p>In the longer term, the Coalition needs a refresh of talent at the 2025 election. Former minister Linda Reynolds (now on the backbench) announced this week she was not recontesting. Neither is junior frontbencher Nola Marino. </p>
<p>One-time Morrison henchman Alex Hawke (who has preselection) would be among those who don’t have much to contribute in another term. Dutton didn’t put Hawke on his frontbench.</p>
<p>Which brings us to Barnaby Joyce, whose future is a talking point after he was videoed sprawled on a Canberra street following too many drinks that he said interfered with his medication. </p>
<p>Both Dutton and the Nationals’ leader, David Littleproud, have advised Joyce he should take personal leave, Littleproud citing he had “family circumstances”, beyond the first explanation for his behaviour. Despite the advice, Joyce remained in parliament for the rest of this week. The pertinent question, however, is whether Joyce should run for another term. </p>
<p>Once hailed as a great “retail” politician, Joyce at the 2022 election was considered a retail negative in many Liberal seats. Dutton’s priority mightn’t be the recapture of “teal” seats – he’s concentrating on outer suburbia – but he doesn’t want a repeat of the perceived damage Joyce did last time. </p>
<p>Joyce may want to run again, but surely he shouldn’t. While he is in parliament, the Nationals will remain a tinderbox (even though they manage to hold their seats). The party, once known for its unity and discipline, won’t move on until Joyce moves on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For the Liberals, Morrison’s departure is a significant symbolic “moving on” moment. But how does the coalitions new talent stack up and what should be done with the old guard?Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219322024-01-25T16:12:29Z2024-01-25T16:12:29ZTwo charts that reveal a key weakness in Trump’s reelection bid<p>Donald Trump’s win in New Hampshire’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/23/trump-wins-new-hampshire-primary">Republican primary</a> on January 23, a week after his decisive victory in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-election-2024-trump-victory-in-iowa-caucus-not-as-big-as-he-may-have-hoped-heres-why-biden-still-wants-him-to-get-gop-nomination-221257">Iowa caucuses</a>, means that he is almost certain to be the Republican nominee for the US presidential election in November 2024. All US presidential elections are different, but a renewed contest between Joe Biden and Trump is rather unusual.</p>
<p>It is rare for the same candidates to be nominated by their parties to run on two separate occasions. The last time it happened was in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1956">1956</a>, when the Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson for the second time in a row.</p>
<p>American politics is currently very <a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/%7Ejcampbel/documents/LaymanCarseyReview2006.pdf">polarised</a> in a way that was not true in the past. One source of this division is political ideology, which <a href="https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/5147/5147.html">research</a> shows plays a central role in defining people’s political identities.</p>
<p>A large proportion of Americans identify themselves as liberals or conservatives. People look favourably on those who share their ideological views, regarding them as “insiders”, while at the same time looking unfavourably on “outsiders” in the opposite camp.</p>
<p>The 2020 and 2024 elections have a lot in common, so we can use data from the 2020 <a href="https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/">American National Election Study</a> to explore the likely role ideology will play in the contest in November.</p>
<h2>Ideological appeal</h2>
<p>The 2020 study surveyed more than 8,000 Americans both before and after the election. Respondents were asked a variety of questions about their participation in politics, their attitudes to issues and candidates, and their voting behaviour.</p>
<p>One question asked respondents to identify the ideological group they thought they belonged to using a seven-point scale. The scale, shown in the chart below, varies from “extreme liberal” to “extreme conservative” with a midpoint category of “moderate, middle-of-the-road” voters.</p>
<p><strong>Voting and political ideology in the 2020 US presidential election</strong></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing the relationship between political ideology and voting for Joe Biden and Donald Trump." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571240/original/file-20240124-15-2orboz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There was a strong relationship between ideology and voting for the two candidates in the 2020 election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/">American National Election Study (2020)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The chart identifies the relationship between ideology and voting for the two candidates. The relationship was very strong, with 95% of extreme liberals voting for Biden, and 98% of extreme conservatives voting for Trump. </p>
<p>If we combine the three categories of liberal, this consisted of 33% of all respondents. If we do the same for conservatives, it made up 40%. The middle-of-the-roaders comprised 27%.</p>
<p>At first sight, it looks like Trump had a clear advantage over his rival because there were more conservatives than liberals. Why, then, did Biden win the contest? Because he was supported by 94% of all liberals, whereas Trump was supported by 84% of conservatives. </p>
<p>What let Trump down was the fact that only 31% of moderates and 65% of the “slightly conservative” group supported him. In contrast, Biden took 92% of the “slightly liberal” respondents and 63% of the middle-of-the-roaders.</p>
<p>Clearly, Biden’s ideological appeal was significantly broader than Trump’s in the contest. This suggests that, while Trump’s abusive “take no prisoners” style of campaigning – employed against both Democrat and Republican rivals – is very popular among strong conservatives, it tends to alienate moderates, liberals, and about a third of the slightly conservative voters.</p>
<p>There was <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ec5f680d-01e8-4170-914b-28c0e08b3aee">evidence of this</a> in the New Hampshire primary results. Trump dominated among registered Republicans, but underperformed among voters who weren’t loyal supporters. In other words, his support base is very loyal but limited in size. </p>
<h2>Partisanship</h2>
<p>Another important source of political identity in American politics, which also has a very strong influence on voting, is partisanship – the extent to which people think of themselves as Republicans, Democrats or independents. In the 2020 study, 46% of respondents identified with the Democrats, 42% with the Republicans, and 12% with the independents. The second chart shows how this related to voting behaviour in the 2020 election.</p>
<p><strong>Voting and partisanship in the 2020 US presidential election</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chart showing how partisanship related to voting behaviour in the 2020 US election." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571241/original/file-20240124-27-50h0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A higher proportion of people who think of themselves as Democrats voted for Biden than Republicans voted for Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://electionstudies.org/data-center/2020-time-series-study/">American National Election Study (2020)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Partisanship was measured using another seven-point scale. If we group together all three categories of Democrat, Biden was supported by 95% of them in the 2020 election. In contrast, Trump was supported by only 87% of those who identified as Republican. </p>
<p>In the case of “independent-Democrats”, 94% of them voted for Biden, whereas only 78% of “independent-Republicans” voted for Trump. As regards the pure independents, 52% opted for Biden and only 31% for Trump. Once again, Biden’s appeal was much broader than Trump’s.</p>
<h2>What could this mean?</h2>
<p>These two political identities (ideology and partisanship) tell a similar story because they are strongly related to each other. Attacks on opponents within his own party, as well as on Democrats, mobilises Trump’s ideological and partisan base, but at the cost of alienating moderates and independents.</p>
<p>This will probably happen again in November 2024, and we can be fairly sure about its effects. Questions in the survey asked respondents to give a “likeability” score to each candidate, rated on a 100-point scale where zero meant they “intensely disliked” a candidate and 100 meant they “intensely liked” them. </p>
<p>In the case of Biden, 21% gave him a score of zero and 10% a score of 100, with an average of 48. For Trump, 39% gave him zero and 15% rated him 100, with an average of 41. It turns out that likeability is strongly associated with voting for a candidate.</p>
<p>Trump appears to have a vociferous group of loyal supporters who intend to vote for him regardless of his legal problems or bad publicity. But there is a relatively silent group more than twice as large that will never vote for him under any circumstances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Whiteley has received funding from the British Academy and the ESRC. </span></em></p>Trump stormed to victory in New Hampshire’s Republican primary – but his biggest challenge will be winning over independent voters.Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2154242024-01-08T15:09:01Z2024-01-08T15:09:01ZHow liberal conspiracy theories can be just as destructive as their extremist counterparts<p>Liberal commentators frequently condemn conspiracy theories that threaten public safety. The US mainstream media exploded in 2016 when an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-pizzagate-the-fake-news-conspiracy-theory-2016-12?r=US&IR=T">armed man harassed</a> diners in a Washington DC pizzeria, allegedly because he subscribed to the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53498434">QAnon</a> online conspiracy theory claiming that a Hillary Clinton-connected paedophile ring was operating from the restaurant. </p>
<p>British media reacted similarly in 2020 to a man who <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2021-10-01/gateshead-5g-mast-arsonist-was-suffering-severe-mental-health-problems">destroyed a 5G mast</a> for fear it was spreading COVID-19. Yet criminal as these actions were, their negative impacts were limited.</p>
<p>But what if liberal conspiracy theories can be even more wrong-headed and damaging than their fringe counterparts? Our recent <a href="https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/newformations/vol-2023-issue-109/article-9839/">research</a> explores this question in detail. </p>
<h2>Conspiracy theories, right and left</h2>
<p>Liberal observers often present conspiracism as the preserve of right or left-wingers. Journalist <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Voodoo_Histories.html?id=56QQYTn2LhgC&redir_esc=y">David Aaronovitch</a> and philosopher <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902059/">Quassim Cassam</a>, for example, attribute fallacious conspiracy theorising to the political “extremes”.</p>
<p>This preoccupation with the conspiracist fringes has some validity. Rightist conspiracy theories are numerous, ranging from “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14661381221146983">great replacement</a>” paranoia about the presumed elimination of white populations in the west, to the supposed machinations of ‘bogeymen’ such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569775.2020.1781332">George Soros</a>, whose philanthropy is blamed for funding progressive causes like Black Lives Matter. </p>
<p>Right-wing conspiracism relies on <a href="https://econpapers.repec.org/article/wlyamposc/v_3a58_3ay_3a2014_3ai_3a4_3ap_3a952-966.htm">simplistic narratives</a> of good versus evil, as well as sexist, racist and nationalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them">othering</a>.</p>
<p>Left-wing conspiracists, meanwhile, include those who overestimate the role of western interference in foreign protests. For instance, recent pro-democracy uprisings in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XeloI7WK2c">Hong Kong</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqsqk_1I4jA">Iran</a> were often dismissed as western-orchestrated actions by pundits on platforms such as RT, the Russian news network. According to academic <a href="https://www.ejournals.eu/ZM/2020/4-2020/art/17427/">Grażyna Piechota</a>, RT is guilty of “building a conspiracy message [and] using it as a political instrument”.</p>
<p>Older and more damaging are left-wing conspiracy theories of an antisemitic nature – rightly dubbed “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subjects/history/european-history-after-1450/socialism-fools-leftist-origins-modern-anti-semitism?format=HB">the socialism of fools</a>” – which have blamed international Jewish wealth and power for injustice, corruption and unemployment.</p>
<h2>Combating Corbyn</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Left_s_Jewish_Problem/L07RDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=dave+rich&printsec=frontcover">Dave Rich</a>, head of policy at the <a href="https://cst.org.uk/about-cst">Community Security Trust</a> (an organisation set up to protect the Jewish community) argues that, “most left-wing people are not antisemitic and, overall, the left’s history of opposing antisemitism outweighs its history of indulging it”.</p>
<p>But this didn’t stop exaggerated and indeed conspiratorial antisemitism allegations emerging from the British political centre in the mid-2010s to discredit then-Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. While antisemitism has been proven to be a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/24/labour-no-worse-parties-anti-semitism-shami-chakrabarti-claims/">scourge across all political parties</a> in Britain and there was indeed a cluster of actionable cases of antisemitism among Labour members at the time, just <a href="https://politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/the-never-ending-saga-over-antisemitism-and-the-labour-party/">0.3% of more than 500,000 members</a> in 2018-19 faced such charges, according to <a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/gumg/about/">Glasgow University Media Group’s</a> Greg Philo and his co-authors. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, Corbyn’s critics asserted that anti-Jewish racism was rife among the party’s rank and file. Their statements involved fiery and excessive rhetoric – exactly what liberal “<a href="https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/what-makes-a-conspiracy-theory">debunkers</a>” decry in left and right-wing conspiracism. </p>
<p>Corbyn was accused by centrist Labour MP Ruth Smeeth of making the party “<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-has-made-labour-unsafe-for-jews-says-mp-ruth-smeeth_uk_57751e83e4b0d18f7514b2f4">unsafe for Jews</a>” and by liberal Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-antisemitism-lord-jonathan-sacks-zionist-enoch-powell-a8519221.html">risking</a> “engulfing Britain in … flames of hatred”. Sacks went further by likening Corbyn to the infamous racist politician Enoch Powell. </p>
<p>Another feature of irrational conspiracy theorising – right, left or centre – is misinformation. In their <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bad_News_for_Labour.html?id=u5hDxQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">rigorous examination</a> of the situation, Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, The Party And Public Belief, Philo and his co-authors uncovered the liberal media’s various “reporting errors” and its inflation of the number of members disciplined for antisemitism. The <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bad_News_for_Labour.html?id=u5hDxQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">effect on public opinion</a> was such that, “on average people believed that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism”. </p>
<p>Philo and his colleagues also noted the efforts made by anti-Corbynites to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bad_News_for_Labour.html?id=u5hDxQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">conflate</a> the Labour leader’s longstanding criticisms of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tiny-west-bank-village-is-due-to-be-demolished-heres-how-international-law-could-be-used-to-intervene-97885">illegal Israeli occupation</a> of Palestinian territories with anti-Jewish racism.</p>
<p>Corbyn himself repeatedly <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-anti-semitic-its-offensive-to-call-me/">denied</a> accusations of institutional antisemitism in the party but was suspended for claiming that such charges were “dramatically overstated for political reasons”. Leaked documents from within Labour and an <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/25/what-really-happened-during-labours-anti-semitism-crisis">Al Jazeera investigative report</a> found that antisemitism had been “weaponised” against Corbyn by his adversaries. </p>
<p>In 2016, both the <a href="https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Chakrabarti-Inquiry-Report-30June16.pdf">Chakrabarty Report</a> and the <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/136/136.pdf">Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee</a> inquiry concluded that there was, in the words of the latter, “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party”.</p>
<h2>Trying to topple Trump</h2>
<p>Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, information including a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele posited collusion between Trump’s aides and Russian operatives, and the <a href="https://deadline.com/2017/06/cnn-retracts-russian-investment-fund-story-anthony-scaramucci-1202119592/">involvement of Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci</a> in a Russian hedge fund. There were even claims about Trump cavorting with Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room.</p>
<p>While US liberal media outlets CNN and MSNBC promoted these rumours, they turned out to be <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/">mostly baseless</a>. CNN <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/26/media/cnn-announcement-retracted-article/index.html">sacked three journalists</a> over the Scaramucci inaccuracies, while special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/03/mueller-concludes-investigation/">found no evidence</a> linking the Trump campaign to Russian interference in US politics.</p>
<p>These liberal conspiracy theories about Trump and Corbyn are as simplistic and fallacious as much leftist and rightist conspiracism because they too often ignore wider economic and political contexts.</p>
<p>The antisemitism slur allowed the liberal media to overlook the Corbyn project’s <a href="https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/792791/the-longest-suicide-vote-in-history-the-labour-party-leadership-election-of-2015">widespread popularity</a> among voters disaffected with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/08/welcome-age-anger-brexit-trump">neoliberal settlement</a> – the downscaling of state responsibility and the increased power of the markets – in which liberals remain invested.</p>
<p>In the Trump imbroglio, the obsession with Russian collusion excused liberals from acknowledging the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/08/welcome-age-anger-brexit-trump">socio-political factors</a> underpinning Trump’s rise, primarily the disaffection of many Americans in an era of declining wages and living standards.</p>
<h2>Deadly dangers of liberal conspiracism</h2>
<p>Conspiracism from the centre can also have deadly consequences. For instance, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, described by US intellectual Noam Chomsky as “<a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/05/the-worst-crime-of-the-21st-century">the worst crime of the 21st century</a>”, was justified by western governments’ <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-45minute-claim-was-false-535224.html">false claim</a> that Saddam Hussein could deploy deadly weapons within 45 minutes. This claim was vulnerable to the “problematic evidential practices associated with conspiracy theories”, as philosopher <a href="https://philpapers.org/rec/DENTFO-14">Matthew XR Dentith</a> observes.</p>
<p>Irrational conspiracism has tainted the liberal case for many other western interventions from the <a href="https://sites.smith.edu/fys169-f19/2019/12/06/the-u-s-s-maine-disaster-yellow-journalism-at-its-finest/">Spanish-American War</a> in 1898, when the US government wrongly accused the Spanish of sabotaging an American ship in Cuba, to the 2011 NATO attack on <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-humanitarian-intervention/">Libya</a>, which was justified by the bogus allegation that Colonel Gaddafi was planning to massacre civilians. </p>
<p>The human cost of these wars – at least 20 million lives, <a href="https://davidswanson.org/warlist/#:%7E:text=Since%2520World%2520War%2520II%252C%2520during%2520a%2520supposed%2520golden,dropped%2520bombs%2520on%2520people%2520in%2520over%252030%2520countries.">according to one estimate</a> – well exceeds the damage done in the name of peripheral conspiracy theories such as QAnon.</p>
<p><em>This article originally stated that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no evidence of Russian interference in US politics. This has been amended to make clear the investigation found no evidence linking the Trump campaign to Russian interference in US politics.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Harper is affiliated with the Socialist Party of Great Britain.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Sykes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The liberal establishment can also be responsible for disseminating conspiracy theories.Tom Sykes, Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Global Journalism, University of PortsmouthStephen Harper, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media Studies, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2194782023-12-28T19:36:45Z2023-12-28T19:36:45ZWill the supply-and-confidence deal between the Liberals and NDP survive in 2024?<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/will-the-supply-and-confidence-deal-between-the-liberals-and-ndp-survive-in-2024" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Signed in March 2022, <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/03/22/delivering-canadians-now">the supply-and-confidence agreement between the governing Liberals and the opposition New Democrats</a> has already led to significant social policy expansion, including the adoption of the <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/everything-we-know-so-far-about-the-canadian-dental-care-plan">Canadian Dental Care Plan</a>.</p>
<p>The deal eased the uncertainty facing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government while allowing the NDP to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4007281">take credit</a> for some of the government’s social policy announcements.</p>
<p>But the future of the deal <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2293259843686">has been called into question</a> in recent months. That’s because of the Trudeau government’s failure in 2023 to deliver on pharmacare, a central aspect of the March 2022 agreement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pharmacare-ndp-liberal-1.7059558">With the deadline for a pharmacare bill recently extended until March 1</a>, it’s helpful to look back at the origins of the supply-and-confidence agreement as we examine its fate in the year ahead.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politicians-come-and-go-but-the-clock-is-now-ticking-on-long-promised-pharmacare-215492">Politicians come and go, but the clock is now ticking on long-promised pharmacare</a>
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<h2>Past agreements</h2>
<p>Inter-party agreements in Canadian Parliament are extremely rare. Apart from the <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/how-the-ndp-saved-pierre-trudeaus-government">1972 agreement between the Liberals and the New Democrats</a>, there had never been an alliance between federal political parties in Canada before the <a href="https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/03/22/delivering-canadians-now">2022 agreement between Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/11/confidence-and-supply-what-does-it-mean-and-how-will-it-work-for-the-new-government">Such supply-and-confidence agreements are common elsewhere in the Commonwealth</a>, but largely unprecedented in Canadian politics. </p>
<p>That’s why understanding the origins and impacts of this agreement — in which the NDP stays in opposition but supports the Liberal government, actively contributing to the implementation of key policy — is important.</p>
<h2>Three factors at play</h2>
