Conventional Wisdom and American Elections: Exploding Myths, Exploring Misconceptions, by Drs. Baumgartner and Francia, is now officially in its 4th edition – and available!

From the book jacket: During every election cycle, political observers generate a seemingly limitless supply of theories, opinions, and predictions. Unfortunately, many of these assertions oversimplify complex subjects or over-hype the latest political fads. Inevitably, some misinformation becomes part of the conventional wisdom about American elections. The objective of this book is to bring clarity to several of these subjects.

See: https://smile.amazon.com/Conventional-Wisdom-American-Elections-Misconceptions/dp/1538129167/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=conventional+wisdom+baumgartner&qid=1574171420&sr=8-3

Olga Smirnova was invited for the North Carolina Local Government Budget Association summer conference (July) in Wilmington, NC.

Together with Jennifer Wolf from the City of Charlotte, they led the panel on “Green Investments for Public Facilities and Fleet”

See: http://nclgba.org/wordpress/nclgba19-recap-series-a-culture-of-high-performance/

 

Congratulations to Katie Nilges, a political science major and ECU graduate (2015). Katie was recently hired as the Director of Governmental Affairs and Legislative Liaison for the South Carolina Department of Education. In 2018, Katie received her law degree at the University of South Carolina.

 

Way to go, Katie!

Dr. Olga Smirnova conducted a webinar on July 2nd “Social Network Structure of Dark Markets,” via “Zoom,” to about 9 people from the DHS and FBI. The basis for the webinar was published as a white paper “Social Network Structure of Dark Markets: Research Summary,” part of the white paper series for the Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center (CINA).

See https://cj.msu.edu/_assets/pdfs/cina/CINA-White_Papers-Smirnova_Social_Network_Brief.pdf

The College of Arts & Science’s Center for Survery Research, which includes the political science department’s Peter Francia (director), Jonathan Morris and Baekwan Park, has had their latest poll tracking opinion regarding the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination picked up by RealClear Politics, the national clearinghouse for political polls. A huge breakthrough!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/NorthCarolina.html

CONGRATULATIONS to all involved!

American Political Humor: Masters of Satire and Their Impact on U.S. Policy and Culture, by Jody C Baumgartner

This two-volume set surveys the profound impact of political humor and satire on American culture and politics over the years, paying special attention to the explosion of political humor in today’s wide-ranging and turbulent media environment.

Historically, there has been a tendency to regard political satire and humor as a sideshow to the wider world of American politics—entertaining and sometimes insightful, but ultimately only of modest interest to students and others surveying the trajectory of American politics and culture.

This set documents just how mistaken that assumption is. By examining political humor and satire throughout US history, these volumes not only illustrate how expressions of political satire and humor reflect changes in American attitudes about presidents, parties, and issues but also how satirists, comedians, cartoonists, and filmmakers have helped to shape popular attitudes about landmark historical events, major American institutions and movements, and the nation’s political leaders and cultural giants. Finally, this work examines how today’s brand of political humor may be more influential than ever before in shaping American attitudes about the nation in which we live.

Features

• Documents the history of political humor in the United States in all of its many forms, with the bulk of coverage weighted toward contemporary political satire and satirists
• Covers writers, cartoonists, radio personalities, television and movie performers, and internet celebrities
• Profiles influential television programs, movies, and other forms of entertainment that have made their mark on American politics and culture
  Includes a chronology of events

See: https://www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/product.aspx?pc=A5370C

Dr. Samantha Mosier presents her research (co-authored with Megan Ruxton), “Trust Issues: U.S. Public Preferences for Entities to Protect the Environment,” at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in  Washington (Sept 2019).

