John Zaller Theory Of Polarization Essay

Furthermore, populism plays an imperative role in Alberta’s political culture. In fact, Stewart and Archer (2000) maintain that “Alberta politics is leadership politics… encouraging direct, populist links between the leader and the public (pg 172-173). Hence, Prentice’s decision to receive Wildrose floor-crossers, as well as make hazardous public statements may have annulled the possibility of a populist link between Albertans and his leadership. Furthermore, it is important to note that while positive perceptions of Prentice were faltering amongst Albertan voters, the Progressive Conservative’s campaign strategy was to portray the party leader as front and centre. This was despite the growing disaffection of Albertan voters towards Prentice. Therefore, the strategy undertaken by the Progressive Conservatives’ jeopardized their party’s support, and contributed to the election’s drastic

“Public opinion is formed and expressed by machinery. The newspapers do an immense amount of thinking for the average man and woman. In fact, they supply them with such a continuous stream of standardized opinion, bourne along upon an equally inexhaustible flood of news and sensation, collected from every part of the world every hour of the day, that there is neither the need nor the leisure for personal reflection. All this is but part of a tremendous educating process. It is an education at once universal and superficial. It produces enormous numbers of standardized citizens, all equipped with regulation opinions, prejudices and sentiments according to their class or party.” – Winston S. Churchill

Although the increase in ideological polarization in the legislative body of our nation has tracked the decline in political trust of the general public over the past several decades, their causal relationship goes in both directions. In other words, congressional polarization is the consequence, as well as the cause, of low-level political trust observed in the mass population. Together, they create a political “death spiral” that can render our legislative body of government dysfunctional. This paper will discuss the definition of political trust, its important role in the well-being of the nation, and its two-way causal relationship with congressional polarization.

Sunstein argues that an echo-chamber effect results when people receive news from various media outlets. Sunstein asserts that, when a person gets their news from a medium which embraces similar ideological viewpoints, this person’s beliefs not only harden, but become situated on more extreme ends of the political spectrum. Three-stage academic studies conducted over the past three decades have found that balanced presentations of news, which carefully examine both sides to an argument, are more likely to increase polarization, rather than to reduce it. This is due to “biased assimilation”, where a person credits the information which supports their original view and dismisses information which opposes it. This also explains why it is difficult to force out false rumors and factual errors, since corrections can be self-defeating, leading people to having a firmer commitment to their erroneous beliefs. However, Sunstein argues, surprising validators can be used to allow people to reconsider information from a source they find credible. Sunstein concludes with arguing that what matters most is not what is being said, but who is saying

In this essay, I will be discussing policies enacted by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and explaining how they relate to the political compass. In the first paragraph, I will explain the difference between libertarian and authoritarian policies. In the second paragraph, I will discuss the Liberal government’s proposal to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to add gender expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination, and illustrate why that constitute a libertarian policy. In the third paragraph, I will discuss the liberal proposal amending the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and why that constitute an authoritarian policy. Afterward, in the fourth paragraph, I will explain the difference between the left-wing and the right-wing policies. In the fifth paragraph, I will discuss the Canadian Liberal government decision on the rise of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) payouts and why that constitute a left-wing policy. Then in the sixth paragraph, I will discuss the Liberal’s Canada-EU free trade agreement and why that constitute a right-wing policy.

Canadian politics has a tendency to be defined by the respective political parties and the different patterns of the party's competition. Carty et. al says, in order to make sense of Canada, you must first make sense of its party politics. At the same time, though, Jane Jenson and her colleague Janine Brodie have stated that the political parties are known to be the main actors when it comes to Canadian politics. Of course, there is some sort of doubt that these political parties of Canada run a central role when it comes to discourse. Therefore, the only way to have a better understanding of present-day Canadian politics, it is necessary to look towards Canada’s political systems of parties, the definition and structure of it, how each

With the electorate choosing the President, an alternate situation could have arisen where a popular candidate like Mulcair was selected for the job rather than an executive nominated collectively by the party the electorate chose to represent the majority (Reznick). Moreover, while the voter under the parliamentary system puts great emphasis on a party’s manifesto, the presidential system puts more emphasis on the individual candidates perceived abilities and past performance as an indicator for future performance. For example, Fearon (1999) argues that voters have to make a decision about about the qualities of the politician from observed outcomes and that the purpose of elections is to provide the electorate with an instrument to remove politicians believed to be worse than the expected quality of an untested alternate (APA CITATION). Thus, Harper’s unpopular rule with a gap between his promises and performance on almost every front would not have helped in retaining the executive branch under the presidential system with an early election call even though he had the most experience campaigning as a federal leader. That is because strategic voter choices are influenced by factors such as the number of votes allocated, the way preferences may be ordered or the manner of distributing votes among candidates (APA). Since voting behaviours would