<p>Three recent changes in federal politics help explain why both parties entered into the agreement in 2022. </p>
<p>First, since Trudeau became prime minister in late 2015, the Liberals and NDP have moved closer together. The two parties share more policies than in the past, especially in the area of social policy. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac002">The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, provided an opportunity for greater co-operation in the design and implementation of temporary and expansive emergency measures.</a> In the aftermath of the pandemic, both parties agreed that new permanent federal programs are necessary, which is reflected in the details of the supply-and-confidence deal.</p>
<p>Second, public support over the last four years has left the Liberals and the NDP in a tricky situation. <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/canadian-federal-election-of-2021--the-products-9780228013822.php">Liberal victory margins were small in 2019 and 2021, in both cases leading to a minority government.</a> </p>
<p>Because both the Liberals and the NDP support an expanding social welfare program, the supply-and-confidence agreement provided both parties with a short-term political solution to both implement new key social policies and delay a federal election that could have led to a Conservative victory.</p>
<p>Third, although the Conservative Party consistently won the biggest portion of the popular vote <a href="https://ca.news.yahoo.com/erin-otoole-conservatives-popular-vote-canada-election-054033279.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFCeLBB_d2APEP9wMlTtDSoV1uKcEbQMD5gEB1inwhzk6OPc_8t9U93WBRGx-rBCYS_VUkh8hD_8N-veDfo0dnlsbUz9Jfli4I9R42CBbKjuGYEY1-AJ4BY6iWu5kZn2fDfZcXbCzgwSqJrPF6f9EyoUldoZQEzr3qD2mW6v_Elx">in both 2019 (34.3 per cent) and 2021 (33.7 per cent)</a> — and are ahead in recent polls — the competition is fierce on the political left. </p>
<p>Together, the more progressive parties — the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party — have the support <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-majority-of-canadians-comfortable-or-somewhat-comfortable-with-liberal/">of a significant majority of Canadians</a>, so each have to be seen as a credible political option to assert dominance over the others. </p>
<p>To this end, the supply-and-confidence deal has helped both parties develop and take credit for the expansion of social policies across Canada. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-cabinet-retreat-inflation-housing-wherry-analysis-1.6940959">It’s allowed the Liberals to maintain their identity as the defender of the middle class while the NDP has continued to oppose the wealthy and support the working class.</a></p>
<h2>Political tensions</h2>
<p>Both parties share a progressive identity that has facilitated their alliance. But currently, <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ndp-members-grow-frustrated-over-garbage-deal-with-liberals-seek-harder-line-from-singh">growing tensions between the Liberals and the NDP</a> make the future of the agreement increasingly uncertain.</p>
<p>That’s largely because of the recent sharp decline in public support for the Liberals. The plunge has prompted <a href="https://vancouversun.com/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-bc-ndp-convention">Singh to become harshly critical of Trudeau</a> in an effort to distance the NDP from an increasingly unpopular government and prime minister. </p>
<p>Singh has suggested the Liberals have only agreed to enact progressive policies that truly help Canadians when forced to do so by the NDP. He said in November 2023: “<a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/jagmeet-singh-blasts-trudeau-poilievre-at-b-c-convention-1.6651723">One of our MPs has described working with the Liberals like wrestling eels that are soaked in oil.”</a> </p>
<p>Singh apparently doesn’t want to be regarded as a mere servant of the Liberals, keeping an unpopular government in power through the supply-and-confidence agreement. </p>
<p>That’s why he regularly reminds Canadians that he could pull the plug on the agreement if the Trudeau government fails to support the measures contained in the deal. Pharmacare is a case in point.</p>
<h2>Death of the deal ahead?</h2>
<p>Will the agreement be dissolved soon? </p>
<p>Terminating the agreement could help the NDP distance itself from the increasingly unpopular Liberals without necessarily triggering a federal election since the party could still support the Trudeau government in confidence votes through one-off deals.</p>
<p>Those types of agreements are much more common in Canada’s minority parliaments than formal legislative coalitions like the existing supply-and-confidence agreement. </p>
<p>The question for the NDP is whether it’s better off electorally with or without the agreement. Because public support for the NDP remains stable (or even slightly higher) while Liberal support has plummeted, that might make the Liberals cling longer to the agreement.</p>
<p>In the next few months, we’ll know whether this unusual agreement survives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Béland receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Massé receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>The supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and NDP has helped both parties develop and take credit for the expansion of social policies across Canada. But is it on life support?Daniel Béland, Professor, Political Science, McGill UniversityLouis Massé, PhD Student, Political Science, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2111062023-08-13T20:04:13Z2023-08-13T20:04:13ZAccentuate the negative: why the Liberal Party’s fondness for ‘no’ might ultimately backfire<p>The Coalition is <a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/video/INCL2023102636796">attempting to claim</a> it supports a legislated Voice to Parliament because it “is important in the way it may close the gap and the way it may improve the lives of indigenous people”, but that a Voice protected by the Constitution – on which Australians will vote in a referendum later this year – is dangerous and will wreak chaos. </p>
<p>The opposition has struggled to articulate what precisely it thinks the risks are, and recent <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/it-s-time-to-crash-or-crash-through-says-the-pm-20230804-p5dtve">off-the-record backgrounding</a> indicates the aim appears to be to damage Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s standing, in the hope this will extend to voters’ general faith in the government.</p>
<p>Perhaps the party leadership feels this is the only viable strategy given their political position, but it comes with risks. </p>
<p>This logic rests on several assumptions:</p>
<ul>
<li>that the prime minister, and not the opposition, would be blamed for the yes campaign’s failure</li>
<li>that Labor will oblige the opposition by tearing itself apart</li>
<li>that politics is zero-sum and every vote lost from Labor is one for the Coalition. </li>
</ul>
<p>The first two factors are unknowable. But it is worth noting that Albanese’s biggest downside risk is in being seen to have shied away from his heartfelt commitment. That is because it goes to his authenticity and trustworthiness. Losing after standing up for a point of principle is a different calculus. It is also an empirical fact that more prime ministers have lost referendums than won them. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1688032538688999424"}"></div></p>
<p>It is possible Labor will turn on itself in the wake of a referendum defeat and a looming economic crisis. Both the ill-discipline and lack of nerve of the Whitlam and Rudd-Gillard governments made it possible for the extreme negative politics of the Snedden-Fraser and Abbott oppositions to succeed. </p>
<p>However, the government has so far shown itself to be composed largely of tough-minded pragmatists in economically ill-favoured times. </p>
<p>The idea that Australian electoral seats end up with either Labor or Coalition was an article of faith in Australian politics. It was underwritten by very high levels of party loyalty and our compulsory, preferential voting system. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-now-for-the-liberal-party-a-radical-shift-and-a-lot-of-soul-searching-183362">What now for the Liberal Party? A radical shift and a lot of soul-searching</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But the conditions that buttressed this orthodoxy have been in decline for decades, and have been shaping election outcomes for some time. There are now multiple viable political alternatives, and while it is not possible to predict whether voters will continue to abandon the major parties, offering voters more of what they just rejected is unlikely to be a winning strategy.</p>
<p>The strategy could backfire and the Coalition may reinforce a perception that its approach to politics remains cynical and tactical, rather than focused on finding solutions to longstanding problems and building a better future. </p>
<p>The electoral rout in 2022 was the Liberal party’s worst ever. While some of that is attributable to the unpopularity of former prime minister Scott Morrison, much of it was also the result of <a href="https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/Trends-in-Australian-Political-Opinion-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study-1987-2022.pdf">long-term trends</a>, including voter dealignment and a growing generational gap in ideological outlook. </p>
<p>Why have voters abandoned the major parties, and young people and women in particular turned their backs on the Coalition? The reasons are complex, but can be <a href="https://australianelectionstudy.org/wp-content/uploads/Trends-in-Australian-Political-Opinion-Results-from-the-Australian-Election-Study-1987-2022.pdf">summarised</a> as a growing sense that politicians don’t listen, don’t act in the national interest, and pursue partisan aims over the wider public good. The result is that governments appear unwilling to solve a growing number of pressing problems – and voters have rationally sought alternatives. </p>
<p>Virtually every royal commission we’ve had has come about because governments failed (often wilfully) to listen to those affected or those in a position to give good advice. </p>
<p>The Liberals’ approach to the Voice is illustrative of the party’s ongoing commitment to negative campaigning with a minimal positive agenda. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1688390614377738240"}"></div></p>
<p>In the wake of the election, the party said it <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/gender-targets-and-teal-seats-sussan-ley-s-plan-for-the-libs-20221021-p5brox.html">heard what women had to say</a>. Others argued the party needed to do more for young people, particularly in relation to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/how-the-liberals-could-fix-the-housing-affordability-crisis-and-win-young-voters-20180104-h0d7r0.html">housing</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/30/trent-zimmerman-says-liberals-should-embrace-labors-climate-policy">global heating</a>. </p>
<p>But the response so far has been largely backward-looking – reheating old policies, invoking old platitudes and, in the case of the Voice, <a href="https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/qe/the-compact-dissolves/965">reviving arguments</a> and language from the 1990s.</p>
<p>First-term oppositions typically aren’t imaginative, but they are usually reflective on some level. After all, they have just lost an election.</p>
<p>The Liberals have made much of their claims to being a “broad church”. In reality, this refrain has been a useful tool to quickly end discussions about how much internal debate the party should allow. The party has always consisted of two irreconcilable political traditions – after all, Liberals and Conservatives were the government and opposition of the 19th century.</p>
<p>The Liberal party, like other hybrid Conservative-Liberal parties, has managed this dilemma by having one faction dominate the other. What was different in the past was the degree to which the party was prepared to tolerate differences of opinion in open forums.</p>
<p>Debate within the Liberal Party has been in decline for decades. Genuine debate has been eroded by message discipline and the centralisation of power with party leaders. </p>
<p>These are worldwide trends facing all parties. But the Liberal Party now also faces the dilemma of having lost a significant number of its moderate flank.</p>
<p>There are simply far fewer countervailing voices in today’s Liberal party room.</p>
<p>The 2022 election saw many of the party’s most able political leaders, capable of articulating a centre-right vision of the good life in the 21st century, exit parliament. Many of the remaining moderates are in the shadow cabinet, where discipline means they cannot publicly articulate the range of views that would truly denote the “broad church” that has historically so successfully appealed to Australian voters. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-without-those-lefties-the-liberals-cant-regain-government-191846">View from The Hill: Without those 'lefties' the Liberals can't regain government</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Liberal Party is not going anywhere. It draws on considerable institutional buffers, including public funding and electoral and administrative laws that protect established parties from some competition. Significantly, it retains the support of more than one-third of the electorate. </p>
<p>But with public movement away from both major parties now an established trend, and the party’s seemingly entrenched backward-looking focus, it remains an open question as to how long will remain in the wilderness – and whether it will choose to remain, permanently, a smaller and narrower party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marija Taflaga receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>In light of the 2022 election results, offering voters more of what they just rejected is unlikely to be a winning strategy.Marija Taflaga, Lecturer, School of Political Science and International Relations, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2068372023-06-01T02:37:06Z2023-06-01T02:37:06ZHouse approval of debt ceiling deal a triumph of the political center<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529495/original/file-20230601-21610-qy6u5o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C5973%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The U.S. Capitol, where on May 31, 2023, the House passed a debt limit deal on a bipartisan vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DebtLimit/3a53a2902bfa4fc8807afbe178dfe25d/photo?Query=debt%20limit&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1940&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Talking with a friend about the debt ceiling negotiations, I mentioned that there were incentives for centrists in Congress to cobble together a deal. My friend said, incredulously, “Do we actually have centrists in Congress?”</p>
<p>Certainly, it is true that the country’s two major parties have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">sorted and separated</a> over the last 50 years. The average Democrat is more liberal and the average Republican more conservative than the average in the 1970s – or even 10 years ago. </p>
<p>But with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/house-vote-debt-ceiling-deal/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f002">House vote</a> on GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s deal with Democratic President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/politics/house-vote-debt-limit-bill/index.html#:%7E:text=The%20House%20of%20Representatives%20voted,to%20be%20signed%20into%20law.">to suspend the debt ceiling through Jan. 1, 2025</a>, successful passage was undoubtedly carried by centrists. The middle may <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-disappearing-political-center-congress-and-the-incredible-shrinking-middle/">be shrinking</a>, but it still exists, and it is critical in a closely divided Congress. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two gray-haired men in dark suits and white shirts and ties, standing outside on a large set of steps." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529460/original/file-20230531-23355-r30h9j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The deal was negotiated by President Joe Biden, left, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and their representatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressDebt/886fd8d91e3147b3831e60960864d0c0/photo?Query=(persons.person_featured:%22Joe%20Biden%22)%20AND%20(persons.person_featured:%22Kevin%20McCarthy%22)%20AND%20%20(mccarthy%20biden)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=122&currentItemNo=23">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ideological space within parties</h2>
<p>Why did the center carry such weight? </p>
<p>As a starting point, it helps to look at the spectrum of ideology within each party. There is significant <a href="https://voteview.com/congress/house/-1">ideological distance</a> between, say, <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/election/california-elections/article273778515.html">Barbara Lee, a liberal California Democrat</a>, or the four progressive members of what’s called “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/who-are-the-squad/index.html">The Squad</a>,” and the two moderate Democrats, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/05/maine-moderate-debt-ceiling/">Jared Golden of Maine</a> and Washington state’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/01/19/marie-gluenskamp-perez-democrats-middle-class-00078215">Marie Gluesenkamp Perez</a>, who voted with Republicans in late May <a href="https://www.wmtw.com/article/jared-golden-student-loan-cancellation-vote/44002364">to overturn</a> Biden’s student debt relief policies. </p>
<p>Similarly, there is ideological space between Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez’s fellow member of the moderate, bipartisan <a href="https://problemsolverscaucus.house.gov/">Problem Solvers Caucus</a>, <a href="https://apnews.com/hub/don-bacon">Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/us/politics/lauren-boebert-colorado-elected.html">Colorado Republican and conservative firebrand Lauren Boebert</a>. </p>
<p>Within the Republican-controlled House, this left ample space for GOP defectors to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2023/house-vote-debt-ceiling-deal/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f002">vote against the debt ceiling compromise</a>, but also yielded <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/31/us/politics/house-debt-limit-live-vote.html">dozens of Democrats who voted in favor</a>, in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/31/debt-ceiling-deal-house-vote-bill/">final 314-117 bipartisan vote</a>. The two-party division of Congress belies the fact that the ideological distance between moderates in either party is not that great. </p>
<p>Another explanation of the center’s power in Congress now – and in the House debt ceiling vote – is the incentive that exists to be seen as a winning party. Being perceived by voters as a party that gets things done <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4620079.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aab2cff103fcd9ba9ea8b92447a562ff4&ab_segments=&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1">helps win elections</a> – and centrists are often the ones whose votes are up for grabs, one way or another.</p>
<p>That said, there is an electoral cost for a party being too unified. On well-publicized votes on which party unity is enforced by party leaders, voters may come to see their representatives as too far from their own preferences. This is what some research has suggested <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1532673X11433768">happened to Democrats</a> in the 2010 midterms with regard to the <a href="https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/">Affordable Care Act</a>. Democrats had <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/06/22/history-lesson-how-the-democrats-pushed-obamacare-through-the-senate/">ferociously advocated for the legislation</a>; as one scholarly study put it, they “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1532673X11433768">paid a significant price at the polls</a>” for that advocacy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pile of several pages of black printing on white paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529472/original/file-20230531-21610-laomo2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The draft of the bill that President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California negotiated to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DebtLimit/e40d26db299b42049016ad134bd04214/photo?Query=debt%20ceiling&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1114&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Jon Elswick</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The middle matters</h2>
<p>These incentives set the stage for the political wrangling over the debt ceiling. Speaker McCarthy had an incentive to pass legislation – to be seen as a winner. At the same time, there were Democratic House members who were driven by their own electoral prospects who wanted to be seen as moderate. </p>
<p><a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Josh_Gottheimer">Josh Gottheimer</a>, for example, who co-chairs the Problem Solvers caucus, is a Democrat from a moderate New Jersey district with just a <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/cook-pvi/2022-partisan-voting-index/district-map-and-list">narrow Democratic tilt</a>. The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus proved critical to the bill’s passage by <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/4028426-bipartisan-problem-solvers-caucus-endorses-debt-deal/">providing Democratic votes</a> to help the bill survive GOP defections. </p>
<p>Complicating this incentive structure is the currently divided U.S. government. If one party controlled Congress and the presidency, then it would be clear that that party would be blamed in the event the legislation didn’t pass. But with a Democratic president and a GOP House, <a href="https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/raising-the-u-s-debt-ceiling/#:%7E:text=43%25%20say%20President%20Biden%20would,neither%20will%20be%20at%20fault.">polling data</a> shows an almost even split in terms of who would be blamed if a debt ceiling deal failed. Thus, both Democrats and Republicans had an incentive to get a deal done. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1664079568204972032"}"></div></p>
<p>While there is some debate in political science over the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2130434.pdf?casa_token=EgfButYy6kEAAAAA:ikSRnN0eCfGBTXHWUPHOSdR0iTizhcPu86tbf_e38rCWiZcwZ2t3cJ-ijI5xB1g6RDvda80nLhRQlMcnXErz4gWG6qiOUuSbWh2fHeonT-Axdv7OVMw">power of presidential coattails</a>, Democrats themselves may believe their future electoral fortunes are at least <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/house-democrats-stick-by-biden-presidential-election-2024-rcna73240">partially tied to that of President Biden</a>, another incentive to support legislation he backs. </p>
<p>From here, the deal goes to the Senate, where moderates may be just as influential. </p>
<p>Given the smaller size of the upper chamber and the Democrats’ narrow majority, the influence of individual senators is more pronounced. The deal already contains a victory for West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a Democrat looking at a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4026468-justice-tops-manchin-by-22-points-in-new-poll-on-senate-race/">brutal reelection fight</a> in 2024. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/business/debt-ceiling-agreement.html">The bill contained approval</a> for a natural gas pipeline project in his state that Manchin has championed. </p>
<p>Although the Senate vote is still pending, the House debt ceiling maneuvering demonstrates that the middle, while shrinking, continues to matter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The news media spent a lot of time reporting on how much progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans didn’t like the debt ceiling deal. But centrists had enough votes to pass it in the House.Matt Harris, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064652023-05-26T15:02:29Z2023-05-26T15:02:29ZVoters want compromise in Congress – so why the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528424/original/file-20230525-17-jqufsl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C25%2C8575%2C5665&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, left, meets with President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit in the White House on May 22, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenDebtLimit/6f1e6ced06ab4a0b81026f02e69825f6/photo?Query=debt%20limit&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1596&currentItemNo=307">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>There’s progress on the debt limit. There’s no progress. Conservatives have revolted. Liberal Democrats are angry. Negotiators actually <a href="https://twitter.com/elwasson/status/1659250606370848773">ate a meal together</a>. That’s a good sign. No it isn’t. Who’s up? Who’s down?</em></p>
