Leonie Huddy

The Consequences of Terrorism: Disentangling the Effects of Personal and National Threat

The events of 11 September 2001 have led to a higher perceived risk of terrorism in the United States. A better understanding of the political consequences of 9/11 requires a more complete accounting of the nature and consequences of perceived threat. Here, the distinction between perceived personal and national risks is examined in terms of two competing hypotheses: (1) The personal threat of terrorism has a pervasive influence even on national decisions and perceptions, in line with its highly arousing nature. (2) The effects of personal threat are highly circumscribed and overshadowed by the impact of perceived national threat, consistent with findings on the meager impact of self–interest and other personal concerns on public opinion. A survey of 1,221 residents of Long Island and Queens, New York, explored the degree to which personal and national threat affect perceptions of the consequences of, and possible solutions to, terrorism. As expected, there was a clear distinction between perceived personal and national threat, although the two are related. Perceived personal threat did not influence the perceived economic consequences of terrorism, although it had a narrow effect on personal behaviors designed to minimize risk. Overall, the findings imply that the effects of personal threat are circumscribed, consistent with past research on the limited personal basis of political judgments. However, the tests of these hypotheses were constrained by a limited set of dependent variables that included national consequences but not policy solutions designed to limit terrorism.

Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity

Party identification is central to the study of American political behavior, yet there remains disagreement over whether it is largely instrumental or expressive in nature. We draw on social identity theory to develop the expressive model and conduct four studies to compare it to an instrumental explanation of campaign involvement. We find strong support for the expressive model: a multi-item partisan identity scale better accounts for campaign activity than a strong stance on subjectively important policy issues, the strength of ideological self-placement, or a measure of ideological identity. A series of experiments underscore the power of partisan identity to generate action-oriented emotions that drive campaign activity. Strongly identified partisans feel angrier than weaker partisans when threatened with electoral loss and more positive when reassured of victory. In contrast, those who hold a strong and ideologically consistent position on issues are no more aroused emotionally than others by party threats or reassurances. In addition, threat and reassurance to the partys status arouse greater anger and enthusiasm among partisans than does a threatened loss or victory on central policy issues. Our findings underscore the power of an expressive partisan identity to drive campaign involvement and generate strong emotional reactions to ongoing campaign events.

Opposition to Bilingual Education: Prejudice or the Defense of Realistic Interests?

Racial prejudice and the protection of realistic interests are examined as two competing explanations for Anglo opposition to bilingual education programs. Past research has left unclear the extent to which these two theories explain opposition to policies that assist members of minority groups because the two theories generally have been treated in isolation from each other ; no clear, sharp theoretical and empirical contrast has been drawn between them ; and both approaches have been used to explain white opposition to policies designed to assist African-Americans but have not been extended to explain majority opposition to policies that benefit members of diverse racial and ethnic minority groups. To further contrast the prejudice and the realistic interest approaches, we developed clearer measures for each approach, tested the theoretical origins of each set of measures, and extended the two theories to a new research area, namely Anglo opposition to bilingual education programs.

Old-Fashioned Racism and New Forms of Racial Prejudice

In past studies, researchers have drawn a conceptual distinction between old-fashioned and newer forms of racial prejudice but questions persist about their distinctiveness. We reexamine the differences between these two forms of prejudice, arguing that negative racial stereotypes are the active political ingredient in the new prejudice. We explore the differing impact of old-fashioned racism and negative racial stereotypes on opposition to social welfare programs aimed at all impoverished. African Americans and individualistic programs targeted at a subset of deserving blacks. The findings of this study suggest that old-fashioned racists oppose all racial policies including individualistic programs, whereas individuals who endorse negative stereotypes only oppose social welfare programs. Moreover, evidence that old-fashioned prejudice and negative stereotypes have different political effects and distinct origins poses a serious challenge to advocates of the new racism thesis, who argue that negative stereotypes are simply old-fashioned racism in another guise. Multivariate regression analyses of data from the 1990. General Social Survey are used to test the hypotheses.

Trends: Support for the Women's Movement

In this study, we analyze data on public opinion and attitudes toward labor unions from the iPOLL Databank at the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (University of Connecticut), the American National Election Study, and the Current Population Survey. Despite recent developments that suggest labor unions are in decline, we find organized labor has maintained reasonably strong public support. Although the data indicate that Americans remain skeptical about how much confidence they can place in unions and their leaders, the results make clear that the public continues to recognize the need for unions to protect the rights of workers. These results hold potentially important implications for the future of organized labor in the United States.

