From Pluralism to Polarization: Public Opinion and Policy Preferences

Session Submission Type: Virtual Created Panel

Session Description

The worldwide spread of populist movements and the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the polarization of pluralistic societies by amplifying existing divisions among individuals and social groups. Yet political science is only beginning to examine how these trends affect public opinion and policy preferences -- and how governments respond. In Poland, for example, survey data suggests that populist views have been positively correlated with inconsistent and “anti-mainstream” policy preferences that challenge the status quo. In Montenegro, citizen attitudes toward minority rights and European Union integration are strongly associated with support for independence. As politics continues to move online in the pandemic era, social media has emerged as a key site of contestation in the shift from pluralism to polarization. In China, content analysis of Weibo posts reveals that increased exposure to state propaganda has paradoxically boosted support for government policies during COVID-19 while simultaneously widening the gap between netizens along the political spectrum. As governments confront increasingly polarized citizens, whether online or offline, they are expanding traditional playbooks of responsiveness and repression. The Chinese government, for example, has attempted to shape public opinion and policy preferences through “scapegoating”: selectively withholding censorship of criticism about targeted actors to promote diversionary collective action. Papers on this panel investigate the contemporary shift from pluralism to polarization and its effects on public opinion and policy preferences using multiple methodologies and in diverse political settings.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Individual Presentations

• Polarization in Elite Discourses of COVID-19 on Chinese Social Media - Tianguang Meng, Tsinghua University; Kaiping Zhang, Tsinghua University; Siyao ZHENG, Tsinghua University

• Scapegoating: A Text-Mining Study on Diversionary Collective Actions in China - Chelsea C. Chou, National Taiwan University

• Voting and Socially Valued Goods: Do Citizens Reward Incumbents or Punish Them? - Mikolaj Czesnik, SWPS University

• Support for Democracy and Economic Liberalism: Evidence from the South Caucasus - Valery Dzutsati, University of Kansas

Chair

• Chengzuo Tang Duke University

Discussant

• Rachel Vanderhill Wofford College