<p><em>Much of the breathless news coverage of the debt limit crisis relies on leaks, speculation, wishful thinking and maybe even the reading of tea leaves. The Conversation decided to tap an expert on congressional behavior, Northwestern University political scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cfH3-8sAAAAJ&hl=en">Laurel Harbridge-Yong</a>, and ask her what she sees when she looks at the negotiations. Harbridge-Yong is a specialist in partisan conflict and the lack of bipartisan agreement in American politics, so her expertise is tailor-made for the moment.</em> </p>
<h2>What do the debt limit negotiations look like to you?</h2>
<p>The difficulty that Congress and the White House are having in reaching compromises highlights two aspects of contemporary politics. The first: Since the 1970s, both the House and Senate have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/">become much more polarized</a>. Members of the two parties are more unified internally and further apart from the opposing party. You don’t have the overlap between parties now that existed 50 years ago.</p>
<p>Even as we’ve had rising polarization, we still have <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/356174/democrats-big-political-tent-helps-explain-stalemate.aspx">important differences within the parties</a>. Not every Democrat is the same as another and not every Republican is the same. </p>
<p>This relates to a second point: Members’ individual and collective interests shape their behavior. For <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/05/06/republicans-debt-ceiling-mccarthy-freedom-caucus">Republicans in more competitive districts</a>, their own individual electoral interests probably say, “Let’s cut a deal. Let’s not risk a default that the Republicans get blamed for, and which is going to run really poorly in my district.” </p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-house-hardliners-could-try-block-debt-ceiling-deal-without-robust-cuts-2023-05-18/">House Freedom Caucus Republicans</a> come from really safe districts, and they care more about their primary elections than they do their general elections. So their own electoral interests say, “Stand firm, fight till the bitter end, try to force the hand of the president.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A gray haired man in suit and tie talking to reporters under a chandelier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528422/original/file-20230525-23265-9vbnei.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., center, said on May 25, 2023, that he is optimistic that White House and GOP negotiators can reach a deal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy-speaks-with-reporters-news-photo/1257988628?adppopup=true">Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These kinds of electoral interests occur at the individual and collective levels for members of a party. Since the 1980s, and accelerating into the 1990s, there’s been <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-072012-113747">a lot more competition for majority control</a>, and as a result the two parties don’t want to do things that let the other party look good. They don’t want to give the other party a win in the eyes of the voter. </p>
<p>So you now have many Republicans who are more willing to fight quite hard against the Democrats because they don’t want to give a win to Biden. </p>
<p>Democrats are also resistant to compromising, both because they <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2023/05/24/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-35/">don’t want to gut programs</a> that they put in place and also because they don’t want to make this look like a win for Republicans, who were able to play chicken and get what they wanted. </p>
<p>These dynamics, layered on top of policy interests, all contribute to the problems that we’re seeing now. </p>
<h2>What’s the role of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149861784/debt-ceiling-brinksmanship">brinkmanship in this conflict</a>?</h2>
<p>When I think of brinkmanship, I’m thinking about negotiating tactics that push things until the very last minute to try to secure the most concessions for your side. Right now that means <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/24/debt-ceiling-gop-demands/">coming to the edge of potential default</a> on the debt. </p>
<h2>Does brinkmanship work?</h2>
<p>I was looking back at some of the previous government <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-debt-ceiling-crises-and-the-political-chaos-theyve-unleashed-205178">shutdowns as well as debt ceiling negotiations</a>. In some instances concessions were granted, so brinkmanship paid off. In other instances it was less obvious that there was a win, and in some instances there was perhaps a penalty, when the parties couldn’t agree and there was a government shutdown. </p>
<p>One party may be banking on the fact that the other party’s going to get blamed by the public while their own party reputation won’t be hurt. In the 1990s, it seemed like it was the <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/voters-blamed-gop-for-1995-shutdown_n_842769">Republicans who took the brunt</a> of the blame for a government shutdown. </p>
<p>There have been instances in which parties get something out of brinkmanship, as in the government shutdown at the beginning of the Trump administration over <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/25/trump-shutdown-announcement-1125529">funding for the border wall</a>. The Democrats ended up giving some money for the border wall. It wasn’t all of what Trump wanted, but it was part of what Trump and the Republicans wanted.</p>
<p>Brinkmanship and gridlock are disproportionately consequential for Democrats, who generally <a href="https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/">want to expand government programs</a>, versus for Republicans, who tend to want to <a href="https://prod-static.gop.com/media/Resolution_Platform.pdf?_gl=1*gor9yy*_gcl_au*MTY3NTEyMDk2NC4xNjgyNTE4Nzc1&_ga=2.185781033.1441572001.1685048771-688242051.1682518780">constrict government programs</a>. So gridlock or forced spending cuts are easier for Republicans to stomach than Democrats. It may be part of why we see Republicans going harder on this kind of brinkmanship. </p>
<h2>How does the public see brinkmanship?</h2>
<p>On the whole, I think the public doesn’t like it. </p>
<p>My own work has shown that the <a href="https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/policy-briefs/harbridge-policybrief-2020.pdf?linkId=84025998">public does not like gridlock</a> on issues in which people agree on the end goal. The public, on average, even prefers a victory for the other side over policy gridlock. </p>
<p>A win for their own side is the best outcome, a compromise is next best, a win for the other side is next best after that. Gridlock is the worst outcome. </p>
<p>The place where it gets a little bit more challenging is that how people understand and interpret politics is heavily <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054">shaped by how politics is framed to them</a>. </p>
<p>Conservative politicians and media spin the debt ceiling very much as <a href="https://lucas.house.gov/posts/lucas-statement-on-house-gop-plan-addressing-debt-ceiling-applauds-passage-of-limit-save-grow-act">fiscal responsibility</a>, saying this is just like a family’s personal budget at home or that it’s really important to not just raise the debt limit without <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/26/us/politics/debt-limit-vote-republicans.html">spending concessions</a>. </p>
<p>Those on the Democratic side are hearing that the Republicans are <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5072354/congressional-democrats-accuse-republicans-holding-economy-hostage-debt-limit-talks">holding the country hostage</a>, we can’t give in to them, <a href="https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/speaker-mccarthy-puts-nation-s-economy-at-risk">this will gut really important programs</a>, and so forth.</p>
<p>So on the one hand, the public doesn’t like gridlock – especially gridlock when the consequences are so bad, as default would be. On the other hand, voters in each party’s base are hearing the story framed in very different ways. Both sides may <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/debt-ceiling-crisis-democrats-gop">end up blaming the other side</a>. They’re not necessarily going to be calling their legislators and asking them to compromise.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Many people in business clothing on a stage with signs that say 'MAGA Republicans' BAD DEAL.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528421/original/file-20230525-29-5qs03s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., speaks about the debt limit and negotiations to reach a deal on May 24, 2023, in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/congressional-progressive-caucus-chair-rep-pramila-jayapal-news-photo/1257785190?adppopup=true">Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Democracy is about representation. As they conduct these negotiations, do lawmakers see themselves as representing voters?</h2>
<p>Many conservative Republicans who are holding firm may believe that they are good representatives of what the base wants. They represent very strongly partisan districts who may agree with them that they need to fight for concessions. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/rejecting-compromise/01F2DA900C72ACF02E1B3ECF4EED43D3">the recent book</a> that I wrote with Sarah Anderson and Daniel Butler, we found that legislators believe their primary voters want them to reject compromises. </p>
<p>But in today’s crisis, those constituents may not really understand the consequences of default. Sometimes good representation doesn’t just mean doing what the public wants – legislators have better information or understanding of how things work and should do what’s in the best interests of their constituents. </p>
<p>However, even if individual members are trying to represent their districts or their states, when we think about this at a more aggregate or collective level, we don’t see great representation. Individual legislators may be thinking they’re representing constituents, but that leads to an aggregate that is not representative of the country as a whole. </p>
<p>What the public as a whole – which tends to be more moderate – wants is compromise and resolution of this issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206465/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurel Harbridge-Yong has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, Unite America, the Electoral Integrity Project, and the Dirksen Congressional Center.</span></em></p>Brinkmanship means coming to the edge of potential default on the US debt ceiling. Are lawmakers negotiating the debt limit representing the wishes and interests of their voters?Laurel Harbridge-Yong, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025972023-04-10T12:06:29Z2023-04-10T12:06:29ZDitching a friend who is not like you can deepen social inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519916/original/file-20230406-18-dau8xc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C27%2C5894%2C3965&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newly released research of residents in northern California suggests that since the 2016 presidential election, some friendship groups have become more homogeneous.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/friends-enjoy-a-birthday-party-picnic-experience-provided-news-photo/1331980463?adppopup=true">Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 2016 presidential election, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/us/political-divide-splits-relationships-and-thanksgiving-too.html">news accounts</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaa101">scientific research</a> have illustrated how defriending, a term originally associated with dropping Facebook friends, echoes in our broader, offline social lives. And what may seem like a simple decision to cut off a difficult relationship may actually deepen divisions in society.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4XB29NcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">social scientists</a> who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W4qseSgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">study social networks</a>, we were keen to take a closer look at defriending beyond social media and the internet, particularly as the U.S. approaches what is likely to be another contentious presidential election. </p>
<p>Some relationships are difficult to keep going because of conflicts, disagreements, life changes or busy schedules. Those things make defriending practical and reasonable. After all, cutting social ties isn’t new. The practice has likely been around <a href="https://academic.oup.com/california-scholarship-online/book/19245">as long as relationships have existed</a>. But we wondered if relationships across racial, political or religious boundaries are more at risk of being severed during highly charged political times than other relationships.</p>
<p><a href="https://ucnets.berkeley.edu/">Newly available data</a>, gathered from northern California residents between April 2015 and May 2017, gave us a chance to look at relationships during a critical turning point in the United States. The study – comprised of 1,159 respondents – was a representative sampling of the six counties that make up the San Francisco Bay area. Researchers measured whether ties were family or nonfamily, close or not close, difficult or not difficult.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white woman reaches in to hug a Black woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519919/original/file-20230407-26-v7k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Two friends celebrate finishing a half-marathon. A new study suggests more people in California ended interracial friendships since the 2016 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/susan-lear-at-left-and-her-friend-of-37-years-tina-lee-vogt-news-photo/1033450244?adppopup=true">Photo by Mindy Schauer/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Cutting interracial ties</h2>
<p>In an analysis of the data, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2023.01.006">we found that</a> people were 2.5 times more likely to cut interracial friendship ties, which are often weaker than same-race ties, after the 2016 presidential election. We also found that participants were 2.3 times more likely to cut ties with people of another religion. Importantly, a subgroup of study participants, the 21- to 30-year-olds, was almost two times more likely to drop weaker ties across the political divide due to disagreements.</p>
<p>In other words, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/659100">people were self-segregating</a>, and younger people, in particular, were distancing themselves from exposure to people who were different from them. </p>
<p>In practice, defriending can range from silently <a href="https://time.com/4779713/friendship-ghosting">ghosting</a> old friends to more overt acts, such as Dilbert creator Scott Adams’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/us/dilbert-newspapers-racism.html">racist diatribe</a> exhorting white Americans to defriend Black Americans.</p>
<p>American history is replete with examples of people being excluded from certain segments of society because of race, politics or religion. But voluntary segregation is different, and social scientists didn’t begin <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414531776">formally measuring the extent across the country</a> until the 1985 <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2095397">General Social Survey</a>, a biennial, nationally representative survey of the attitudes and behaviors of American adults.</p>
<p>Our findings from California point to how defriending plays out in a specific state.</p>
<h2>Vulnerable weak ties</h2>
<p>One clear takeaway from our study is that people were more likely to drop <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/225469">weaker ties</a> to people unlike them than they were to drop strong family ties. In other words, they weren’t willing to cut off the uncle who says offensive things under his breath at every family gathering, but they did easily cut off casual acquaintances from the gym or grocery store.</p>
<p>Despite their seeming fragility, weak ties – which can range from the relationships <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/upshot/when-chance-encounters-at-the-water-cooler-are-most-useful.html">developed during short, water cooler conversations</a> at work to connections forged from interactions with strangers during the daily commute – are critically important to our lives. </p>
<p>They create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl4476">job opportunities</a>, facilitate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04996-4">social mobility</a> and promote <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120668119">well-being</a>.</p>
<p>Weak ties can also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/11.3.427">foster creativity and innovation</a> and lead to new opportunities across social boundaries, defined by race, politics and religion. One example of that is the <a href="https://people.com/movies/what-michelle-yeoh-learned-from-jamie-lee-curtis-exclusive/">new BFF</a> relationship between actors Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis. Though longtime acquaintances, they had never worked together until recently. The chance to collaborate <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/awards/jamie-lee-curtis-everything-everywhere-oscar-nomination-1235517306/">led to a much closer relationship and a pair of Oscar wins</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Male and female clergy of different faiths hold candles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519918/original/file-20230407-28-98748f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">After the 2016 presidential election, fewer people in northern California have been interested in participating in gatherings like this interfaith protest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/clergy-members-gather-at-city-hall-in-long-beach-ca-on-news-photo/1034898964?adppopup=true">Scott Varley/Digital First Media/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>The price of insularity</h2>
<p>Regardless of how it happens, when people segregate into groups that look or think like them, there are significant consequences for society. In addition to losing resources such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaa026">job opportunities</a> that are controlled by someone to whom they were formerly associated, people may lose opportunities for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022381611000533">building successful, inclusive political coalitions</a>. Others may not recognize challenges that people in a different group face. And because of an inability to understand someone else’s problems, people may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0221-2">less willing to help</a>.</p>
<p>These imbalances have long been difficult to reconcile, as pointed out in 1903 by pioneering sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. He famously drew attention to “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Souls-of-Black-Folk/Bois-Marable/p/book/9781594510052">the problem of the color line</a>” in American life. Radically for the time, he researched race relations and social interactions, <a href="https://papress.com/products/w-e-b-du-boiss-data-portraits-visualizing-black-america">showing how race symbolically and physically divided</a> the country. This perspective resonates in <a href="https://1619education.org/">modern-day racial disparities in American life</a>, such as <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo119245209.html">how Black Americans are expected to navigate white social spaces</a> and that Black and white workers <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/work-black-and-white">think about inequality and economic security in different ways</a>.</p>
<h2>Segregation then, now and in the future</h2>
<p>Some of the most heinous epochs in American history have occurred when a dominant group has failed to recognize a common humanity. Vestiges of slavery, for instance, lingered in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/701020">Jim Crow laws</a>. And remnants of Jim Crow are present in our <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/new-jim-crow">system of mass incarceration</a>, which legal scholar and author Michelle Alexander has described as <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/145175694">a system of racialized social control</a> that disproportionately affects Black men.</p>
<p>Even though modern American social segregation now emerges from a mix of voluntary choices to defriend and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/506415">residential segregation by race</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-019-09280-1">class</a>, the net result can be the same as enforced segregation.</p>
<p>Social boundaries can lead to population-wide inequalities because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2006.07.003">segregation leads to differential opportunities</a> for different groups. These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/6.3.217">inequalities are unjust, preventable</a> and, it turns out, very difficult to get rid of. </p>
<p>Fewer cross-group connections makes meaningful political conversation <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/">more challenging</a> when neither group has a meaningful grasp of, or a willingness to engage with, another group’s perspectives. </p>
<p>Self-segregation by defriending denies us the opportunity to learn from differences and to discover commonalities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark C. Pachucki has received funding to study social networks from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a member of Heterodox Academy, a higher education professional association whose mission is to improve the quality of research and education in universities by increasing open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Paik receives funding from the National Science Foundation to study social networks in higher education. He previously received research grants to study social networks from the AccessLex Institute and the National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p>When people cut personal, interracial or interreligious ties because of political differences, the societal impact can be the same as forced segregation.Mark C. Pachucki, Associate Professor of Sociology, UMass AmherstAnthony Paik, Professor of Sociology, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2034192023-04-06T07:59:34Z2023-04-06T07:59:34ZGrattan on Friday: the high cost of the Liberals’ Voice rejection – for both Peter Dutton and the party<p>Ken Wyatt made history when he became the first Indigenous member of the House of Representatives in 2010. In 2019, he became the first Indigenous federal cabinet minister when he was appointed minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison government.</p>
<p>On Thursday, he made history again, quitting the Liberal Party over its decision to oppose the Voice at the referendum. </p>
<p>Wyatt, who lost his Western Australian seat at the election, had stood beside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when last month he announced the wording for the referendum. In government, he had battled, against internal Coalition headwinds, to advance Indigenous recognition and a Voice.</p>
<p>Wyatt is a cautious, patient man. That he has left the Liberal Party is an indictment of his former colleagues. He told the West Australian: </p>
<p>“I still believe in the Liberal Party values, but I don’t believe in what the Liberals have become”.</p>
<p>A day earlier, faced with a choice on the Voice between the mood in the parliamentary Liberal Party and the mood in middle Australia, especially among people under 40, Opposition leader Peter Dutton opted for the party. </p>
<p>That was probably inevitable. After all, only days ago, after the Aston by-election loss, Dutton said his biggest preoccupation as leader had been holding the party together. </p>
<p>We can’t predict what the Liberals’ rejection of the Voice will do for the referendum, or, ultimately, for the opposition and Dutton’s leadership. </p>
<p>Certainly it will be unhelpful for the “yes” case. Dutton might be out of sync with the community vibe on this issue, but his becoming a leading light of the “no” campaigners – a rag-tag lot at present – will encourage a swag of voters to have doubts and vote no. The question is, how many? </p>
<p>The latest Newspoll shows the yes vote with an overall majority and winning in a majority of states – which it has to do in order to pass. </p>