The Effect of Interviewer Gender on the Survey Response

We examined the existence of gender-of-interviewer effects in two local-area surveys in which male and female interviewers were randomly assigned to interview male and female respondents. Small but consistent gender-of-interviewer effects arose on questions related to the womens movement, womens issues, and gender equality, demonstrating that, as expected, respondents were more likely to provide feminist answers to female interviewers. Gender-of-interviewer effects were somewhat more pronounced and consistent on controversial political topics: the womens movement (feminists and political activism) and their policy agenda. There was mixed evidence on whether respondents were equally susceptible to gender-of-interviewer effects. In one of the surveys, gender-of-interviewer effects were more pronounced among less well-educated and younger respondents than among respondents who were better educated or older. This effect was not replicated in the second survey.

Americans respond politically to 9/11: understanding the impact of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks have had profound effect on U.S. domestic and foreign security policy, leading to several expensive wars and the erosion of civil liberties (under the USA PATRIOT Act). We review evidence on political reactions to the 9/11 attacks and conclude that subjective reactions to terrorism played an important role in shaping support for national security policy in the wake of 9/11. Support for a strong national security policy was most pronounced among Americans who perceived the nation as at threat from terrorism and felt angry at terrorists. In contrast, Americans who were personally affected by the attacks were more likely to feel anxious about terrorism, and this anxiety translated into less support for overseas military action. In addition, Americans who felt insecure after the 9/11 attacks and perceived a high future threat of terrorism were more likely than others to support strong foreign and domestic national security policies. Overall, research on American political reactions to 9/11 suggests that support for a strong government response to terrorism is most likely when members of a population perceive a high risk of future terrorism and feel angry at terrorists.

The Persuasive Effects of Emotive Visual Imagery: Superficial Manipulation or the Product of Passionate Reason?

This study reevaluates the persuasive impact of emotional visual appeals within politics and examines two different explanations for their effects. One possibility is that the effects of emotive visual images are essentially superficial in nature, consistent with the view that feelings aroused by an affective image are transferred somewhat mechanically to a political candidate or cause with which it is paired. This transfer-of-affect explanation suggests that emotional appeals may work best among the least informed voters or those paying the least attention to a persuasive political message. The second possibility is that emotional appeals work via passionate reason, in which affective responses to an emotive image are integrated with, and potentially bias, reasoned thought about the accompanying message. This integrated approach leads to the counterintuitive prediction that individuals who are most highly involved in an issue (and who know the most about it) are most influenced by emotional imagery. This prediction arises from growing evidence that people highly involved in value-laden social issues generate the strongest emotional responses to issue-related persuasive appeals. These two models were tested in a study in which undergraduate students were presented with a picture of a cute or an ugly animal and a flyer from an organization advocating a pro- or anti-environment stance with respect to preserving the animals habitat. The responses showed that emotive imagery was most persuasive among the most involved environment supporters, providing clear evidence of passionate reasoning.

Subgroup differentiation and subgroup bias among Latinos as a function of familiarity and positive distinctiveness.

The existence of subgroup differentiation and its impact on the development of in-group bias were explored among Latinos. Consistent with prior evidence, Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans were more likely than Anglos to distinguish between Latino subgroups. However, Latinos did not distinguish equally between Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. Latinos differentiated their own subgroup from others but were no more likely than Anglos to differentiate between Latino subgroups to which they did not belong. Latinos even regarded the term Hispanic as more applicable to members of their own subgroup than to members of other subgroups. This tendency among Latinos to view their own subgroup as distinct from others was also linked to a bias for fellow subgroup members but not for Latinos overall. Moreover, results suggested that subgroup differentiation was based more on a desire for positive distinctiveness than on familiarity with members of different Latino subgroups.

Gender Stereotyping and Candidate Evaluation

Women politicians are a rare breed in politics, especially at the national level. Consider the makeup of elected representatives in almost any western-style democracy, with the exception of Scandinavian countries, and one discovers the same glaring absence of women. Thirty-six percent of elected representatives in the lower houses of parliament in the Netherlands and Iceland are women (Interparliamentary Union, 2001). But in the United States, a country seen as at the forefront of the modern women’s movement, women represent a mere 13.5% of all Congressional districts and constitute 13% of all senators (Center for American Woman and Politics, 2001). In the United Kingdom, the 1997 election of Tony Blair resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of women parliamentarians. Nonetheless, they remain at 18% in the House of Commons. Numbers are even lower in Italy and France where women make up 11.1% and 10.9% respectively of all national elected representatives (Interparliamentary Union, 2001).