Canadian politics has always been defined by the federal government’s interactions with the various regions and provinces within Canada. Over time, Canadian politics has evolved to be focused on three individual issues: the federal government’s attempt to keep Quebec within the federation, the economic, political, and cultural dominance of Ontario, and, from a Western Canadian point of view, the subordination of the West. The popularity of the latter notion has become increasingly prominent within the Western provinces over the previous decades, due to the government’s focus on the former two issues. And, for many Western Canadians, their relationship with the federal government has largely been defined around Ottawa’s refusal

The adversarial media's’ role as framers in a representative democracy causes increased polarization in the United States. Those on either side of the political spectrum are already divided and news outlets take advantage of this divide, feeding on selective exposure. On social media, many people only see opinions which confirm or support their own, limiting their range of perspectives on important issues. Televised news outlets are culprits of the same crime, with some supporting extreme conservative ideas and others extreme liberal ideas. Very rarely is there a story that is looked at from multiple perspectives. Thus, the country becomes polarized on a variety of issues, especially those which get a lot of media attention, which are usually

Previously I discussed how and why polarization is created, further, I will be discussing to what extent are we experiencing polarization currently and what effect does polarization have in the United States. John Duca introduced the idea of media fragmentation which is the concept of increasing the number of platforms that media is available on and more access to media. In, "New Media and the Polarization of American Political Discourse" Matthew Baum analyzes the use of the internet as a news source and its effect on political polarization. The data presented shows that both left and right news sources skew their stories in their favors while bipartisan sources are more likely to cover critical stories of each given political party.

Political culture in this context of Ontario can be deduced to mean a set of shared beliefs, history, outlooks and sentiments that Ontarians hold over an extended period of time and their political behavior. Political culture can be studied over a long period of time and is oriented to the values and habits of the peoples’ minds. Political culture in Ontario has been gradually changing wit consequences propounding. The changes in the political sector tend to be ideologies, principles, and

A large majority of Canadians may not have the interest, ability or opportunity to be political knowledgeable which explains the lack of ideological thought processes. Nevertheless, people can still have a main ideological conviction as seen people’s party identify. ideological thinking does not always equate to political awareness. Many ideological driven individuals act on motivational reasoning, where they seek reports with their perspectives, preventing them from realizing other information.

The 2015 Canadian Federal Election, which saw Justin Trudeau become the new Prime Minister, brought in the highest ever number of voters in Canadian history. Despite the high confidence of the Conservative party to win this election, many factors contributed to their defeat. Chief among these factors, which is the focus of this paper, pertains to the type of electoral system employed in Canada: the “first-past-the-post” (FPTP) or “single-member plurality.” This paper presents an analysis of the outcome of the 2015 election that is grounded in a discussion of how different electoral systems produce the particular structures that directly contribute to election results.

Throughout the semester we have been discussing the idea of polarization and political trust among the mass public. Hetherington and Rudolph’s central theory was based around the idea that polarization is at an all-time high in the United States. Many Americans are consistently displaying polarization in their policy preferences as well as how they feel about members of the opposite party. Due to the public lack of trust in the government, the probability of Congress compromising reduces. Since there is already an increasingly polarized political environment that has difficulties passing laws, the book discovers that trust in the government helps explain the reason why Washington is dysfunctional. Political trust helps create consensus in the public by providing a bridge between individuals across both party lines. A challenge in measuring polarization comes from the idea that many American’s don’t want to view themselves as extreme so they will typically take on moderate views. Also some individuals are not as politically knowledgeable so they usually fall in the middle. They solved this challenge by employing alternatives to a literal definition of polarization. Lastly, Hetherington and Rudolph stated that “a polarization of trust stands in the way of the emergence of public consensus on things, such as, public policy (H&R, 2015, pg.25)”. Also, a polarization of trust has cause people to become unwilling to make ‘ideological sacrifices.’

Democratic or Republican, the mention of these two words during a normal election brings the word “Polarizing” to mind. Notably, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J Trump are polarizing figures to the opposing party and within their respective parties. The United States Constitution only gives three requirements for the office of president; that leaves the vetting and comparison of the presidential candidates up to the people of the United States. For citizens that care about their vote even when the candidates are not their primary choices the best option is to keep to the basics; to avoid getting bogged down in the politics keep the examination simple and on the personal candidate.