<p>But the national yes vote was only 54%, and that is before the majority has been stress-tested by a campaign. There is a very long way to go in this marathon. </p>
<p>First Nations people’s call for the Voice has been extraordinarily hard for the Liberals to handle, not just for those from the right, like Dutton. Who can forget Malcolm Turnbull, prime minister at the time of the Uluru Statement from The Heart, declaring that a Voice would be seen as a “third chamber” of the parliament? (Turnbull has sent a “big hug” to Wyatt after his resignation.)</p>
<p>Dutton is often a pragmatist. Thus he was a driver of finding a way through the marriage equality issue. He hadn’t been a supporter of gay marriage, but for him, settling the issue was more important than his personal view. Hence he promoted the idea of the postal plebiscite, admittedly a second-best route to just legislating first up, but a way of getting the job done. </p>
<p>If “Peter the pragmatist” had been uppermost, you’d think he would have sought a non-confrontational way through the Voice issue. </p>
<p>Senior Liberals could have been left to make up their own minds, as in the republic referendum. Dutton could have said he had reservations about central features of the government’s proposal, but for the greater good – for the unity of the country and the pursuit of reconciliation – he would be voting yes although not campaigning. </p>
<p>Critics may or may not be right about the risks in the current wording of the constitutional change, which provides for the Voice to make representations to executive government. Equally, they may or may not be correct in claiming the Voice would make little difference to closing the gap. </p>
<p>But when Indigenous people have invested so much in the Voice, the question becomes: is the downside of denying it to them more damaging than the possibility of it being risky or impotent? </p>
<p>Some Liberals may be worried about its dangers. Others, more likely, just don’t like the idea of it, or want to play politics, and would probably have rejected any wording. Too often, the Liberals simply like to say no, and dig in, as they did (and still do) over measures to address climate change.</p>
<p>A Liberal pragmatist who was also sceptical about the Voice might have calculated that if it were going to present as many difficulties as the critics foresee, it would be a (likely) second-term Labor government that would initially have to deal with them. </p>
<p>Mention of a second-term Albanese government reminds us that, if the Voice referendum is successful, the next term would probably see another referendum – for an Australian republic. That would divide the opposition and present a nightmare for whomever led it at that time. </p>
<p>Dutton has promised to campaign against the Voice, but what does this mean? Will the Liberal Party be spending its scarce funds on the no campaign – money that could be better kept for the next election? </p>
<p>A few Liberal MPs, like Tasmanian Bridget Archer, are signed up to the yes campaign. Others will be active for no. A third group will prefer to keep their heads down, but could find themselves under pressure as the media compile lists of who is on which side and doing what. </p>
<p>The shadow minister on Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser, has been left in an invidious if not an impossible position. </p>
<p>When he delivered a critique of the Voice to the National Press Club on Monday, Leeser suggested that Wednesday’s party meeting mightn’t make a final decision. (After all, a parliamentary committee is examining the legislation, and it’s crazy to have a position ahead of that inquiry reporting.) </p>
<p>Leeser also indicated he favoured frontbenchers being given freedom to support either side in a referendum campaign. Instead, shadow ministers are bound to the party’s decision.</p>
<p>Leeser didn’t appear with Dutton at Wednesday’s news conference. It was explained he had to return to Sydney for Passover.</p>
<p>As the relevant shadow minister, Leeser would be in high demand during the referendum campaign. How would he cope when he has serious reservations about the Liberals’ position? Notably, Leeser said of Wyatt: “Ken is a profound moral voice. I feel immense sadness about his decision.”</p>
<p>Jeremy Rockliff might not be a household name to many Australians, but the Tasmanian premier leads the sole Liberal government in the country. He is a declared yes campaigner. Western Australian Liberal leader Libby Mettam has also declared for the yes case. </p>
<p>Fred Chaney, a former federal minister for Aboriginal Affairs, has denounced Wednesday’s decision as pandering to the most extreme elements in the party, and called on small “l” liberals – who he said had been “supine” in recent years – to follow Archer’s lead in standing up for the yes case. </p>
<p>Dutton’s success in holding the Liberal show together has been strictly limited. And it has come at the cost of deepening the division in the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Peter Dutton’s success in holding the Liberal show together has been strictly limited. And it has come at the cost of deepening the division in the country.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2014632023-03-09T09:29:49Z2023-03-09T09:29:49ZGrattan on Friday: Could Josh Frydenberg still have a path to the Liberal leadership?<p>One of those closely watching the extraordinary legal face-off between independent Monique Ryan and her former high-profile staffer, Sally Rugg, will be Josh Frydenberg, who lost Kooyong to the “teal” at last year’s election. </p>
<p>The outcome of the case, going to whether Rugg was forced to work unreasonable hours, could have significant ramifications for parliamentary staffs’ conditions. </p>
<p>But Frydenberg will be focused on whether the fight takes paint off Ryan. </p>
<p>Now in the private sector, Frydenberg hasn’t declared whether he will run again for Kooyong, but he hasn’t lost his political ambition. </p>
<p>He didn’t put his hand up for the Aston byelection, but then insiders didn’t expect him to. He’s concentrated on Kooyong – anyway the Liberals needed a woman in Aston. </p>
<p>If Frydenberg could regain his seat and Peter Dutton lost the 2025 election, one scenario for the Liberals would be for Frydenberg to take over the leadership and position the party to be competitive for the 2028 poll. </p>
<p>There are a lot of “ifs” involved, not least the 2025 result in Kooyong. Its boundaries will be affected by a redistribution. Ryan has another two years to dig in, and independents can be hard to dislodge. </p>
<p>Still, the teals were elected in very special circumstances, helped by the acute unpopularity of Scott Morrison, and some could be vulnerable next time. Ryan might be one of those. </p>
<p>Frydenberg would benefit if the economy were central at the election. But he’d need to make a decision on contesting relatively early, and run a savvier campaign than last time, when he unwisely derided his opponent as a “fake” independent. </p>
<p>There are those who cast doubt on how well Frydenberg would do as leader. Critics argue it’s hard to know what he stands for and that he wants to be popular with everyone. On the other hand, as a former treasurer and former energy minister, he has a wealth of front-line experience. </p>
<p>Frydenberg started out with the label of a conservative, but became more centrist. In 2018 he won the Liberal deputyship overwhelmingly. He carries baggage from the Morrison years, including what some saw as excessive loyalty to the then PM (he was also loyal to PMs Abbott and Turnbull). </p>
<p>Whatever his limitations, however, a Liberal party defeated in 2025 wouldn’t be replete with leadership talent.</p>
<p>Speculation about the significance of a Frydenberg return carries with it the assumption Dutton is doomed to failure. Caveats are required. I recalled being sceptical when Tony Abbott was elected leader. Then he nearly won his first election, and cleaned up at his second. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-another-rate-rise-support-for-super-tax-hike-pms-india-trip-rugg-v-ryan-201300">Word from The Hill: Another rate rise; support for super tax hike; PM's India trip; Rugg V Ryan</a>
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<p>That said, it would be difficult at present to find anyone who’d put any money on Dutton. </p>
<p>Meanwhile he and his party are struggling for a strategy. </p>
<p>Dutton is, on a range of issues, adopting the “just say no” approach. The Liberals are opposing the legislation for implementing the government’s emissions reduction target (the safeguard bill), and bills for the national reconstruction fund (a kick-start for manufacturing), and a fund to generate a money stream to help provide affordable housing. </p>
<p>The “say no” strategy means Labor can counter Liberal attacks on the government over, for example, energy prices, by pointing out the Coalition voted against legislation last year to curb price rises. </p>
<p>Dutton jumped on the government’s superannuation tax rise, but the subsequent polling did not meet Liberal hopes they were on a winner. Newspoll showed strong support (64%) for the change, including 54% of Coalition voters. </p>
<p>While the Coalition is pursuing negative tactics (as Abbott did in opposition), this doesn’t extend to everything. There is important bipartisanship, for instance, on AUKUS. With the deal on the nuclear-powered submarines to be unveiled next week, Dutton on Thursday reaffirmed the opposition “will support the decisions of the government under AUKUS”. </p>
<p>However, one test coming up will be on the level of defence spending in the budget. Will the opposition say it should be higher than whatever the government settles on? </p>
<p>On the Voice to Parliament, Dutton has yet to declare a formal position. But he’s had nothing positive to say about it, and his party room would have a majority against. If the Liberals oppose it, that’s likely to go down poorly with younger voters. </p>
<p>Among the Liberals’ multiple problems is a weak team, which also lacks balance. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-trimming-the-tail-of-the-superannuation-tax-tiger-is-no-easy-task-200996">Grattan on Friday: Trimming the tail of the superannuation tax tiger is no easy task</a>
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<p>Senior people such as Liberal deputy Sussan Ley and shadow treasurer Angus Taylor are poor performers. </p>
<p>The moderates were decimated at the election, and those left are failing to act as a cohesive influence. </p>
<p>Backbencher Bridget Archer speaks out on issues, but comes across as reflecting and protecting her seat rather than having wider clout within the party. </p>
<p>The Liberals’ Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, is a heavyweight moderate who is not the driving force he should be. Former foreign minister Marise Payne, also a moderate, is neither seen nor heard publicly.</p>
<p>Valuable parliamentary seats are taken up by people with extreme positions, such as senators Gerard Rennick from Queensland and Alex Antic from South Australia. </p>
<p>Scott Morrison is in another category, but should make way for new blood.</p>
<p>The challenge of recruiting good potential candidates and getting them selected is only likely to get worse at a time when a political career has become unattractive to many, and the party erects road blocks to the best and brightest. </p>
<p>At the grass roots, it is vulnerable to infiltration by fundamentalist religious groups. Organisationally, it’s riven by factionalism and incompetent, with the Victorian, NSW and Western Australian divisions dysfunctional. Dutton needs to tackle this, but it’s a near-impossible task.</p>
<p>Among Dutton’s problem is Dutton himself. </p>
<p>As leader, the right-winger has shown himself pragmatic and managed to hold the party together. He is an asset in his home state of Queensland, where Labor is weak. But it is hard to see him making inroads in the south, especially in the progressive state of Victoria. Observers are looking to Aston to give an early reading.</p>
<p>Labor holds government by a very narrow margin, but as things stand now, Dutton’s only route to victory in 2025 would require the Albanese government – which faces some tough economic problems – to fail lamentably in the next two years. </p>
<p>Not impossible. Labor went into minority government in 2010 after a good win in 2007. Malcolm Turnbull turned Abbott’s 2013 landslide into a close result in 2016. </p>
<p>But if Albanese doesn’t squander power, the Liberals would be pitching for a two-stage comeback at best. And Frydenberg just might be back in the play.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201463/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Frydenberg, now in the private sector, hasn’t declared whether he will run again for Kooyong, but he hasn’t lost his political ambitionMichelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1978952023-01-22T19:02:07Z2023-01-22T19:02:07ZWhen it comes to finding Australia’s future leaders, both the Liberals and Labor have a women problem: new study<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505040/original/file-20230118-26-tikvps.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=908%2C90%2C6611%2C4873&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Liberal Party’s recently published <a href="http://cdn.liberal.org.au/2022/2022_election_review.pdf">review</a> of the 2022 federal election defeat does not mince words: the party has a problem with women.</p>
<p>The party has struggled to connect with women voters in recent elections, especially from the 18-34 age group. Moreover, just nine of the party’s 42 MPs in the House of Representatives and ten of its 26 senators are women. There have not been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-22/liberal-election-review-recommends-party-changes/101800030">so few Liberal women elected to parliament</a> since 1993. </p>
<p>And this is at a time when, overall, there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-new-parliament-will-have-record-numbers-of-women-will-this-finally-make-it-a-safe-place-to-work-181598">more women in parliament</a> than ever.</p>
<p>To address the issue, the Liberals’ election review says the party must begin “broadening the membership base with young women, and retaining them”. Doing so, the authors argue, will help to “ensure there is a much larger number of high-quality female candidates” in future elections.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-6765.12560?af=R">our research</a> on the youth wings of political parties in Australia, Italy and Spain, however, this will be no easy task. </p>
<p>Moreover, it is not just the Liberal Party that has a problem attracting young women to its ranks, but also Labor. Our <a href="https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-6765.12560">study</a> indicates that both of their youth wings, the Young Liberals and Young Labor, have far fewer women members than men. In addition, the proportion of women members in both youth wings who would like to stand as candidates is far lower than that of men.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sussan-ley-says-she-is-listening-to-women-who-rejected-the-liberals-but-will-she-hear-what-they-are-saying-184448">Sussan Ley says she is listening to women who rejected the Liberals. But will she hear what they are saying?</a>
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<h2>What our research looked at</h2>
<p>Our findings are based on surveys we conducted of six youth wings – three from the centre-left (Young Labor in Australia, Young Democrats in Italy, Socialist Youth in Spain) and three from the centre-right (Young Liberals in Australia, Forza Italia Youth in Italy, New Generations in Spain).</p>
<p>Youth wings are a key part of the political career pipeline in parliamentary democracies like Australia. Take New South Wales, for example. John Howard and Gladys Berejiklian were former presidents of the NSW Young Liberals, while Paul Keating and Anthony Albanese were former presidents of NSW Young Labor. </p>
<p>Several recent prime ministers and government ministers in Italy and Spain have similar political backgrounds.</p>
<p>In total, we surveyed almost 2,000 youth wing members in the three countries, with around 750 respondents from Australia. Ours is the first published academic study of youth wing members in this country.</p>
<p>As the figure below shows, men far outnumber women among our respondents in all six youth wings. This is markedly the case in the two Australian organisations, with women accounting for less than a quarter of the Young Liberals respondents and less than a third of Young Labor ones.</p>
<p>The major Australian parties have long been reluctant to release reliable data about their organisations, so we do not know for certain if our respondents perfectly mirror the full youth wing memberships. However, our results certainly suggest that if the Liberals want to achieve gender parity among their younger members, they have a long way to go.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505028/original/file-20230118-18-syhk8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Gender make-up of youth wing survey respondents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Fewer young women wanting to stand for election</h2>
<p>What about the desire to stand for election? To understand the electoral ambitions of youth wing members, we asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “In the future, I would like to stand as a candidate for the senior party.” </p>
<p>Here, the largest gender gaps are in Australia.</p>
<p>As we can see from the figure below, two-thirds of men in Young Labor say they would like to run for public office one day, but only one-third of women agree. We see a similar 30-point gap in the Young Liberals, with almost three-quarters of men expressing a desire to stand and less than half of women saying likewise.</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505029/original/file-20230118-13-pmbqda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gender make-up of respondents who agreed with the statement, ‘In the future, I would like to stand as a candidate for the senior party.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>Surprisingly, despite Labor’s implementation of candidate gender quotas - which have facilitated the election of <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Members/Members_Photos?party=287">36 women MPs</a> (out of the party’s 77 total) in the current house - Young Labor women were the least likely of all women in our survey to express a desire to stand for election. They are over ten percentage points behind their counterparts in the Young Liberals, and more than 20 behind young women in the Italian and Spanish parties.</p>
<p>From interviews we’ve conducted with women and men from Young Labor and Young Liberal leadership teams over the past four years, these findings seem to be due to a mixture of factors. They range from the excessively adversarial “boy’s club” culture in both party youth wings to the tendency of men in the senior parties to mentor young men rather than women for electoral careers.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-liberal-post-mortem-urges-party-to-address-flight-of-female-vote-but-not-by-quotas-197015">Grattan on Friday: Liberal post-mortem urges party to address flight of female vote – but not by quotas</a>
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<h2>Other political career ambitions</h2>
<p>Our results may make depressing reading for Australian political observers. However, when we asked youth wing members about a non-electoral type of ambition – the desire to work for the senior party in the future – we got a very different picture.</p>
<p>As the figure below illustrates, the political ambition gender gap almost entirely disappears among Young Labor members and narrows considerably among Young Liberals.</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=227&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505035/original/file-20230118-16-2u3uty.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Gender make-up of respondents who expressed a desire to work in the senior party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>In short, our findings suggest it’s not that women in Australian youth wings necessarily lack political ambition. Rather, they may prefer to pursue behind-the-scenes careers, such as party officials and advisers, than stand as candidates at elections. </p>
<p>While we do find some similar patterns in Spain, the shift in the Australian results from electoral to non-electoral ambition is by far the most striking.</p>
<h2>Where to go from here</h2>
<p>So, what does all this mean for Australia’s major political parties and the women in them? To be sure, while the Liberals have evident problems in terms of attracting women members and candidates, Labor cannot rest on its laurels, either.</p>
<p>Both parties have serious imbalances in terms of the number of young women joining their youth wings compared to men, as well as in the proportion of young women compared to young men who aspire to stand as candidates one day.</p>
<p>Remarkably, despite all its good intentions, the Liberal Party review of the 2022 election does not mention the Young Liberals even once. This is a serious omission. If parties wish to improve their candidate pools of tomorrow, it’s vital they concentrate their efforts on the youth wings of today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan McDonnell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sofia Ammassari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows fewer women are joining the Liberals and Labor youth wings – and fewer want to stand as future candidates, as well.Duncan McDonnell, Professor of Politics, Griffith UniversitySofia Ammassari, PhD researcher, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1859362022-07-01T12:16:38Z2022-07-01T12:16:38ZMany anti-abortion activists before Roe were liberals who were inspired by 20th-century Catholic social teaching<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471951/original/file-20220630-16-une4wi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C2964%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1973 photo shows an estimated 5,000 people, women and men, marching around the Minnesota Capitol building protesting the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MINNEAPOLISANTIABORTIONRALLY/4483f8b574e4da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=Minnesota%20Capitol%20building%201973&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Supreme Court decision</a> reversing Roe v. Wade’s protection for abortion rights was a predictably partisan ruling. All of the justices appointed by Republican presidents voted to uphold the Mississippi law restricting abortion, while all three appointed by Democratic presidents dissented. </p>
<p>In keeping with this partisan trend, the <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/06/24/abortion-laws-by-state/">states that are currently restricting abortion</a> are in the Republican strongholds of the South, Midwest, Great Plains and Mountain West. <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/state-actions-to-protect-and-expand-access-to-abortion-services/">Those that are protecting abortion access</a> are Democratic and are heavily concentrated in the Northeast and the West Coast. </p>
<p>But that was not the case at the time of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. Both before and immediately after the Roe v. Wade decision, many prominent Republicans, such as <a href="https://www.whitehousehistory.org/betty-ford-activist-first-lady">first lady Betty Ford</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1970/04/12/archives/rockefeller-signing-abortion-bill-credits-womens-groups.html">New York Gov. and later Vice President Nelson Rockefeller</a>, supported abortion rights. At the same time, some liberal Democrats spoke out against abortion rights, including <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/bs-mtblog-2009-08-kennedy_abortion_catholic-story.html">Sen. Edward M. Kennedy</a>, vice presidential candidate <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/21790/sargent-shriver-remembered-for-public-service-and-pro-life-stand">Sargent Shriver</a> and his wife <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31douthat.html">Eunice Kennedy Shriver</a>, as well as civil rights activist <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/05/21/jacksons-reversal-on-abortion/dd9e1637-020d-447b-9329-95ec67e41fd5/">Jesse Jackson</a>.</p>
<p>The anti-abortion movement was <a href="https://currentpub.com/2021/05/24/texas-and-massachusetts-a-tale-of-two-states/">strongest in the heavily Catholic, reliably Democratic states of the Northeast</a>, and its supporters believed that their campaign for the rights of the unborn accorded well with the liberal principles of the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>When I researched the early history of the anti-abortion movement for my book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/defenders-of-the-unborn-9780199391646?cc=us&lang=en&">Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade</a>,” one surprising finding was that the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was filled with liberal Democrats who had supported the federal anti-poverty initiatives associated with President <a href="https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945/franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-new-deal/">Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal</a> in the 1930s and <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/1600/presidents/lyndonbjohnson">President Lyndon Johnson’s social programs in the 1960s</a>. They wanted to couple abortion restrictions with additional efforts to fight poverty and expand government-funded health care. </p>
