While there have always been those in the American public who mistrust science and scientists’ views of the world, they have tended to be a minority of the larger public. Recent COVID-19 related events indicate that could be changing for some key groups. What might explain the present state of mistrust of science within an important component of the American public? In this study, we delve deeply into this question and examine what citizens today believe about science and technology and why, focusing on core theories of trust, risk concern, and political values and on the important role of science optimism and pessimism orientations. Using national public survey data, we examine the correlates of science optimism and pessimism and test the efficacy of this construct as drivers of biotechnology policy. We find that science optimism and pessimism are empirically useful constructs and that they are important predictors of biotechnology policy choices.

This study focuses on the theoretical links between two important ingredients of individuals’ fundamental political values (i.e. authoritarian ideology and national attachment) and their life satisfaction assessments in an authoritarian context. We employ data from a 2016 national public survey in China to empirically examine how these political values relate to Chinese citizens’ life satisfaction. Our regression analyses demonstrate that Chinese citizens with stronger authoritarian ideology and national attachment are likely to report a higher level of life satisfaction. Our study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of the connections between political values and citizen life satisfaction. It also advances our understanding of the origins of social and political stability in authoritarian regimes, where citizen life satisfaction usually represents a major source of state legitimacy.

When citizens hold multiple values relevant to their policy opinions, they might experience value conflict, value reconciliation or make a value trade-off. Yet, it is unclear which individuals are able to manage their multiple values in these ways. We posit a sophistication-interaction theory of value pluralism where the most politically sophisticated individuals are able to reconcile the existence of multiple values, thus increasing the stability of their policy opinions. We test this hypothesis using a series of heteroskedastic graded item response theory models of public opinion toward policies related to climate change. We find that people structure their policy preferences toward climate change policies in values toward the environment and the economy, but only the most sophisticated citizens are able to reconcile the potential conflict between these values.

The use of scientific information in the policy-making process is prevalent in today’s society, and political figures frequently consult scientists and experts when considering complex issues like climate change. While policy process literature concerning agenda setting and policy networks, such as epistemic communities and advocacy coalitions, considers the role of scientists in policymaking, very little work has provided insight into the relative influence and perceived relationships between scientists and policymakers. The ability of scientists and policymakers to work together has important implications for policy outcomes. We explore individual scientist’s perceptions of the collective influence the scientific community has on policymaking, in addition to perceptions of relationships between scientists and policymakers. We suggest that a number of factors are relevant including trust, contact, attitudes, specialisation and demographics. Our findings indicate that, from scientists’ perspectives, contact with policymakers, trust and attitudes about climate change play a significant role in shaping their relationship with policymakers.

While various models have been developed to account for differences in participation levels between African-Americans and Anglos, the empirical evidence for these models is rather limited; fails to include ethnic minority groups other than African-Americans; and assumes that the models are equally effective in explaining the behavior of all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity. This paper addresses these limitations by evaluating five models of participation to determine whether factors associated with Anglo and African-American participation are also associated with Mexican-American and Asian-American participation. We find that although the models apply differentially to each of the four groups, they nonetheless account for participation differences across racial/ethnic groups.

There is conventional political wisdom that high voter turnout in a U.S. presidential election advantages the majority party. Because the Democratic party has been the dominant party in recent decades, this turnout advantage is often believed to accrue to Democratic presidential candidates. In an article in the June 1980 issue of the Review, James DeNardo challenged this conventional view. Indeed, he claimed that the majority party was likely to suffer with increased turnout when the behavior of core and peripheral voters is taken into account. Harvey J. Tucker and Arnold Vedlitz take issue with DeNardo's reasoning and evidence, and DeNardo embellishes and underscores his original case.

The Political Participation patterns of Americans vary greatly. Investigators have found that much of this variation can be explained by individual economic and social characteristics. In fact, both the extent and direction of political participation have been found to be strongly associated with socioeconomic status factors such as income, occupation, and education.

Sex differences in attitudes and behavior are nowhere more evident than in politics. But they also exist at the level of the mass public. Survey data have shown that women, as compared to men, tend to be less politically efficacious, less politically interested, have less political information, and are less likely to participate in politics. The explanations usually advanced for this phenomenon are either preadult sex-role socialization, or situational and structural factors encountered in adulthood. Dominant in the literature has been the socialization model. As part of sex-role socialization, boys are encouraged to be “politically expressive,” while girls are discouraged. This orientation, it is argued, persists beyond adolescence. The situational model disregards early sex-role learning and attributes differences in gender related political behavior to the circumstances and life-experience of adulthood. Almost all previous empirical research has been designed to test the socialization model. Our purpose, in this paper, is to test for the effects of situational factors on sex-related political attitudes and behaviors.