Abstract: “This paper examines which institutions and entities the U.S. general public trusts to protect the environment. Using data from the Natural Marketing Institute 2016 LOHAS survey, we evaluate which institutions and entities are identified by 1,022 respondents as trustworthy to protect the environment (broadly defined). The results suggest there is not a singular institution or entity that is overwhelmingly trusted by the public to protect the environment. Indeed, a significant portion of the population (25%) trusts no one to protect the environment. Level of education is the most consistent explanatory factor for what influences trust. Higher educational achievement is associated with lower levels of trust. Additional, race and regional location also provide keen insights for variation in trust levels.”

This spring Dr. Jonathan Morris presented a paper titled “More Guns, Fewer Shootings? Public Opinion on Mass Shooting Prevention in America,” at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, in San Diego. The paper was co-authored with his brother, David Morris, whose PhD is in sociology.

Abstract: “There is a relative dearth of academic work on the public’s perception of arming school teachers, as most existing studies look at opinion on gun control. The purpose of this study is to investigate public opinion on arming school teachers as a solution to curb mass shootings in America. Our main research question asks: What factors contribute to the belief that arming school teachers will cause a decrease in mass shootings? We also ask: What factors contribute to the overall belief that increasing access to guns among law-abiding citizens will decrease mass shootings in America? Using data survey data collected in June 2018, which was shortly following the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Parkland, we investigate these questions in effort to provide a clearer understanding of the belief that more firearms will ultimately reduce the threats of mass shootings.”

Dr. Peter Francia presented his latest research paper, “The Paranoid Style and the Rise of Fake News in American Politics,” at the 2019 American Political Science Association’s annual conference in Washington, DC.

Abstract: In 1964, historian Richard Hofstadter authored the seminal text, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Fifty-five years later in an era now littered with “fake news” websites and conspiracy theories that can spread rapidly over the Internet, Hofstadter’s investigation into “the politics of the irrational” warrants revisiting.

In this paper, I draw on the concept of the “paranoid style” originally developed by Hofstadter, but with a quantitative twist. Psychologists Allan Fenigstein and Peter Vanable (1992) developed a now widely used survey instrument to assess paranoid thought. Using data from an original nationwide and demographically representative survey of more than 800 adults that combines the Fenigstein and Vanable paranoia instrument with questions about popular present-day political conspiracies and well-publicized fake news stories, my research asks the question: Is there a relationship between paranoia and one’s willingness to accept or deny established political facts?

Drawing on Hofstadter’s earlier work about the “paranoid style,” I hypothesize that in today’s sometimes confusing information environment, which includes both credible and fake news, paranoia plays a significant role in understanding why some Americans are more susceptible than others to believing misinformation popularized through fake news websites. The results of this research confirm my expectations and raise potentially serious implications for democratic theory, which holds that an informed citizenry is necessary for elections and government to function properly. By examining the theory of the “paranoid style” in today’s modern context, this research offers potentially useful insights into better understanding why some people are better able to differentiate facts from fiction in the political arena. These results have clear and obvious implications for the future of American democracy.

Francia also served as a discussant on the panel, “Budgets and Attitudes Toward Economic Policy,” and as a panelist for the “Author Meets Critics” roundtable, “Who Donates in Campaigns.”

Recently published research from our own Hanna Kassab: “Military Intervention and the Destabilization of Target States” Journal of Studies and Applied Research on Third Sector, vol, 2 no, 2, (2019): 19-35 (with Kaitlyn Rose).

ABSTRACT: This article examines the use of foreign military intervention (FMI) through the international relations theory of liberalism. As intra-state conflict is becoming increasingly transnational in nature, FMI has become a powerful foreign policy tool in the post-Cold War era. Often, the use of military intervention is aimed to promote liberal democracy and humanitarian values. This often requires a dynamic change to the target state’s centralized power structure. In turn, this transfer of power has repeatedly allowed for long-standing power vacuums to emerge. This article uses a qualitative approach when examining the cases of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria to provide a more encompassing detail of the intended and unintended consequences of FMI, as well as prospects for the future of these nations, all of which have been plagued by civil strife, violence, and human rights violations in recent years.

Congratulations Hanna!