<h2>Catholic and Democrat</h2>
<p>Most of the pre-Roe anti-abortion activists in the United States were inspired by <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html">20th-century Catholic social teaching</a> that connected the right to life for the unborn with a larger ethic of concern for the less fortunate. Like the <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/10/13/explainer-history-catholic-vote-united-states-republican-democrat">majority of Catholic voters</a> at the time, many were Democrats, and they hoped that a party that championed the poor would likewise be interested in protecting fetal life. </p>
<p>Many of them, in keeping with the teachings of their church, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7286166/">held conservative views on issues of sex and reproduction</a>. They also, in keeping with <a href="https://www.usccb.org/upload/economic_justice_for_all.pdf">Catholic social teaching</a>, believed that the state had a responsibility to care for the poorest of its citizens and therefore supported liberal Democratic economic initiatives. </p>
<p>Many of these abortion opponents, including the liberal Republican <a href="https://www.archbalt.org/pro-life-anti-war-hatfield-had-high-regard-for-and-from-catholics/">Sen. Mark Hatfield</a>, an evangelical Baptist, and the Lutheran minister <a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2019/01/48442/">Richard John Neuhaus</a>, who later converted to Catholicism, <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/190234924/">opposed the Vietnam War</a>, which they believed was a violation of the right to life, just as abortion was. </p>
<p>They did not want to condemn women who resorted to abortion, but instead hoped to offer them social assistance that would help them avoid that choice. “It’s not so much that the woman rejects the child as that society rejects the pregnant woman,” <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/184640443/?terms=%22edythe%20thompson%22&match=1">Edythe Thompson</a>, a member of the student organization Save Our Unwanted Life, which characterized itself as “<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/6/2/451/htm">an extremely liberal group</a>,” declared in 1971. </p>
<h2>Shift to the political right</h2>
<p>After Roe, the anti-abortion movement’s defense of fetal rights came into conflict with the feminist movement’s insistence that <a href="https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2022/02/23/abortion-a-womans-civil-right-feb-16-1969/">abortion rights were nonnegotiable women’s rights</a>. Abortion opponents often argued that abortion harmed women emotionally and physically and gave an excuse to men to abandon their responsibilities as fathers. As the anti-abortion self-described feminist <a href="https://thelifeinstitute.net/learning-centre/abortion-facts/issues/equality-for-women#">Juli Loesch</a> phrased it in the 1980s, legalized abortion meant that “a man can use a woman, vacuum her out and she’s ready to be used again.” </p>
<p>But the women’s rights movement <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/12/09/1062791724/activist-gloria-steinem-reflects-on-abortion-rights-as-they-hang-in-the-balance">did not accept this argument</a>, and after the mid-1970s, an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/12/congress-abortion-moderates-crossover/">increasing number of liberal Democrats</a> did not either. The Democratic Party endorsed abortion rights in its <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1976-democratic-party-platform">1976 platform</a> and strengthened this endorsement <a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1988-democratic-party-platform">in the 1980s</a>. </p>
<p>Although anti-abortion activists began their movement with a strong belief in an expanded social welfare state, their search for allies in their quest to protect fetal life through public law led them into an <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/461985/pdf">alliance with conservative Republicans</a> who did not support an expanded social safety net. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ronald Reagan, wearing a black tie and black jacket, speaking to an audience." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471706/original/file-20220629-20-nlvrw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">President Ronald Reagan addressing a Conservative Political Action Conference on March 3, 1984, in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReaganAtConservativeConference/26d336aaf1f04492a3ccc85e2eee214b/photo?Query=reagan%20abortion&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Scott Stewart</a></span>
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<p>Ronald Reagan’s support for a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/07/us/reagan-says-ban-on-abortion-may-not-be-needed.html">proposed anti-abortion constitutional amendment</a> that would have banned abortion nationwide won plaudits from anti-abortion activists across the political spectrum. </p>
<p>Although Cardinal Joseph Bernardin – the archbishop of Chicago – and other political liberals in the anti-abortion movement <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/07/nyregion/excerpts-from-cardinal-bernardin-s-appeal-for-a-consistent-ehtic-of-life.html">criticized the Reagan administration’s nuclear arms buildup</a>, politically conservative opponents of abortion generally did not. The nation’s largest anti-abortion organization, the National Right to Life Committee, used its political action committee to <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300260144/dollars-for-life/">raise money</a> for any candidates who would vote to restrict abortion and said nothing about the Reagan administration’s stance on nuclear arms, because its leaders believed that the fastest route to reverse Roe v. Wade was to work with all politicians who opposed abortion rights. In practice, this meant that most of the candidates the organization supported were Republicans, especially after the early 1990s. </p>
<p>With only a few exceptions, anti-abortion activists largely abandoned the goal of expanding maternal and prenatal health care or treated this as a distant secondary priority to their main task of legally restricting abortion. </p>
<p>As late as 1995, the National Right to Life Committee <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230343/">expressed concern</a> that a conservative welfare reform that both President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress supported would increase the abortion rate by restricting social assistance to low-income unmarried women who had additional children. By the 21st century, however, concerns about social welfare cuts were no longer on its agenda as it became increasingly <a href="https://time.com/6190861/roe-v-wade-supreme-court-politicized-abortion/">focused on shifting the Supreme Court to the right</a> to overturn Roe v. Wade. </p>
<p>The movement of large numbers of <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/6/2/451">Southern white evangelicals</a> into the anti-abortion movement also encouraged this conservative turn. Unlike many Northern Catholics, Southern white evangelicals had a deep antipathy to the social welfare state, and when they <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/south-abortion-pro-life-protestants-catholics/629779/">became anti-abortion activists in the 1980s</a>, their political efforts focused almost entirely on abortion restrictions, not anti-poverty initiatives. </p>
<h2>The anti-abortion movement’s politics today</h2>
<p>By the time the Supreme Court reversed Roe, the anti-abortion movement had become so thoroughly allied with conservative Republican politics that it was difficult to imagine a time when liberal Democrats who supported an expanded welfare state were leaders in the movement. </p>
<p>But some abortion opponents are already <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/july-august/dalrymple-end-roe-v-wade-abortion-adoption-foster.html">realizing the limits of a strategy</a> that is narrowly focused on fighting abortion only through legal restrictions. They are <a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/06/07/why-believe-better-family-policies-will-reduce-abortions-well-theres-the-data/">calling for renewed efforts to secure family leave policies</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/anti-abortion-movement-dobbs-roe-overturned/661393/">economic assistance for low-income pregnant women</a>. </p>
<p>If some abortion opponents focus on this goal now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, it will not be a new approach for the movement. Rather, it will be a revival of the original ethos that the founders of the movement proposed more than half a century ago, before Roe v. Wade was even issued.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel K. Williams received a research fellowship from the James Madison Program at Princeton University in 2011-12.</span></em></p>A historian explains why the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was filled with liberal Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War and supported the expansion of the welfare state.Daniel K. Williams, Professor of History, University of West GeorgiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840412022-05-30T04:57:03Z2022-05-30T04:57:03ZNew Nationals leader Littleproud says ‘sensible centre’ is where elections are won<p>Former agriculture minister David Littleproud has ousted Barnaby Joyce to become Nationals leader.</p>
<p>Perin Davey, a senator since 2019, has been elected his deputy. </p>
<p>Littleproud, 45, who was deputy leader, is from Queensland; Davey, 50, is from New South Wales. Bridget McKenzie, from Victoria, remains the party’s senate leader. </p>
<p>The Liberals, as expected, elected Queenslander Peter Dutton, 51, and Sussan Ley, 60, from NSW, as leader and deputy, respectively, after the pair stood unopposed. </p>
<p>Dutton immediately pitched to the suburbs and small business. He told a news conference: “I want our country to support aspiration and reward hard work,” as well as to “take proper care of those Australians who short-term or long-term can’t take care of themselves”.</p>
<p>“Our policies will be squarely aimed at the forgotten Australians, in the suburbs, across regional Australia. </p>
<p>"Under my leadership, the Liberal party will be true to our values, that have seen us win successive elections over the course of the last quarter of a century.” The Liberals would not be “Labor-lite,” Dutton said. </p>
<p>Joyce won back the Nationals leadership last year, and the Nationals held all their seats at the election and gained a senate seat. But Joyce cost the Liberals votes in the “teal” seats, with teal candidates saying moderate Liberal MPs in those seats, whatever their attitudes on climate change, had voted with Joyce. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/littleproud-ousts-joyce-in-nationals-leadership-spill-as-liberals-give-dutton-clear-run-181420">Littleproud ousts Joyce in Nationals leadership spill, as Liberals give Dutton clear run</a>
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<p>Littleproud was prominent in the last term, arguing for the Nationals to embrace the net zero 2050 greenhouse emissions target, which they eventually did. </p>
<p>He entered parliament in 2016, having previously been an agribusiness banker. </p>
<p>Littleproud said after the vote that “a sensible centre is where you win elections”. He said “chasing extremities” would not win. </p>
<p>He hailed having “two bright, articulate” women in the Nationals leadership team. </p>
<h2>Suburbs and small businesses are Dutton priorities</h2>
<p>Dutton stressed he wanted to send “a clear message to those in the suburbs”, and said policies would be targeted to small and micro businesses. But, asked about the “teal” seats, he said, “I am not giving up on any seats”. </p>
<p>While the Liberals would work with big business, Dutton said these days a lot of chief executives were closer to other parties than to the Liberals. He lamented that these business leaders, unlike years ago, were not advocating for tax reform and industrial relations reform. </p>
<p>“I think we are a poorer country for that. I think many of them are probably scared to step up because they are worried of an onslaught by Twitter.</p>
<p>"I hope that we can continue to work with them but I need them to work, to speak up on many policies, not just social policies but economic, not just climate change.” </p>
<p>On China, on which Dutton has taken a strong and uncompromising position in government, he said: “The issue of China under President Xi is the biggest issue our country will face in our lifetimes.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-peter-dutton-faces-his-own-long-march-184042">View from The Hill: Peter Dutton faces his own 'long march'</a>
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<p>Dutton again acknowledged he had made a mistake in boycotting the Rudd government’s apology to Indigenous people and particularly the stolen generations. </p>
<p>“I worked in Townsville. I remember going to many domestic violence instances, particularly involving Indigenous communities, and for me at the time I believed that the apology should be given when the problems were resolved and the problems are not resolved.”</p>
<p>Asked about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, he said the Liberals would look at what Labor proposed but said he wanted the symbolic policies on Indigenous affairs to be accompanied by practical responses, on issues such as child abuse. </p>
<h2>Support for anti-corruption body</h2>
<p>He also said he favoured an anti-corruption commission: “I believe in transparency.”</p>
<p>Dutton once again said there was more to him than the public image. “I’m not going to change but I want people to see the entire person I am.”</p>
<p>Ley said her message to the women of Australia was: “We hear you. We’re listening. We’re talking. And we are determined to earn back your trust.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barnaby Joyce rolled by party leadership spill, while Peter Dutton pledges to lead the Liberals with “policies squarely aimed at the forgotten Australians in the suburbs”.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1679772021-09-28T20:12:33Z2021-09-28T20:12:33ZWhy are there so few women MPs? New research shows how parties discriminate against women candidates<p>Australian women have long been under-represented in parliament. Although our country was the first in the world to give women the right to stand for election, we currently <a href="https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=9&year=2021">rank</a> 56th in the world for female representation, just behind Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Germany and Suriname.</p>
<p>By comparison, New Zealand is sixth.</p>
<p>So why, in 2021, do we have a situation where less than one-third of MPs in the House of Representatives are women? </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pa/gsab042/6327506">newly published research</a>, we investigated whether the low numbers were due to discrimination of female candidates by voters or political parties. We found that while Australian voters used to preference men over women at the polls, they don’t tend to any more. Parties, on the other hand, do.</p>
<p>There are several ways in which parties can impede women getting elected. One is simply not to put them forward as candidates. Another slightly more subtle way is by preselecting them to stand for unsafe or marginal seats. </p>
<p>With this approach, you get to tick a box and maybe meet a quota, but you’re not making a genuine attempt to create real change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-missing-women-of-australian-politics-research-shows-the-toll-of-harassment-abuse-and-stalking-168567">The missing women of Australian politics — research shows the toll of harassment, abuse and stalking</a>
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<h2>More women candidates, but fewer in safe seats</h2>
<p>Australian voters have a history of preferring male candidates over female ones. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2010.00695.x">Studies in the past</a> have shown that women candidates of the major parties in Australia in the 1990s and the early 2000s obtained proportionately fewer votes than men. </p>
<p>We wanted to see if this had changed in the 21st century.</p>
<p>In our study, we looked at all federal House elections since 2001 to see how many candidates were women, whether they were running for safe seats, and if voters tended to support them less than men. We used the same definition of an unsafe or marginal seat as the <a href="https://www.aec.gov.au/footer/glossary.htm">Australian Electoral Commission</a>.</p>
<p>Our research included data from 2001–19 on all 7,271 House candidates, of whom 2,101 were women.</p>
<p>In terms of the raw numbers, we found that Labor has increased its proportion of women candidates over the past two decades, reaching a high of 45% at the 2019 election. This placed it ahead of all other parties, including, for the first time, the Greens (42.4% in 2019). </p>
<p>The Liberals also fielded their largest percentage of female candidates in 2019 at 33%.</p>
<p><iframe id="GqZMo" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GqZMo/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>While Labor has done particularly well in terms of how many women it has put forward, it has less to brag about when it comes to the seats these women are contesting. </p>
<p>In fact, Labor has stood women in more unsafe seats than men at each lower House election since 2001. In 2019, 19.1% of women standing for the ALP were in unsafe seats, compared to 10.8% of men.</p>
<p>The Liberals had a smaller percentage of women in unsafe seats than men in two elections (2004, 2010), but a higher percentage in the other four. In 2019, 13.9% of women standing for the Liberals were in unsafe seats, compared to 11% of men.</p>
<p><iframe id="u1ov4" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/u1ov4/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Voters tend not to discriminate against women</h2>
<p>While major parties are continuing to discriminate against women in this way (and others), we find a different story with voters. </p>
<p>Across all House seats, female Labor candidates have actually performed substantially better with voters than male candidates at four elections (2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013) and worse in just two (2001 and 2019).</p>
<p>As for female Liberals candidates, it’s more mixed. They performed better than male candidates in 2001 and 2010, but not in the three subsequent elections. </p>
<p>That’s still a much rosier picture than for female Nationals candidates, who have always done worse than their male counterparts.</p>
<p>When we ran further statistical checks, we discovered that, if everything else that might affect vote numbers is held constant (such as the marginality of the seat, number of other candidates, incumbency, and so on), female Labor candidates receive around 1,400 more votes per seat than male Labor candidates in the 2001-19 period. </p>
<p>In those same conditions, with all else held constant, Liberal voters don’t tend to favour women over men (or vice versa), and the same is true of the Greens.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-can-do-more-to-attract-and-keep-women-in-parliament-here-are-some-ideas-110174">Australia can do more to attract and keep women in parliament – here are some ideas</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What can parties do to address this?</h2>
<p>So, what do our findings mean for Australia’s parties if they really want to increase the number of women in parliament? </p>
<p>First, quotas work. Only Labor has used enforceable quotas to try to increase the number of women among its candidate base — and it has succeeded. </p>
<p>Similar binding quotas would not only boost the number of female candidates put forward by the Coalition parties and the Greens, but would also likely have an impact on the numbers of women eventually elected to parliament.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/julia-banks-new-book-is-part-of-a-50-year-tradition-of-female-mps-using-memoirs-to-fight-for-equality-163888">Julia Banks' new book is part of a 50-year tradition of female MPs using memoirs to fight for equality</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But Labor cannot rest on its laurels. Our results show it needs to build on its quota system by standing more women in winnable seats. If it does not, it leaves itself open to accusations of box-ticking.</p>
<p>Fielding more women in seats they can genuinely win is in the interests not only of political parties, but of democracy in Australia. </p>
<p>For reasons of representation, women should account for more seats than they currently do. Moreover, there are benefits for the country’s political culture: <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/abs/gendered-debate-do-men-and-women-communicate-differently-in-the-house-of-commons/51DAFDDB037D093C4992D669DA816755">research</a> has shown that women in parliament are often more collegial and more inclined to find bipartisan solutions.</p>
<p>In short, given that Australian voters no longer tend to preference men over women when it comes to candidates, it is surely not in the interests of the major parties to continue to do so, either.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ferran Martinez i Coma receives funding from Australian Research Council Discovery Project, Grant number DP190101978. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duncan McDonnell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Parties strive for gender equality in preselecting candidates. But if they select more women than men in marginal seats, this isn’t true equality — it’s ticking a box.Ferran Martinez i Coma, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Griffith UniversityDuncan McDonnell, Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668672021-09-24T12:35:33Z2021-09-24T12:35:33ZHow conservative comic Greg Gutfeld overtook Stephen Colbert in ratings to become the most popular late-night TV host<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422032/original/file-20210920-47336-1rxw8xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C206%2C2973%2C2187&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In August 2021, comedian Greg Gutfeld's weeknight talk show 'Gutfeld!' became the highest-rated late-night talk show in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/greg-gutfeld-performs-as-part-of-the-tailgate-series-news-photo/1229019352?adppopup=true">Gary Miller/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In August 2021, Fox News’ “Gutfeld!,” a late-night comedy-talk show hosted by right-wing pundit Greg Gutfeld, overtook “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/gutfeld-ratings-win-colbert/">in overall ratings</a>.</p>
<p>Surprised?</p>
<p>We weren’t. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MuSNiy4AAAAJ&hl=en">As media and</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U2lRoo4AAAAJ&hl=en">comedy scholars</a>, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520382138/thats-not-funny">we’ve been tracking the recent ascension of right-wing comedy</a>, which has flourished thanks to shifts in media industry economics and political ideologies.</p>
<p>Gutfeld’s success might come as a shock because it punctures long-standing assumptions about what comedy is, who can produce it and who will enjoy it. These prejudices obscure an important truth: Right-wing comedy has become both a viable business strategy and a crucial element of conservative politics.</p>
<p>Yes, “Gutfeld!” is on Fox News, the cable channel known for partisan, right-wing political perspectives and news commentary. But it has all the markers of late-night comedy, too. The opening monologues are filled with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/showbiz/tv/jay-leno-best-quotes/index.html">Jay Leno-like punchlines</a> that draw laughs from the studio audience, and the interviews with conservative politicians, pundits and other comedians frequently center on “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/21/owning-the-libs-history-trump-politics-pop-culture-477203">owning the libs</a>” with one-liners.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1C3njWq88mE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The opening monologue of the Sept. 17, 2021, episode of ‘Gutfeld!’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, of course, there are the silly “Saturday Night Live”-like sketches. One recent episode broke from a panel discussion on cancel culture in order to imagine what a politically correct James Bond would look like. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmuhuXH4ZUA">In the prerecorded bit</a>, a crudely costumed actor chases down a thief and pulls a banana on him instead of a gun. Then “Bond” heads to a bar to order a latte – a soy latte – instead of a martini. You get the idea. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether or not this comedy is to your taste, it’s working for Gutfeld and his audience.</p>
