Justin Reedy

From the Secret Ballot to the Public Vote: Examining Voters’ Experience of Political Discussion in Vote-by-Mail Elections

Considerable research on political discussion has focused on identifying its antecedents and outcomes. The rise of voting by mail provides an opportunity to examine the subject in a new context—one in which voters discuss their views and electoral choices with others while filling out their ballots. We explored the possibility that conventional predictors of political engagement would predict who partakes in such discussions. Past research also suggested that those voters most likely to report changing their minds as a result of discussion would perceive their discussants as holding contrary views and higher levels of political sophistication. We further hypothesized that less politically engaged voters would seek out discussants they rated as more knowledgeable than themselves, whereas the more politically sophisticated voters would seek out like-minded discussants. Past research also suggested that the least partisan voters would be those most likely to report disagreement in their absentee discussions. To test these hypotheses, we analyzed telephone survey data from two elections conducted in Washington State. Results showed that the factors that predict traditional forms of political participation and discussion do not explain who engages in discussion during vote-by-mail elections. We also found that independent voters were more likely to talk with ideologically divergent discussants, whereas less knowledgeable citizens sought discussants who knew more about politics than they did. Many voters reported that these discussions shaped their vote choices, with the highest rates of perceived influence coming from those who viewed their discussion partners as more knowledgeable and more ideologically divergent.

Assessing the Electoral Impact of the 2010 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review:

The Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR) distinguishes itself by linking a small deliberative body to the larger electoral process. Since 2010, CIR citizen panels have been a legislatively authorized part of Oregon general elections to promote a more informed electorate. The CIR gathers a representative cross-section of two dozen voters for 5 days of deliberation on a single ballot measure. The process culminates in the citizen panelists writing a Citizens’ Statement that the secretary of state inserts into the official Voters’ Pamphlet sent to each registered voter. This study analyzes the effect of one such Citizens’ Statement from the 2010 general election. In Study 1, an online survey experiment found that reading this Statement influenced Oregon voters’ values trade-offs, issue knowledge, and vote intentions. In Study 2, regression analysis of a cross-sectional phone survey found a parallel association between the Statement’s use and voting choices but yielded some mixed findings.

Paths to the Practices of Citizenship: Political Discussion and Socialization among Mexican-heritage Immigrants in the US

Building on research on immigrant political socialization and social connections in politics, I advance a theoretical model for how immigrants develop their sense of political discussion in a new nation. This model, the Social Contact Model of Immigrant Political Socialization, focuses on the influences coming from close-knit social groups and wider-ranging social networks. I apply the model through a qualitative study of Mexican-heritage immigrants in the US and the likely sources of socialization that influence their political discussion behavior. The findings provide some support for the theoretical model and suggest there are important differences between Latino immigrants and native-born Whites in how they learn to engage in political discussion.

Frame-Induced Group Polarization in Small Discussion Networks:

We present a novel explanation for the group polarization effect whereby discussion among like-minded individuals induces shifts toward the extreme. Our theory distinguishes between a quantitative policy under debate and the discussion’s rhetorical frame, such as the likelihood of an outcome. If policy and frame position are mathematically related so that frame position increases more slowly as the policy becomes more extreme, majority formation at the extreme is favored, thereby shifting consensus formation toward the extreme. Additionally, use of a heuristic frame can shift the frame reference point away from the policy reference, yielding differential polarization on opposing policy sides. We present a mathematical model that predicts consensus policy given group member initial preferences and network structure. Our online group discussion experiment manipulated policy side, disagreement level, and network structure. The results, which challenge existing polarization theory, are in qualitative and quantitative accord with our theory and model.

The Social Citizen: Peer Networks and Political Behavior, by Betsy Sinclair

public opinion research, and the comparison is persuasive, underscoring not only the novelty of but also the need for Masuoka and Junn’s approach. That said, chapter 6 may be the one that attracts the most interest among readers of this journal, as it concerns political communication explicitly by taking up questions of “how competing candidates frame issues and the images they use to prime voters” (p. 157). As one might suspect, however, much of this chapter deals with not only such frames and images themselves but also how members of different groups respond in different ways to the same stimuli. This chapter also explores the impact of qualifying language, such as “legal” versus “illegal” and/or “deserving,” and how its deployment can function differently for and among different audiences. It ends with a plea for candidates and campaigns not to ignore racial and ethic differences among their audiences but to instead “directly address” them (p. 184), a suggestion that may sound naïve to some ears. The final chapter is more satisfying than concluding chapters can sometimes be, and I found the prescriptive tone to be refreshing and even bold in places. Their approach ultimately yields three lessons, Masuoka and Junn suggest: that immigration policy has implications for political feelings such as belonging, that immigration is the “central engine for racial formation in the United States,” and that public opinion on immigration in the U.S. depends just as much on the opinion-holders, in all of their diversity and communitas, as it does on the organizing and mobilizing of those who seek to change policies (p. 189). In this last lesson, we can hear the heartbeat of what may be this book’s real contribution to multiple fields: the awareness that there are people inside public opinion numbers, people who organize their identities and affiliations around racial formations that have historic roots, contemporary idioms, and future implications. By acknowledging these people and the import of their bonds, this book opens the door for new theories and new methods precisely because it asks us larger questions about how, when, and why researchers see meaningful boundaries between and within groups. In doing so, it makes the study of public opinion more complex, which is a welcome development indeed.

Terrorism and Small Groups: An Analytical Framework for Group Disruption

Terrorism scholarship has revealed the importance of small groups—both cells and leadership groups—in the proliferation of violence, yet this field remains only loosely connected to small group theory and research. There exists no systematic consideration of the role that group dynamics play in the disruption of terrorist activities. This article proposes an analytical framework for terrorist group disruption that shows how the goals and methods of counterterrorist intervention intersect with small group behavior. We use this framework to theorize how three intervention types—repression, manipulation, and persuasion—interact with group variables and processes, such as communication networks, social identities, group cohesion, and intragroup conflict. Seven theoretical propositions demonstrate how the framework can show how the direct and indirect effects of group behavior can augment or undermine counterterrorist strategies.