Clyde Wilcox

Between two absolutes : public opinion and the politics of abortion

The authors examine changes in public attitudes toward abortion in the United States. They suggest that control of abortion is being removed from the federal courts and put into the hands of elected officials at both federal and state levels and that public opinion on abortion will therefore come to play an increasing role in the molding of abortion policy. They examine the factors that influence peoples abortion attitudes the role of religion in shaping those attitudes and the consequences of abortion attitudes for electoral politics. (ANNOTATION)Abstract The new Penal Code in 2009 was an opportunity for Timor-Leste to allow some legal grounds for abortion, which was highly restricted under Indonesian rule. Public debate was contentious before ratification of the new code, which allowed abortion to save a woman’s life and health. A month later, 13 amendments to the code were passed, highly restricting abortion again. This paper describes the socio-legal context of unsafe abortion in Timor-Leste, based on research in 2006–08 on national laws and policies and interviews with legal professionals, police, doctors and midwives, and community-based focus group discussions. Data on unsafe abortions in Timor-Leste are rarely recorded. A small number of cases of abortion and infanticide are reported but are rarely prosecuted, due to deficiencies in evidence and procedure. While there are voices supporting law reform, the Roman Catholic church heavily influences public policy and opinion. Professional views on when abortion should be legal varied, but in the community people believed that saving women’s lives was paramount and came before the law. The revised Penal Code is insufficient to reduce unsafe abortion and maternal mortality. Change will be slow, but access to safe abortion and modern contraception are crucial to women’s ability to participate fully as citizens in Timor-Leste.

Causes and Consequences of Public Attitudes toward Abortion: A Review and Research Agenda

This article provides a critical review of empirical research on attitudes toward abortion among mass publics in the United States, with a view toward suggesting promising avenues for future research. We identify three such themes: Accounting for pro-life movement among mass attitudes in recent years, when the composition of the U.S. population would seem to trend in a pro-choice direction; explaining the sources of party polarization of the abortion issue; and anticipating changes in abortion attitudes which might result from public debate over human cloning.

Feminism and the Gender Gap—A Second Look

Using data from the 1984 American National Election Study, we reconsider the argument that feminism helps women realize their feminine values and policy preferences. Using an operational definition that allows us to identify male and female feminists, we find that feminism has a similar impact on the values and policy preferences of men and women, suggesting that feminism leads to feminist, not feminine values. In addition, we examine Conovers conclusion that the gender gap is due entirely to feminist women and find a gender gap among feminist men and women, potentially feminist men and women, and nonfeminist men and women.

Getting Religion: Has Political Science Rediscovered the Faith Factor?

To judge by the absence of religion from the pages of the American Political Science Review in its first century, most political scientists have embraced a secular understanding of the political world. We explore the evolving status of religion in the discipline by examining patterns of scholarly inquiry in the disciplines flagship journal. After finding religion an (at best) marginal topic and rejecting some plausible hypotheses for this outcome, we examine the major reasons religion has received so little attention—the intellectual origins of the discipline, the social background of practitioners, the complexity of religious measurements, and the event-driven agenda of political science. Despite the resurgence of scholarly interest in religion during the 1980s, the status of the subfield remains tenuous because of the intellectual isolation of research on the topic.

Women and elective office : past, present, and future

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Brauns campaign for the presidency in 2004 and the widespread discussion of a run in 2008 run by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have significantly raised the profile of women on the national political stage. At the same time, progress in electing women to the U.S. Congress and state legislatures has stalled. The essays in Women and Elective Office: Past, Present and Future, which feature research on women as political candidates and officeholders, address this paradox. Recruitment patterns, media portrayals, and voter reactions to women candidates are analyzed along with the impact of women in office relative to the challenges they face. The 2nd edition includes increased coverage of women on the congressional level, women officeholders of color, and analysis of women parliamentarians worldwide. In total, Women and Elective Office offers a comprehensive look at the experiences and influence of women politicians today, while considering womens prospects for political leadership in the twenty-first century.

Evangelicals and Political Tolerance

The article explores four possible explanations for the lower levels of political tolerance of evangelical Christians. First, these differences could be spurious, due to demographic differences. Second, evangelicals may be less tolerant of atheists, homosexuals, and communists, but more tolerant of groups on the other side of the political spectrum, suggesting a group effect. Third, evangelical intolerance may be the result of higher levels of religiosity. Finally, the religious doctrine of evangelicals may produce greater levels of intolerance. Using data from a national survey on tolerance and from the General Social Survey, the article concludes that demographic variables and religiosity are partial explanations for the greater intolerance of evangelicals. Group affect seems to play no role: evangelicals are less tolerant of communists, atheists, racists, and militarists. Finally, religious doctrine plays a major role in explaining evangelical intolerance.

The Gender Gap in Attitudes toward the Gulf War: A Cross-National Perspective:

Using data from a survey in a number of world cities before the outbreak of hostilities in the Persian Gulf, we explore the sources and magnitude of the gender gap in support for military action. In most cities there are only modest gender differences in the interpretation of events, in affect toward the major actors, and in support for the goals of the UN actions, but women are less supportive of military action than men in nearly all cities. These differences are statistically significant but substantively modest, with men and women differing primarily in the degree of their enthusiasm for the military action. In Lagos and Ankara, however, there are no gender differences.

Gender Differences in Foreign Policy Attitudes A Longitudinal Analysis

Although a number of studies have reported gender differences on attitudes toward the use of force in foreign policy, several recent studies have reported that gender is a weak and non- significant predictor of foreign policy attitudes. The authors find that gender differences are significant even after a variety of demographic controls and that gender is among the most important demographic predictors of foreign policy attitudes. Gender differences have widened in scope over time and now include both foreign policy goals and tools. These differences are largest among the youngest cohorts. The determinants of womens and mens foreign policy attitudes, however, are essentially the same.

Issue Voting in Gubernatorial Elections: Abortion and Post-Webster Politics

Nearly all studies of gubernatorial voting focus on the role of state economic conditions and incumbency on vote choice. Yet gubernatorial campaigns frequently focus on social issues such as abortion, the death penalty, and gun control. Using data from 1989 and 1990 exit polls in 10 states, we find that abortion was a significant predictor of vote choice in all but one. Our logistic regression analysis suggests that abortion position had a greater impact on vote choice than state economic conditions in eight of the 10 states in our analysis, and that abortion was a stronger predictor than even partisanship in Pennsylvania. This suggests the need to consider noneconomic issues in gubernatorial voting studies.

Fundamentalists and Politics: An Analysis of the Effects of Differing Operational Definitions

Although the past decade has seen a marked increase in research that explores the political beliefs and behaviors of fundamentalist Christians, this research has suffered from a diversity of operational strategies. Early research operationalized fundamentalists by their denominational affiliation, while most later research has focused on doctrinal beliefs. This analysis suggests that the groups identified by these two strategies are different in demographic characteristics, political beliefs, and political behaviors. The fundamentalists identified by the doctrinal definition have higher levels of socioeconomic status, and are less Southern and rural than those identified by the denominational definition. These doctrinal fundamentalists are more conservative on womens issues and economic issues, and are more politically active and Republican. The analysis suggests that attempts to integrate literature that has employed these different operational definitions should be made cautiously.