<h2>Hiding in plain sight</h2>
<p>Despite its growing prominence, right-wing comedy remains largely invisible in both mainstream and scholarly discussions of media and humor. In part, this has happened because social media algorithms <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1329334">don’t send users jokes likely to challenge or offend their political sensibilities</a>.</p>
<p>There are also intellectual trends that make it possible for Greg Gutfeld to spend two decades sneaking up on the Colberts of the world. Comedy theorists tend to diminish, or at least distinguish, right-wing humor from what they deem to be more authentic, liberal humor. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110848717.1/html">Philosopher Umberto Eco</a>, for example, demotes joking that fails to critique power structures to the status of mere “carnival.”</p>
<p><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/odd-one">Others</a> <a href="https://www.routledge.com/On-Humour/Critchley/p/book/9780415251211">make similar arguments</a>, saying “true” liberal comedy is more likely to “punch up,” while dismissing conservative comedy as mere mockery that reaffirms unjust systems of power.</p>
<p>This effort to use ideology in order to categorize comedy can lead audiences, political analysts and even comedians to downplay or outright dismiss right-wing humor.</p>
<p>But even if conservative comedy doesn’t fit liberals’ tastes, it’s still comedy. And it’s increasingly becoming a feature of right-wing politics. Even “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah noted how <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/trevor-noah-compares-trump-stand-up-comedian-984690/">former president Donald Trump’s performances at rallies mirrored those of stand-up comedians</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190913083.001.0001/oso-9780190913083">Some studies</a> go as far as to identify innate, psychological differences that explain why liberals are more likely to laugh while conservatives are more prone to seethe. This research, often inspired by the success of liberal satirists such as Colbert, Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee, certainly provides intriguing looks into the relationship between politics, psychology and sense of humor. They are, without question, pleasing to the liberal reader’s ego. </p>
<p>They do not, however, square with the way Trump changed the country’s politics and culture.</p>
<p>The political comedy of the early 2000s, with its relatively big tent media companies and pre-Barack Obama politics, tended to joke primarily in the political direction of the largest audience segment interested in satire at that moment. “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” became hugely successful during the years of president George W. Bush and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-07-22/the-daily-show-trevor-noah-jon-stewart-craig-kilborn-25th-anniversary-influence">inspired countless imitators</a>, crowding the media marketplace for liberal laughs.</p>
<p>However, comedy’s perceived political bias at the time was more likely driven by specific economic circumstances, which have now radically changed.</p>
<p>Since then, further <a href="https://theathletic.com/2799058/2021/08/31/sports-tv-cable-streaming-broadcast-mess/">audience fragmentation</a>, along with the proliferation of podcasts and social media platforms, has made it possible for right-wing comedians like YouTuber <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-12/youtube-can-t-win-with-steven-crowder">Steven Crowder</a> to rise to prominence beyond conventional cable television. And it’s forced networks like Fox News <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2021.0046">to take comedy seriously</a>. </p>
<p>On one level, Gutfeld succeeds today because he has virtually no competition from fellow conservatives in the late-night television comedy space. On another, he thrives because the current media industry moment is built not for a big tent of all viewers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476415577212">but for audiences who share</a> specific demographic, psychographic and political traits.</p>
<p>In this environment, the partisanization of comedy to the right was perhaps inevitable.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man in blue sweater speaking at a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422455/original/file-20210921-13-1aa0w0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conservative comedian Steven Crowder runs a popular YouTube channel, with over 5 million subscribers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/8571373008/">Gage Skidmore/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s in a definition?</h2>
<p>If you find comedians such as Gutfeld unfunny or, more to the point, offensive, you may ask whether he should be granted the honorific of comedian. </p>
<p>Failing to do so, we argue, obscures the ways in which the right-wing political world uses comedy as a recruiting tool and unifying force. Republican politics <a href="http://research.policyarchive.org/11928.pdf">have long been built upon an uneasy fusion</a> that aims to bind together libertarian and traditionalist values, despite their apparent contradictions. The crassness of Trumpism has only added to this conceptual tension.</p>
<p>Right-wing comedy, we argue, serves to iron out, or at least paper over, such philosophical divides.</p>
<p>In addition to his show’s success, Gutfeld today resides at the center of a growing complex of comedians reflecting elements of right-wing worldviews, ranging from libertarian, libertine podcasts like “The Joe Rogan Experience” to Christian satire websites like <a href="https://babylonbee.com/">The Babylon Bee</a> to Proud Boys founder and Gutfeld-protégée <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/161200/alt-right-comedy-gavin-mcinnes-problem">Gavin McInnes</a>. While the creators of this content don’t always agree on specific issues, they are united in their motivations to hilariously own the libs. They strategically <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTa2bXNl0FA">cross-promote one another</a>, while social media algorithms urge fans of one program to check out other flavors of right-wing comedy. </p>
<p>Gutfeld may be the biggest star, but a range of right-wing comedians are coming together in a constellation that allows young, right-wing-curious consumers to find a place in the universe of American conservative media and politics. The value, or danger, of right-wing comedy is a matter of political opinion. </p>
<p>Its reality, however, is no joke.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Critics have long pooh-poohed conservative comics. But in today’s fragmented media environment, right-wing comedy has become both a moneymaker and a force in politics.Nick Marx, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State UniversityMatt Sienkiewicz, Associate Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1663012021-08-22T12:00:22Z2021-08-22T12:00:22ZProgress stops when we create and dismantle infrastructure programs every federal election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417047/original/file-20210819-21-1gns0la.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C0%2C5872%2C3956&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A construction site in Toronto in March 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to the most recent Canadian Infrastructure Report Card, <a href="http://canadianinfrastructure.ca/downloads/canadian-infrastructure-report-card-2019.pdf">the state of our infrastructure is at risk</a> — <a href="https://www.trisura.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Trisura-Infrastructure-WP-English-Update.pdf">in fact, it’s failing</a>. And our approach to tackling infrastructure has remained stagnant for decades. </p>
<p>Mired in political promises and lack of citizen engagement, Canada’s approach has focused largely on fast cash infusions to stimulate an underproductive economy. Stimulus infusions focus on spending money <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada-needs-more-infrastructure-spending-but-not-as-short-term-stimulus/">quickly on projects that have little value long-term</a>.</p>
<p>Canada’s election season highlights this disjointed approach. Look at election platforms over the past two decades, and you won’t find much in the way of change in terms of our approach to infrastructure investments. </p>
<p>Conservatives often tout <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/scheer-national-energy-corridor-announcement-1.5301488">energy corridors</a> and transportation for increased trade. The NDP look at social infrastructure investments, including <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-child-care-1.5302892">core housing needs</a>. The Green Party toes the line of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/green-party-jobs-transition-economy-1.5238864">green infrastructure retrofits and renewable energy investments</a>. And the Liberals fall somewhere in between each of these priority areas.</p>
<h2>The Achilles heel of any government</h2>
<p>Election platform promises about infrastructure typically focus on what hasn’t been done and how money was mismanaged. Party platforms are filled with promises to do more, but infrastructure is the Achilles heel of any government.</p>
<p>Party leaders have to talk about investing in infrastructure during the election, but if elected they have little funding to work with, combined with a largely hypercritical audience that doesn’t want to spend money.</p>
<p>We cannot simply blame politicians. Our political priorities are, after all, a reflection of the average Canadians ignorance to infrastructure. Something along the lines of “I want the road fixed, but I don’t realize how much it costs and I don’t want to pay for it” often summarizes the average thinking. </p>
<p>So how do you tackle this in an election platform?</p>
<p>The newly announced Conservative <a href="https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/16102359/f8279981721e07a.pdf">Canada’s Recovery Plan</a> reads a lot like the <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/prog/eap-pae-eng.html">Economic Action Plan</a> of years past. It’s not far off of the Liberals’ post-pandemic recovery either. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/prog/eap-pae-eng.html">Harper-era Action Plan</a> and its predecessor, the <a href="https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/prog/bcp-pcc-eng.html">2007 Building Canada Plan</a>, touted billions of dollars in investments, <a href="https://www.budget.gc.ca/2015/docs/themes/infrastructure-eng.html">many of which were targeted towards infrastructure</a>. Their election plan discusses “<a href="https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/16102359/f8279981721e07a.pdf">building infrastructure to get the economy moving</a>,” focusing on high-speed internet and transportation. </p>
<p>The NDP fixates on “building the infrastructure we need,” with a focus on infrastructure that <a href="https://www.ndp.ca/communities?focus=13934154&nothing=nothing">makes communities more liveable and helps fight climate change</a>. If <a href="https://www.budget.gc.ca/2021/home-accueil-en.html">Budget 2021</a> is any indication, the Liberals will continue to toe a party line that pushes for economic recovery while dealing with social and green infrastructure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People stand at a podium during a press conference as building is taking place in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417045/original/file-20210819-27-1ehe0gd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Construction of the future LRT line is visible to the left at the Ottawa MacDonald-Cartier International Airport in June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Kawai</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Infrastructure gap in Indigenous communities</h2>
<p>One of the largest areas for opportunity is addressing the infrastructure gap in Indigenous communities. The Liberals’ Budget 2021 had a focus on building an <a href="https://www.budget.gc.ca/2021/report-rapport/p3-en.html">inclusive economic recovery</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-budget-2021-18-billion-is-a-step-towards-closing-gaps-between-indigenous-and-non-indigenous-communities-159104">especially for Indigenous communities</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-communities-should-dictate-how-1-billion-infrastructure-investment-is-spent-158027">Indigenous communities should dictate how $1 billion infrastructure investment is spent</a>
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<p>The Conservatives have promised to promote “mutually beneficial conversations” between Indigenous communities and resource project proponents, promising <a href="https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/16102359/f8279981721e07a.pdf">shared benefits from Canada’s resource development</a>. The NDP promises a platform of <a href="https://www.ndp.ca/reconciliation">building resilient communities, focusing on reliable infrastructure and renewable energy</a>. But <a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-communities-should-dictate-how-1-billion-infrastructure-investment-is-spent-158027">major reform is needed</a> before progress on closing the infrastructure gap can be seen.</p>
<p>A stimulus-focused <a href="https://www.renewcanada.net/feature/should-we-change-the-definition-of-shovel-ready/">“shovel-ready” approach</a> is limited and short-sighted. Most government approaches focus on shovel-ready, yielding <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2016/economic-performance-and-policy-during-the-harper-years/">middle-ground projects that didn’t meet community needs or demands</a>. The Liberal party has been criticized for spending “<a href="https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/16102359/f8279981721e07a.pdf">all its time announcing and re-announcing the money it planned to spend, but has failed to get shovels in the ground</a>.”</p>
<h2>Investments aren’t enough</h2>
<p>Investments in community infrastructure have long been touted as <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-money/what-the-countrys-top-entrepreneurs-would-include-in-the-federal-budget/article16681423/">vital to keeping the economy going and improving quality of life for Canadians</a>. While they yield <a href="https://www.iuoelocal793.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Broadbent-Study.pdf">growth in GDP which leads to increases in wages and standard of living</a>, they often aren’t enough. </p>
<p>Past governments have shelled out billions, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/infrastructure-election-trudeau-scheer-1.5322892">with persistent problems in addressing the true need</a>. We know that <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-history-shows-spending-on-infrastructure-doesnt-always-end-well-165653">infrastructure spending doesn’t always end well</a>, especially when disconnected from community needs and engagement.</p>
<p>You can’t balance the budget and close the infrastructure gap without long-term planning that transcends political parties. Infrastructure requires <a href="https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Public-Infrastructure-Projects-Iacobacci-final.pdf">solid business cases</a> given the high capital required. </p>
<p>The Conservatives have promised to dismantle the <a href="https://www.conservative.ca/erin-otoole-statement-on-trudeaus-failed-infrastructure-plan/">Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB)</a>, and so <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/infrastructure-bank-to-invest-10-billion-in-priority-areas-for-pandemic-recovery-1.5127925">have the NDP</a>. The Liberals’ approach to the CIB is certain to be <a href="https://www.hilltimes.com/2019/08/05/210282/210282">a political issue for all parties this election</a> because the CIB encourages private investments. But questions remain around whether private investments <a href="https://canadians.org/analysis/public-private-partnerships-have-no-place-canadas-post-covid-just-recovery">actually result in lower costs and faster delivery</a>, and how effective and efficient the CIB is. However, no progress can be made when we create and dismantle infrastructure programs with every election change.</p>
<p>Infrastructure is complex. It requires private and public investments, it must account for our changing climate and it must be visionary in its long-term approach. Infrastructure is about more than just technology access or increasing trade — it’s about community and people. We need to see through the political rhetoric, and move beyond the excitement and allure of new jobs and funding. </p>
<p>What we are building is not as important as why we are building it. Infrastructure investments can’t just be an election promise, they must be a national priority — one that moves beyond the politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Black receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. </span></em></p>Canada’s election season highlights the country’s disjointed approach to infrastructure, which focuses largely on fast cash infusions to stimulate an underproductive economy.Kerry Black, Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair, Integrated Knowledge, Engineering and Sustainable Communities, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1491322020-11-09T13:14:37Z2020-11-09T13:14:37ZConservatives value personal stories more than liberals do when evaluating scientific evidence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367850/original/file-20201105-22-11gidpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C0%2C5892%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When science and anecdote share a podium, you must decide how to value each.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/director-of-the-national-institute-of-allergy-and-news-photo/1208907352">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Conservatives tend to see expert evidence and personal experience as more equally legitimate than liberals, who put a lot more weight on the scientific perspective, according to our new study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12706">published in the journal Political Psychology</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings add nuance to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-conservatives.html">a common claim</a> that conservatives want to hear “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/aug/04/both-sides-of-the-climate-change-debate-how-bad-we-think-it-is-and-how-bad-it-really-is">both sides</a>” of arguments, even for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/us/politicized-scholars-put-evolution-on-the-defensive.html">settled science</a> that’s not really up for debate. </p>
<p>We asked 913 American adults to read an excerpt from an article debunking a common misconception, such as the existence of “lucky streaks” in games of chance. The article quoted a scientist explaining why people hold the misconception – for instance, people tend to see patterns in random data. The article also included a dissenting voice that drew from personal experience – such as someone claiming to have seen lucky streaks firsthand.</p>
<p>Our participants read one of two versions of the article. One version presented the dissenting voice as a quote from someone with relevant professional experience but no scientific expertise, such as a casino manager. In the other version, the dissenting opinion was a comment at the bottom from a random previous participant in our study who also disagreed with the scientist but had no clearly relevant expertise – analogous to a random poster in the comment section of an online article. </p>
<p>Though both liberals and conservatives tended to see the researcher as more legitimate overall, conservatives see less of a difference in legitimacy between the expert and the dissenter.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Looking at both our studies together, while about three-quarters of liberals rated the researcher as more legitimate, just over half of conservatives did. Additionally, about two-thirds of those who favored the anecdotal voice were conservative. Our data also showed that conservatives’ tendency to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011">trust their intuitions</a> accounted for the ideological split.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547">Other studies</a> of a scientific ideological divide have focused on politicized issues like climate change, where conservatives, who are more likely to oppose regulation, may believe they have something to lose if policies to curb climate change are implemented. By using apolitical topics in our studies, we’ve shown that science denial isn’t just a matter of self-interest.</p>
<p>In stripping away political interest, we have revealed something more basic about how conservatives and liberals differ in the ways they interact with evidence. Conservatives are more likely to see intuitive, direct experience as legitimate. Scientific evidence, then, may become just another viewpoint. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="two women talking and walking on the sidewalk, one with a mask on" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367884/original/file-20201106-21-pi7nb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For some people, a personal anecdote can be as influential as a science-backed public message.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-holds-her-mask-while-talking-to-a-woman-wearing-a-news-photo/1254914571">Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Though we conducted these studies in 2018 before the pandemic, they help explain some of the ideological reactions to it in the U.S.</p>
<p>Among conservatives especially, the idea that the pandemic itself is <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/18/u-s-public-sees-multiple-threats-from-the-coronavirus-and-concerns-are-growing/">not a major threat</a> can hold as long as there’s personal evidence on offer that supports that view. President Donald Trump’s recovery from COVID-19 and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/06/trump-says-dont-be-afraid-of-covid-thats-easy-for-him-to-say">his assertion</a> based on his own experience that the disease is not so bad would have bolstered this belief. Recommendations from researchers to wear masks can remain mere suggestions so long as the court of public opinion is still undecided.</p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Social scientists are already documenting ideological reactions to the pandemic that fit our findings. For example, many conservatives see the coronavirus as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620940539">less of a threat and are more susceptible to misinformation</a>. They also tend to see <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/711834">preventive efforts as less effective</a>. Our studies suggest these views will continue to proliferate as long as anecdotal experience conflicts with scientific expertise.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>An individual’s understanding of scientific evidence depends on more than just his or her political ideology. Basic science literacy also plays a role.</p>
<p>The pandemic has forced people to confront how hard it is to understand the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/tell-me-what-to-do-please-even-experts-struggle-with-coronavirus-unknowns/2020/05/25/e11f9870-9d08-11ea-ad09-8da7ec214672_story.html">uncertainty inherent in many scientific estimates</a>. Even liberals who are initially more sympathetic to science information might find their confidence in public health messages tested if these messages waver and evolve. </p>
