Eline A. de Rooij

Threat, prejudice and the impact of the riots in England

This paper examines how a major outbreak of rioting in England in 2011 impacted on prejudice toward three minority groups in Britain: Muslims, Black British and East Europeans. We test whether the riots mobilized individuals by increasing feelings of realistic and symbolic threat and ultimately prejudice, or whether the riots galvanized those already concerned about minorities, thus strengthening the relationship between threat and prejudice. We conducted three national surveys - before, after and one year on from the riots - and show that after the riots individuals were more likely to perceive threats to societys security and culture, and by extension express increased prejudice toward Black British and East European minorities. We find little evidence of a galvanizing impact. One year later, threat and prejudice had returned to pre-riots levels; however, results from a survey experiment show that priming memories of the riots can raise levels of prejudice.

When State Responses Fail: Religion and Secessionism in India 1952--2002

Why are some challenges to the territorial unity of democratic states more tractable than others? The literature has focused on numerous explanatory factors, including the impact of institutional reforms and government policies implemented in response to subnational mobilization and the ethnic identity of subnational groups. Building on the insights of a large literature on the political consequences of religious mobilization, this article analyzes a new dataset on the trajectory of 181 subnational political organizations active in India between 1952 and 2002. The article shows that demands for autonomy or secession put forward by religious organizations are likely to prove much more resilient over time than identical demands advanced by nonreligious organizations. The analysis has important implications for the study of secessionism and ethnic politics in general.

Research Openness in Canadian Political Science: Toward an Inclusive and Differentiated Discussion

In this paper, we initiate a discussion within the Canadian political science community about research openness and its implications for our discipline. This discussion is important because the Tri-Agency has recently released guidelines on data management and because a number of political science journals, from several subfields, have signed the Journal Editors’ Transparency Statement requiring data access and research transparency (DA-RT). As norms regarding research openness develop, an increasing number and range of journals and funding agencies may begin to implement DA-RT-type requirements. If Canadian political scientists wish to continue to participate in the global political science community, we must take careful note of and be proactive participants in the ongoing developments concerning research openness.

The Heuristic Function of Party Affiliation in Voter Mobilization Campaigns: Informational Short Cut or Source Cue?

Party affiliation is the most important heuristic that helps individuals infer information about candidates campaigning in elections. Knowing a candidate’s party affiliation should therefore help individuals of all partisan persuasions to arrive at voting decisions, thereby increasing turnout. However, if a heuristic helps individuals to connect messages to sources that they like or dislike depending on their political predispositions, a candidate’s party affiliation could instead cue individuals to either accept or discount the message altogether. Using the methodological rigor of a randomized GOTV field experiment to address this important theoretical distinction between the heuristic functions of party affiliation, we vary whether a party’s GOTV call refers to the candidate’s party affiliation during a low-information election. Our results support the idea that individuals use party affiliation as a cue to decide whether to accept or reject a GOTV message, rather than as an informational shortcut to candidate’s ideology or policy positions.