<p>As such, we expect future research will focus on how health officials can most effectively <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181870">communicate scientific uncertainty</a> to the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149132/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How much weight would you put on a scientist’s expertise versus the opinion of a random stranger? People on either end of the political spectrum decide differently what seems true.Randy Stein, Assistant Professor of Marketing, California State Polytechnic University, PomonaAlexander Swan, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Eureka CollegeMichelle Sarraf, Master's Student in Economics, California State Polytechnic University, PomonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1465272020-10-22T12:26:48Z2020-10-22T12:26:48Z1968’s presidential election looks a lot like today’s – but it was very different<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364815/original/file-20201021-19-asvebz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C2852%2C1963&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Nixon, celebrating his election on Nov. 7, 1968, campaigned against a backdrop of racial inequality, civic unrest and polarized politics.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/republican-presidential-candidate-richard-nixon-is-news-photo/1157399033?adppopup=true">AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In this year’s presidential election, terms such as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-law-and-order-campaign-relies-on-a-historic-american-tradition-of-racist-and-anti-immigrant-politics-145366">law and order</a>” and “<a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/trump-election-politics-potus-houston-texas-gop-tx-15540261.php">the silent majority</a>” have been heard fairly often from Donald Trump and some of his supporters. </p>
<p>Those phrases hark back to an earlier <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1968">presidential election, which took place in 1968</a>. That one was a three-way affair involving former Vice President Richard Nixon, a Republican; incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat; and the third-party candidacy of a Southern segregationist, Alabama Gov. George Wallace. </p>
<p>As in 2020, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/1968/Lpc9LwEACAAJ?hl=en">the presidential election in 1968</a> took place amid urban unrest, rising violent crime, racial tension, clashes between protesters and the police, and a high degree of political polarization. </p>
<p>Despite these parallels, what really stands out when one looks back to the 1968 election and compares it with this year’s are the differences, not the similarities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black Lives Matter protesters near a fire in Portland, Oregon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364817/original/file-20201021-15-cmscml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters have demonstrated in Portland, Oregon, since late May to end racial inequality and police violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protestors-stand-as-mattresses-are-set-on-fire-in-front-of-news-photo/1228384709?adppopup=true">Allison Dinner / AFP/Getty</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Centrist alignment</h2>
<p>Although the events of <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-12-31/1968-the-year-that-changed-america-forever">1968 such as urban riots, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and the intense fighting in Vietnam</a> were polarizing, the two major parties stood much closer together on most issues than they do now. </p>
<p>In 1968, the Democrats as a whole were a more centrist party, whose ranks included lots of conservative white Southerners in Congress as well as in state and local offices. <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807849101/the-dixiecrat-revolt-and-the-end-of-the-solid-south-1932-1968/">These Dixiecrats</a>, as they were known, tended to counterbalance the influence of the party’s Northern liberals. </p>
<p>The Republican Party was also markedly more centrist then, with a lot of moderately conservative voters and lawmakers who restrained the GOP’s so-called <a href="https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/rick-perlstein/before-the-storm/9780786744152/">“movement conservative” wing</a>. </p>
<p>The much more centrist orientation of the two-party system, then, can also be seen in the presidential candidates the Democrats and the Republicans chose in 1968. Both were quintessentially establishment figures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of National Guardsmen stand across from a group of protesters during widespread demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364818/original/file-20201021-19-hiq1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A line of National Guardsmen stand across from a group of protesters during widespread demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/line-of-national-guardsmen-stand-across-from-a-group-of-news-photo/554948851?adppopup=true">Photo by Miriam Bokser/Villon Films/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300222395/hubert-humphrey">Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey</a>, was in most respects a traditional New Deal liberal, the kind of FDR-inspired, pro-union, anti-Communist center leftist whose formative political experience was the Great Depression. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Nixon-Volume-II/Stephen-E-Ambrose/9781476745893">GOP candidate Richard Nixon</a> was best known for having served as the No. 2 man in the moderately conservative Eisenhower administration. Although significantly different, those <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/arthur-j-goldberg-9780195071054?q=Stebenne&lang=en&cc=us">mainstream New Deal liberal</a> and <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253112323/modern-republican/">Eisenhower Republican</a> viewpoints were nevertheless closer to each other than the forms of liberalism and conservatism that are dominant in the Democratic and Republican parties today. </p>
<p>The independent candidate that year, George Wallace, was a disruptive and polarizing figure. He ultimately <a href="https://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-politics-of-rage/">finished a distant third in the race</a> because his running mate, General Curtis LeMay, turned off voters with his very hawkish rhetoric about the Vietnam War. </p>
<p>But the Wallace candidacy did affect the election, because his popularity in the South (where he won five states) raised the possibility that no candidate <a href="https://history.house.gov/HouseRecord/Detail/15032448843?current_search_qs=%3Fsubject%3DVoting%26PreviousSearch%3D%26CurrentPage%3D1%26SortOrder%3DTitle">would achieve an Electoral College majority</a>, which would have thrown the election into the U.S. House of Representatives. </p>
<p>The Wallace candidacy also made a difference by contributing to the ongoing <a href="https://journalistsresource.org/studies/politics/elections/racism-white-southerners-democrats-republicans/">erosion in support for the Democratic Party</a> among white Southerners, a trend that eventually transformed American politics. </p>
<p>In 1968, though, Wallace’s main effect on the race was to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/us/politics/trump-2020.html">attract votes that would have gone to Nixon</a>, who consequently <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26840327/ns/politics/t/democratic-split-helped-nixon-win/">won with only a plurality - 43% - of the national popular vote</a>. </p>
<p>This three-way kind of contest and its consequences are very different from this year’s presidential race, which is essentially a two-person race. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Campaign signs on a lawn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364820/original/file-20201021-15-1w5pdyn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1968, there were three prominent presidential candidates; this year, only two.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/campaign-signs-are-seen-at-westchester-regional-library-in-news-photo/1229173022?adppopup=true">Eva Marie Uzcategui / AFP/Getty images</a></span>
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<h2>Old appeals may not work</h2>
<p>Some of the most important issues in 1968 were also profoundly different from those of today. </p>
<p>That year, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-making-of-the-president-1968-theodore-h-white?variant=32116915503138">sharply rising inflation and the Vietnam War</a> were among the most influential factors in deciding the outcome. That’s in marked contrast to 2020, when inflation is very low and no foreign policy issue has anything like the weight that Vietnam did in 1968. </p>
<p>And some of the leading issues in 2020, such as the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, health care, high unemployment, immigration, trade and <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/">the decline of the middle class (which hadn’t yet happened in 1968)</a>, were absent 52 years ago. </p>
<p>Even 2020’s protests against racial inequality and police brutality, in some ways similar to the ones in 1968, are also different because at that time the focus was on resistance to the old Jim Crow segregation system, not the <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/new-jim-crow">less overtly visible systemic racism</a> rooted in economic inequality and mass incarceration.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our most insightful politics and election stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-most">Sign up for The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<h2>Testing the same approach</h2>
<p>If 1968 and 2020 are such different election years, why have phrases associated with the first tended to crop up in President Trump’s campaign speeches? </p>
<p>Trump, who turned 22 in 1968, is old enough to remember the 1968 presidential race, which was the first one in which he could vote. He no doubt also remembers the appeal of Nixon’s “law and order” and “silent majority” themes among working-class and lower-middle-class white voters in the outer boroughs of New York City, where he grew up. Although many of those voters were historically more oriented toward voting for Democrats, <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/law-and-order/9780231115131">rising crime and urban rioting increased fears of Black people among those kinds of voters</a>. Nixon’s code phrases helped <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674093614">to drive them toward voting for Republicans</a>. </p>
<p>Trump appears to be trying to use that same approach this time, but given how different conditions are in 2020 than they were in 1968, it’s not clear that Trump’s tactics will have anything like the traction they did when Nixon used them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Stebenne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There are similarities between the law-and-order language used by the 1968 and 2020 presidential candidates and the racial tension and political polarization both years. But much is different.David Stebenne, Professor of History and Law Faculty, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1451572020-09-08T12:16:04Z2020-09-08T12:16:04ZDoes 4 years of college make students more liberal?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355371/original/file-20200828-16-1e1vloc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C387%2C258&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students' positive attitudes toward conservative ideas are the same before and after four years of college. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/group-of-university-students-wearing-masks-in-class-royalty-free-image/1267681176?adppopup=true">FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Over four years of college, students develop positive attitudes for political liberals but not conservatives. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Higher education needs <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/higher-education-has-become-increasingly-partisan/596407/">support from conservatives</a> – lawmakers as well as taxpayers.</p>
<p>But conservative <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/09/if-you-want-to-defund-something-start-with-higher-education/">critics</a> continue to fault higher education for making students more <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/07/20/conservatives-hostile-higher-education-good-reasons-noah-rothman-column/478906001/">liberal</a>. The central argument is that higher education does not value politically conservative perspectives. As a result, conservative critics believe college students are not exposed to conservative <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/harvard-newspaper-survey-finds-1-of-faculty-members-identify-as-conservative">scholarship</a> or <a href="https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-disappearing-conservative-professor">teaching</a>. Research has shown that conservative students feel <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-liberals-and-conservatives-get-wrong-about-free-expression-on-college-campuses-131285">silenced</a> for voicing their political opinions in the college classroom. </p>
<p>Through our <a href="http://ifyc.org/navigating-religious-diversity">analysis</a> of 3,486 students at 116 U.S. colleges and universities, we found that students’ positive attitudes toward political conservatives were largely the same when they started college and four years later. Compared to their responses in fall of 2015, graduating college seniors in the spring of 2019 were just as likely to report that political conservatives made positive contributions to society and were ethical people. Similarly, they were also just as likely to say that they had things in common with – and had positive attitudes toward – political conservatives.</p>
<p>But that’s not the whole story.</p>
<p>Students were actually surveyed over three points during college. In 2015, 42% of students had “high” positive attitudes toward political conservatives. That share increased substantially to 50% in 2016. Three years later, in 2019, it returned to 42%. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, positive attitudes toward politically liberal people generally increased during college. All told, 58% of students reported “high” positive attitudes toward this group in 2015. That number grew to 66% in 2016 and then hit 70% in 2019.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>At first glance, these findings may seem to support the idea that college makes students more liberal. However, if that were the case, positive attitudes toward political conservatives would have plummeted well below pre-college levels. </p>
<p>Why did student attitudes toward liberals steadily grow more positive while attitudes toward conservatives did not? Notably, data between the second and third wave of collection took place after the 2016 presidential election. This raises the possibility of a potential Trump effect. But we cannot be certain because changes in students’ attitudes can be attributed to any number of factors within and beyond their campus experience. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>What experiences lead students to develop more positive attitudes toward political liberals? Or conservatives? Answers to these questions will enable educators to design learning environments that help students develop more positive attitudes toward all political ideologies, not just their own. In a time of heightened political polarization, cooperation across political differences is imperative to a functioning democracy. Higher education has the potential to contribute to this aim. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>We don’t know if and how these attitudes will continue to change – or how another contentious presidential election might affect them. Ultimately, we would like to gather this information by surveying this cohort again after the 2020 elections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew J. Mayhew receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the U.S. Department of Education, the Merrifield Family Foundation, and the Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alyssa N. Rockenbach receives funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The John E. Fetzer Institute, and Julian Grace Foundation.</span></em></p>A survey examines how the college experience changes – or doesn’t change – students’ political views.Matthew J. Mayhew, The William Ray and Marie Adamson Flesher Professor of Higher Education, The Ohio State UniversityAlyssa N. Rockenbach, Professor of Higher Education, North Carolina State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1312852020-02-19T14:00:00Z2020-02-19T14:00:00ZWhat liberals and conservatives get wrong about free expression on college campuses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314511/original/file-20200210-109891-1xpd4lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators shout slogans during a rally for free speech near the University of California, Berkeley campus. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Colleges-Free-Speech/b3a1ae9d8089495bb6fe6587845884ce/36/0">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to understanding disputes over free expression on college campuses, such as <a href="https://www.thefire.org/research/disinvitation-database/#home/?view_2_sort=field_6%7Cdesc&view_2_page=1">speakers getting disinvited</a> or having their speeches <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/06/students-interrupt-several-portions-speech-christina-hoff-sommers">interrupted</a>, conservatives tend to blame liberal professors for <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/red-alert-politics/some-people-really-dont-believe-campus-liberals-are-indoctrinating-students-when-the-evidence-is-right-in-front-of-them">indoctrinating</a> students and <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-liberals-ruined-college">ostracizing</a> those who don’t agree with liberal viewpoints. One prominent conservative organization, Turning Point USA, has gone so far as to create a <a href="https://www.professorwatchlist.org/index.php/about-us">database</a> of faculty it says “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”</p>
<p>Liberals, in contrast, argue that concerns about free speech on college campuses are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/10/15/real-threat-free-speech-campus-isnt-coming-left/">overblown</a>. They also accuse conservatives of co-opting the language of free speech proponents in an effort to <a href="https://medium.com/@wendylynnelee/when-the-call-to-free-speech-becomes-the-trojan-horse-of-fascism-46c6dc6ded7c">falsely position</a> themselves as victims.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://fecdsurveyreport.web.unc.edu/">research</a> indicates that each of these narratives is flawed. We are researchers who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=C4YMEYkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">political behavior</a>, as well as strategies for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sun-tzu-and-the-art-of-business-9780199782918?cc=us&lang=en&">business</a>.</p>
<p>For the past year, we <a href="http://fecdsurveyreport.web.unc.edu/">have been studying</a> free expression issues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a campus that <a href="https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2015/11/students-ask-administrators-to-act-on-systemic-racism">has had</a> a number of <a href="https://abc11.com/anti-abortion-group-member-at-unc-attacked;-2-facing-charges/5303214/">flare-ups</a> related to <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article221775900.html">free expression</a> in recent years. We wanted to look beyond single episodes and better understand the typical student’s experience concerning free expression.</p>
<p>We found that students who identify with the political right do indeed face fears of being ostracized that students who identify with the left do not. However, we also found signs that right-leaning students worry at least as much about reactions from peers as from faculty. Much of this plays out silently in classrooms at Chapel Hill and – we believe – at other colleges and universities throughout the nation.</p>
<h2>It’s not about professors</h2>
<p>For our research, we sent surveys to all 20,343 students – the entire undergraduate population at Chapel Hill. Two-thousand of these students (randomly selected) were offered a US$10 incentive to participate in the survey. This feature helped ensure we heard from a representative cross section of students. We received 1,087 complete responses. About half of those respondents were those who got $10 for their participation.</p>
<p>For each student who responded, we randomly chose one class from their schedule and asked – for that particular class – how many times during the semester they kept a sincere opinion related to class to themselves because they were worried about the consequences of expressing it. We found a large liberal/conservative divide – 23% of self-identified liberals said they censored themselves at least once, while 68% of self-identified conservatives did so.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315425/original/file-20200214-11023-xw2cvm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>You might presume that behavior by instructors is to blame for this stark difference. But the evidence we gathered does not seem to support this view.</p>
<p>We asked students whether their course instructor “encouraged participation from liberals and conservatives alike.” Only 2% of liberal students and 11% of conservatives disagreed that the instructor did so. Similarly, only 6% of liberals and 14% of conservatives disagreed that the same instructor “was interested in learning from people with opinions that differed from the instructor’s own opinions.” These are low numbers and the splits are small. They are simply not what one would expect if the narrative that liberal instructors try to indoctrinate their students were broadly true.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315429/original/file-20200214-10976-dls71r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">2019 UNC-Chapel Hill Free Expression Survey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fears about peers</h2>
<p>In contrast, students reported substantially more anxiety about how their own peers would respond to expressing sincere political views – and the divides between liberal and conservative students are larger. Seventy-five percent of conservative students said they were concerned that other students would have a lower opinion of them if they expressed their sincere political views in class. But only 26% of liberal students had this concern. Forty-three percent of conservative students were concerned about a negative post on social media. Only 10% of liberal students had this concern.</p>
<p>Pressures that disproportionately affect right-leaning students were evident outside the classroom as well. We asked how often students hear “disrespectful, inappropriate, or offensive comments” about 12 social groups on campus. Students – even those who identify as liberal – acknowledged hearing such comments directed at political conservatives far more often than at any other group.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315433/original/file-20200214-11023-s234pz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>We also examined whether liberal or conservative students might be more inclined to employ obstructionist tactics, such as blocking the entrance to a public event that featured a speaker with whom they disagree. To do this in an evenhanded way, we presented students with a list of ten political opinions. Then we asked them to choose the opinion that they find most objectionable. We chose a slate of opinions that really exist at UNC, such as ones concerning affirmative action, LGBT rights, and Silent Sam – a Confederate monument that is subject of a long-running <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/12/805250903/judge-voids-uncs-controversial-settlement-over-confederate-statue-silent-sam">campus controversy</a></p>
<p>After students chose which opinion they found most objectionable, we asked whether it would be appropriate to take various actions toward people who hold that view. Nearly 20% of liberal respondents indicated it would be appropriate to prevent other students from hearing a campus speaker express the disliked view. But just 3% or less of moderate and conservative respondents indicated that doing so was appropriate.</p>
<p>In order to better understand the typical experience of a university student, we believe it’s important to go beyond singular dramatic confrontations. The deeper story about free expression on campus, as our study shows, is not just about the shouting that takes place during high-profile incidents on campus. It’s also about what students say – and feel compelled to keep to themselves – in lecture halls and classrooms throughout the school year.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A lot of the pressure that leads college students to keep their views to themselves comes from other students, not faculty, new research shows.Timothy Ryan, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillMark McNeilly, Professor of the Practice of Marketing, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1311132020-02-18T13:55:41Z2020-02-18T13:55:41ZTrump supporters have little trust in societal institutions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313659/original/file-20200205-149762-1s5k16k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on Jan. 28 in Wildwood, New Jersey.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Trump/3288904a7be64f0488ce9f81da7d225f/126/0">AP Photo/Mel Evans</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump has a history of disregarding advice from experts, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/us/politics/dan-coats-trump-russia.html">diplomats</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/military-officers-trump/598360/">military leaders</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/06/trump-is-increasingly-relying-himself-not-his-aides-trade-war-with-china/">trade experts</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/epa-science-advisers-slammed-agency-ignoring-science-here-what-they-said">scientists</a>. </p>
<p>Trump is not alone in his distrust. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eiPR5agAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Our</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=KcqhD_wAAAAJ">unpublished</a> <a href="http://personalised-communication.net/expo/">research</a> shows that people who support Trump have lower trust in societal institutions, when compared with supporters of leading Democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. </p>
<h2>Trust ratings</h2>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=H5mrkAkAAAAJ">We</a> asked 930 U.S. residents via an online survey how much they trust six institutions that are key to a working democracy. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=QSYmWVYAAAAJ">We</a> chose three institutions that Americans perceive as liberal – journalists, professors and scientists – and three that conservatives either traditionally support or currently control – the police, the Supreme Court and the federal government. Each institution fulfills an essential role within a democratic society, but depends on the others to function properly.</p>
<p>We also asked participants to report how warm or cold they felt toward Trump, Warren, Sanders and Biden on a scale from 0 to 100.</p>
<p>Even when we controlled for age, education, gender, ethnicity and ideology, Trump supporters had the lowest trust in the six institutions, at 3.75 out of 7 – at least 11.4% lower than anyone else we surveyed.</p>
<p>That means that the patterns we are seeing aren’t caused by fitting a particular demographic profile or having conservative beliefs. In fact, conservatives who do not support Trump had the highest trust in these institutions. </p>
<p>This suggests that there’s something about supporting Trump that shapes how much trust Americans have in the country’s core social and political institutions.</p>
<p><iframe id="sPY1n" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sPY1n/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>When we looked at each institution individually, we found that Trump supporters had significantly lower trust in journalists, professors and scientists – the more stereotypically liberal institutions – than supporters of the Democratic candidates.</p>
<p><iframe id="FvOTf" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/FvOTf/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>But the reverse was not true. Democratic candidate supporters trusted the police, the Supreme Court and the federal government as much as Trump supporters. The one exception was Biden supporters, who actually trusted the Supreme Court significantly more than Trump supporters did.</p>
<h2>A tower of trust</h2>
<p>Although our sample was not representative of the U.S. population, we think that these findings provide valuable insight into the state of U.S. democracy. </p>
<p>We don’t yet know which comes first. Does being a Trump supporter lead to lower trust in societal institutions, does having lower trust in these institutions lead people to support Trump, or do both play a role? </p>
<p>If being a Trump supporter leads to low trust, this could be a result of Trump’s influence, given his apparent distrust in expert advice. If people who have low trust in these institutions are attracted to supporting Trump, then this is cause for concern, considering that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000352">previous research</a> shows that politicians are more responsive to their supporters than they are to the general public. </p>
<p>Politicians have the trust of their supporters, and those supporters generally trust some institutions as well. That gives those institutions power to hold the politicians accountable. If the supporters don’t trust in institutions, they have less power to enforce accountability.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15705854.2010.524403">Research</a> <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2967051">has</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7s8r7">shown</a> that institutions are most efficient and effective when people trust them.</p>
<p>The interdependent nature of institutions means that if one becomes ineffective, the others will be affected as well. For example, if citizens lose trust in journalists, journalists will not be able to keep citizens informed. If citizens are ill-informed, they may not make the best decisions when voting or lobbying their democratic representatives, which in turn may decrease the effectiveness of the government.</p>
<p>Like a stack of Jenga blocks, each institution that is removed makes the whole stack less stable.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Miriam Boon receives funding from ERC Starting Grant EXPO 756301, PI Magdalena Wojcieszak.. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreu Casas Salleras receives funding from ERC Starting Grant EXPO 756301, PI Magdalena Wojcieszak</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ericka Menchen-Trevino receives funding from ERC Starting Grant EXPO 756301, PI Magdalena Wojcieszak. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Magdalena Wojcieszak receives funding from ERC Starting Grant EXPO 756301, PI Magdalena Wojcieszak and Facebook Integrity Foundational Research Awards, PI Magdalena Wojcieszak. </span></em></p>In a survey, Trump supporters showed the lowest faith in the Supreme Court, the federal government, the media and other pillars of society.Miriam Boon, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of AmsterdamAndreu Casas Salleras, Research Fellow at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of AmsterdamEricka Menchen-Trevino, Assistant Professor, American University School of CommunicationMagdalena Wojcieszak, Professor of Communications, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1298712020-01-15T13:54:33Z2020-01-15T13:54:33ZAn old debate over religion in school is opening up again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310019/original/file-20200114-151876-1bf82s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Bible class at a public high school in Georgia,</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Bible-Classes-Georgia/14306c7b72a5488fb09152fe1ce5e4d4/70/0">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the 2020 election approaches in the United States, President Donald Trump is adding school prayer to the list of contentious issues up for debate. After Trump <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-religion/trump-tells-evangelical-rally-he-will-put-prayer-in-schools-idUSKBN1Z22AN">promised</a> in early January to “safeguard students’ and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools,” his administration announced new guidance on Jan. 16. </p>
<p>The Department of Education will <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/01/16/trump-administration-moves-protect-prayer-public-schools-federal-funds-religious-organizations/">now require</a> schools to document that they do nothing to impede student prayer. The Trump administration will also mandate that schools report student grievances related to prayer.</p>
<p>This announcement comes after a year in which officials in six states, including the populous swing state of Florida, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/01/23/in-god-we-trust-bible-public-school-christian-lawmakers/2614567002">considered bills</a> permitting the study of the Bible in classrooms. Last January, President Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-gives-his-blessing-to-allowing-states-to-teach-bible-literacy-in-public-schools/2019/01/28/50c1593c-22eb-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.f7455f368d6b">tweeted</a> his support for these laws.</p>
<p>The evangelical proponents of the legislation <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/01/23/in-god-we-trust-bible-public-school-christian-lawmakers/2614567002">insist</a> that the Bible would be treated as a historical and literary source, not as a means of religious guidance. Critics <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/01/23/in-god-we-trust-bible-public-school-christian-lawmakers/2614567002">oppose them</a> for fear that their real intent is to teach Christianity. </p>
<p>Efforts to return religion to public schools threaten to reignite one of the oldest debates about the separation of church and state. </p>
<h2>Educating moral citizens</h2>
<p>As a historian who has <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">studied</a> how American Protestants have engaged with the culture at large, I know that the question of religion in education was among the first social issues to split American Protestants into competing liberal and conservative camps. </p>
<p>In the early 19th century, as many states created public school systems, children’s moral development was viewed as a <a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/education/horace-mann-creation-common-school/">crucial component</a> of education. Advocates for public schools came from some of the established Protestant denominations such as <a href="http://www.congregationallibrary.org/researchers/congregational-christian-tradition">Congregationalism</a> and growing liberal traditions like <a href="https://www.uua.org/beliefs/who-we-are/history/faith">Unitarianism</a>.</p>
<p>Since these public school proponents had diverse religious beliefs, they agreed that educational institutions should not teach particular doctrines. But they believed schools should cultivate morals based in what they thought were generally held Christian principles.</p>
<p>Opposition came from Roman Catholics, a growing segment of the population due to <a href="http://pluralism.org/encounter/historical-perspectives/catholic-and-jewish-immigrants/">immigration</a>, who took particular issue with Bible reading. Many schools <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Dmpaj-RO1_AC&lpg=PP1&dq=catholicism%20American%20freedom&pg=PA7">used the Protestant King James version of the Bible</a>, which differed from the translation familiar to Catholics. Moreover, Bible reading apart from the study of Church teaching was by nature a distinctly <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T4YLBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Nord%20religion%20american%20education&pg=PA73">Protestant practice</a>.</p>
<p>Yet even Protestant agreement on Bible reading in public schools did not survive for long. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256872/original/file-20190201-112389-1r9vef6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Advocates of Bible studying believed it would help cultivate morals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Bible-Classes-Georgia/6fac71313376433883377c2b8f5d421c/16/0">AP Photo/David Goldman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Split among Protestants</h2>
<p>A major catalyst for division was the decision of the <a href="http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/2002_54_02_00_brumberg.pdf">Cincinnati School Board</a> in 1869 to end Scripture reading in classrooms. Having long objected to Bible study in the city’s schools, Catholics had established their own system of parochial schools. By 1869, over <a href="http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/2002_54_02_00_brumberg.pdf">12,000</a> children, free from Protestant religious influence, were taught in these parochial schools.</p>
<p>By changing the policy, Cincinnati officials hoped the large Catholic population would return to public schools. </p>
<p>The board’s decision sparked outrage among conservative Protestants. As scholar <a href="http://willamette.edu/law/faculty/profiles/green/index.html">Steven K. Green</a> has detailed in his study of church-state debates, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-second-disestablishment-9780195399677?cc=us&lang=en&">many churchgoers organized opposition to the policy</a>. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X_KP0kQC4XIC&lpg=PP1&dq=green%20second%20disestablishment&pg=PA277">They believed</a> it “threatened the moral and intellectual development of youth.”</p>
<p>Not all Protestants agreed, however. Reflecting a larger split within Protestantism, which I have <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100411860">chronicled</a>, liberal Protestants throughout the nation endorsed the Cincinnati policy. </p>
<p>The secretary of Connecticut’s Board of Education, <a href="https://www.ct.gov/deep/lib/deep/forestry/urban_forestry/arborday.pdf">Birdsey Northrop</a>, supported this change. A graduate of Yale Divinity School and a clergyman, Northrop came to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mt8cAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA133#v=onepage&q&f=false">denounce</a> “narrowness and bigotry, under the guise of devotion to Bible reading.” In his view, Bible study in schools only fostered religious division.</p>
<p>Major Protestant periodicals echoed these views. The widely read periodical Christian Union ran and reprinted many <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CwIn5lbYeT0C&dq=editions%3AvkNyOk6unVEC&pg=PA238#v=onepage&q&f=false">articles</a> which supported ending religious instruction in public schools. The view took hold among liberal Protestants that religious study should be voluntary and Bible reading should not a compulsory part of public education.</p>
<p>For these liberal Protestants, there was value in public schools. They were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=X_KP0kQC4XIC&lpg=PP1&dq=green%20second%20disestablishment&pg=PA279">willing to tolerate</a> an end to religious instruction in the hope that education would not become a sectarian endeavor. This liberal Protestant support helped ensure that the Cincinnati school board’s policy <a href="http://americanjewisharchives.org/publications/journal/PDF/2002_54_02_00_brumberg.pdf">remained in effect</a> over conservatives’ objections.</p>
<h2>The liberal-conservative split</h2>
<p>In the aftermath of what became known as the “Cincinnati Bible War,” liberal Protestants grew ever more wary of Bible study in public schools.</p>
<p>Still, the Bible continued to be read in some U.S. schools until the Supreme Court stepped in. In 1963, the court <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/374/203">declared the practice unconstitutional</a>. </p>
<p>The response to this decision and to a case on school prayer highlighted how religious expression in schools had divided Protestants. In 1964, a constitutional amendment was introduced to restore such practices. Liberal Protestant groups like the National Council of Churches <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/13/archives/campaign-starts-on-school-prayer-california-rally-for-becker.html">helped lead</a> opposition to the amendment. </p>
<p>As the historian <a href="https://neiljyoung.com/">Neil J. Young</a> has shown, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/we-gather-together-9780199738984?cc=us&lang=en&">conservative Protestants disagreed</a> on amending the Constitution. Nevertheless, prominent conservative voices <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CgDWCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=young%20we%20gather%20together&pg=PA74">urged the return of “Bible reading to the public schools</a>.”</p>
<h2>New legislation, old division</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/09/22/ky-public-schools-allowed-add-bible-literacy-classes/687736001/">“biblical literacy laws” have been enacted</a> in more than a half-dozen states since 2000. The campaign to pass them elsewhere shows little sign of stopping, especially as it appears to be an <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/01/23/in-god-we-trust-bible-public-school-christian-lawmakers/2614567002/">organized effort</a> of Christian conservatives. </p>
<p>Now, the president appears poised to add the equally controversial issue of school prayer into the mix. </p>
<p>Given that this issue was among the first to divide religious liberals and conservatives, it is hardly surprising that it is gaining steam at this moment of heightened cultural tension. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/bible-reading-in-public-schools-has-been-a-divisive-issue-and-this-old-culture-war-is-starting-again-110687">first published</a> on Feb. 4, 2019.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Mislin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At least six states have permitted the study of the Bible in classrooms, which could reignite a 19th-century debate that split US Protestants into liberal and conservative camps.David Mislin, Assistant Professor of Intellectual Heritage, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1281962019-12-11T13:19:52Z2019-12-11T13:19:52ZNot every campus is a political battlefield<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305940/original/file-20191209-90588-176kxoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The headlines blare stories about political battles on college campuses in the U.S., but the reality is different.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/College-Campus/6bd5d95b75c84176a9114048284605be/4/0">AP/Rick Bowmer</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings were livestreamed from Capitol Hill, a group of students at the University of Florida launched an attempt to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/us/university-florida-trump.html">impeach their student body president</a> for his role in bringing President Donald Trump’s eldest son to speak on their campus.</p>
<p>Earlier this semester, Harvard students protesting President Trump’s immigration policy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/business/media/harvard-crimson-ice-journalism.html">criticized reporters</a> from the student newspaper, The Crimson, for contacting ICE – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – for comment, following standard journalistic practice. </p>
<p>Just a month later at Northwestern University, student journalists, under pressure from their classmates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/business/media/northwestern-university-newspaper.html">apologized for publishing</a> photos of students protesting against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.</p>
<p>In the past few years, it has been common to see media reports such as these that highlight sensational incidents of political conflicts on American college campuses. </p>
<p>But are headlines and anecdotal reports telling the real story?</p>
<p>As scholars of <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/cmjs/about/saxe.html">religion</a> and <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=eb92f56e5dbd799a18a39b8286ab89658b5b9ad1">politics</a>, we wanted to get a larger perspective. So we conducted detailed surveys of representative samples of American college students at five selective U.S. universities, including both public and private schools in the Northeast, the Midwest and the South, collecting data from over 5,600 students. </p>
<p>In our new report, <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/noteworthy/politics_quad.html">“Politics on the Quad,”</a> we find that the way students describe the political climate on their campus often differs dramatically from what the public sees in headlines and via social media.</p>
<p><iframe id="yv4iB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/yv4iB/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Headlines are not the whole story</h2>
<p>News reports claim that “Trumpism” is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/far-right-agitators-roil-the-conservative-movement-on-college-campuses-in-battle-to-define-trumpism/2019/11/16/a757d88a-0723-11ea-b17d-8b867891d39d_story.html">dividing American campuses</a>. But at the schools we surveyed since Trump became president, opposition to “Trumpism” actually unites liberal and moderate students. </p>
<p>The only division we see is among conservatives. Only about 17% of conservative students at these schools had strongly positive views toward the president, while over 20% had strongly negative views. So even among conservative students, President Trump has few supporters at these schools.</p>
<p>News reports also say that the toxic political climate in Washington is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/when-collegeclassrooms-become-ideologically-segregated-everyone-suffers-ncna804881">fracturing campus life</a> along <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/baylor-u-negotiating-cease-fire-between-conservatives-and-gay-activists-on-campus/">political lines</a> and that conservative students are being <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/already-alienated-college-republicans-say-they-are-coming-under-increasing-threat-from-trump-critics">ostracized</a> on liberal campuses. </p>
<p>But liberal and conservative students at most of the campuses we studied were about equally likely to say that they felt like they belonged on campus. At one school we examined, conservative students were actually the most likely to feel like they belonged.</p>
<p>Then there’s the claim that American campuses are uniformly <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2017/10/16/congress-and-campus/">hostile to the free expression of unpopular ideas</a>, leading students to engage in <a href="https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-problems-of-campus-culture-presumption-and-self-censorship/">“self-censorship</a>.” But we found a much more complicated story. </p>
<p>At Brandeis University and Harvard, more than 60% of liberal students felt that unpopular opinions could not be expressed freely on their campus, and their moderate and conservative peers agreed. </p>
<p>Yet, at the University of Florida, a majority of students, regardless of ideology, felt that their campus was open to the expression of unpopular viewpoints.</p>
<p><iframe id="MgEAi" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MgEAi/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The real campus crisis isn’t politics</h2>
<p>Despite these differences, we found that students of a given ideological group tended to have similar views on a variety of hot-button issues regardless of what school they attended, suggesting that national political debates can serve as powerful cues for how students think and talk about politics on any given campus. </p>
<p>And it’s true that political debates on campus sometimes become so contentious that they dramatically impact campus life. This was the case at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/evergreen-state-protests.html">Evergreen State College</a> in 2017, where conflicts surrounding a protest against racism on campus led to a campus-wide lockdown.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/noteworthy/fourcampuses.html">other</a> <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/noteworthy/brandeis2018.html">research</a> we’ve done tells us that for many students the biggest concerns are not politics or discrimination or free expression, or the other issues that dominate headlines about campus conflict.</p>
<p><iframe id="PsoHh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PsoHh/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>They are worried about how they will pay their student loans, whether they will pass their next exam or <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/28/727509438/college-students-and-their-parents-face-a-campus-mental-health-epidemic">just how to stop feeling lonely or sad</a>.</p>
<p>We know that the campus mental health crisis is real. Unlike most of the claims about political divisions on campus, campus mental health has been the subject of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30394183">systematic</a> <a href="https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHA-II_Spring_2018_Reference_Group_Executive_Summary.pdf">research</a>, and it surfaces in our <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/noteworthy/brandeis2018.html">own studies</a> <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/ssri/noteworthy/upenn.html">as well</a>. </p>
<p>Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos witnessed the scope of the problem firsthand when she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/nyregion/at-yale-class-on-happiness-draws-huge-crowd-laurie-santos.html">offered a new class on happiness</a>. One-quarter of the entire undergraduate student body – over 1,000 students – signed up.</p>
<p>If you want to worry about student life on campus, worry about that.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the headlines, the biggest concerns of students on college campuses are not politics, discrimination or free expression.Graham Wright, Associate Research Scientist, Maurice & Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis UniversityLeonard Saxe, Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Social Policy, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.