Political Studies Review (PSR) provides a unique intellectual space for rigorous high-quality peer-reviewed original research across political science and the study of politics in related fields that aims at stimulating wide-ranging debate and cutting edge discussion of current disputes and issues in the discipline within the UK and internationally.
Democracy, Anti-Politics, Populism, and Elections in the United States: Explore this collection of PSR articles, published over the years, examining these themes in depth.
“Political science is more important than ever before, but it may need to be slightly more nimble and agile — passionate, dare I say. Where’s the passion in political science?” asks Professor Matthew Flinders. “I think to some extent, what political science has allowed to happen is almost to take the passion and emotion out of the subject, which leaves you with an empty vessel” – he adds. In this interview discussing his reflections on Robert Putnam’s book, “The Upswing: How We Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again” (co-authored with Shaylyn Romney Garrett), Professor Flinders delves into the evolving landscape of political science and its implications. Putnam’s book serves as a gateway to a broader discussion on US politics, societal progress, engaged scholarship, the significance of the ‘so what’ question, and the future of political science.
PSR: In ‘The Upswing,’ Robert Putnam, with Shayla Romney Garrett, describes the American shift from the individualist, self-centred ‘I’ society to a more communitarian, socially conscious ‘We’ society. What are the major characteristics of this phase of U.S. history?
Prof Matthew Flinders: Every fantastic book is actually very simple. The best scholarship has a very simple argument. It’s clean, it’s a sharp focus. And the focus of this book is simple, it’s that we have moved from a ‘We’ society to a ‘Me’ society. We’ve moved from a very collective-eye society to a highly individualised and fragmented society.
The argument is that America went through a transition before where it recognized that the balance between the Me and the We had gone too far and it proactively and collectively introduced policies through the political system to shift the balance back towards a fairer, more egalitarian, more equal society. The high point in this argument is the 1960s. But then it has lost it, and the balance has gone once again too far.
There are a couple of things that are interesting about this book. First, on the one hand, this is a book about American politics and history. On the other hand, it’s not a book about American politics at all. Actually, the broader, macro-political themes and issues that the book identifies are visible around the world in different forms, different contexts, and different textures. But essentially: concern about democratic disaffection, falling levels of trust, high levels of social inequality, increasing fragmentation, democratic dissatisfaction, backswing, backsliding, pitchfork politics, whatever you want to call it. You can see this in many parts of the world. So, there are strong comparative insights from this detailed analysis of American politics. And I think those comparative insights are still there to be fully drawn out.
A second, really interesting issue is that the book was written and submitted to the publisher before Donald Trump became president. In fact, that’s fascinating in many ways (I don’t know if Robert is thinking about doing this), but there needs to be an updated Upswing with the new chapter, which is the Trump years. It just seems that in many ways all of the issues about the ‘We’ collective to the individualistic ‘Me‘ and many of the broader socio-political things that he’s warning against came to a head with the populism of Donald Trump. And yet, the book was finished just before, probably the strongest evidence in favour of his whole thesis happened. So, in that way, The Upswing was pointing towards an emerging pathology that came to its head after the book was published.
You also mentioned that the vision of a ‘We’ society described in the book sometimes downplays the extent of discrimination on various levels. Could you elaborate on that?
I think that’s one of the interesting elements that Robert Putnam and Shayla Romney are working on within certain datasets and they highlight social progress in key areas: education, equality, housing, and culture. And this allows them to design and offer an incredibly simplistic pattern. It’s as if the data, no matter what the topic, show this arc of social progress: growing, growing, growing from the first half of the 20th century, peaking in the 60s and then rapidly falling away. Essentially Putnam is arguing that we need to go back up against progressive politics, interventions, and the role of the state in creating a more equal society.
Now, the slight problem, or the slight issue which other people have now recognized, as in some ways the arc of social progress that Putnam offers is too neat. It’s too simple. Not only the themes that he looks at, there were peaks and troughs throughout the 20th century, but also throughout the whole 20th century. There were areas where certain social groups did feel marginalized and didn’t feel taken into account by the progressive politics that Putnam is essentially praising.
That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t huge social progress, but it means the arc of social progress wasn’t as inclusive as Putnam suggests. And in some ways, the 1960s is almost seen as this golden Age of American Society. And of course, the end of the 1960s is known as being around social protests about race, gender and war. It was a time of complete upheaval in American politics by social groups who felt completely overlooked. Now, thinking aloud, Robert Putnam may well suggest yes, but those protests, those interventions, were themselves based on other cultural and educational games that put the foundations in place for that protest.
But overall, the arc is slightly too neat. And doesn’t quite capture some of the variations in texture and tone and some of the big elements of American Society that didn’t feel part of the gain of the 20th century. And in fact, if you look at some determinants of social and political inequality, they have increased and are increasing, and have increased since that book was published. So, I think what’s interesting, and I don’t want to get too academic on this, but you might say that a macro-political level Robert Putnam’s thesis might be broadly correct.
However, if you were to apply a slightly more fine-grained, mid-level meso-level analysis, I think you would find higher levels of variation which doesn’t really get picked up in the discussion. But again, (and this is a broader issue for political science) I would say Robert Putnam is not a political scientist as such. Robert Putnam has moved into a position where he is a rare breed of political science/ public intellectual.
This is a man who speaks to presidents regularly. This is a man who’s heavily involved in Community Action and trying to change politics. So, this is a book that I think isn’t written purely for an academic audience. It’s written to be read by a wider audience within and beyond academia. And that might explain why some of the more detailed micro-political, methodological issues are not explored in the detail that maybe members of the academic community would like.
Throughout the whole 20th century, there were areas where certain social groups did feel marginalized and didn’t feel taken into account by the progressive politics that, that Putnam is essentially praising. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t huge social progress, but it means the arc of social progress wasn’t as inclusive as Putnam suggests.
Can we say that Putnam’s book is a critique of neoliberal policies?
For me the most interesting element of the book and where if I were to say there was the book provides a foundation for more work to be done. Or if I was talking to Robert Putnam, having a cup of tea and saying, you know, great book, what about X? It would be: the book has a long title. It’s The Upswing. How America Became Great or Solved Social Issues, And How It Can Do It Again. So, what’s interesting about the book is it isn’t designed to be just a historical analysis. It’s designed and explicitly about how we’ve done it before in history. History offers lessons on how we can make the art go back up again. What’s really interesting about the book is: that it is about 250 to 300 pages long, of the main chapters, 95% are historical analyses of the past. And to be honest yes, you could see it as a criticism of neoliberalism, but we don’t really need more criticisms of neoliberalism. It’s sort of some extent what political science has been doing for a long time.
The interesting part for me was what can be done, which is squeezed into about 20 pages of the book. And is also fairly broad apple pie, sort of we’ve got to get together. We’ve got to find new solutions. It isn’t actually detailed technical policy prescriptions and for me, that was the interesting element that a book that is set up that we’ve done it before. We can learn from history. We can procreate an upswing. It almost takes you to the brink of an intellectual cliff. And you want to jump off and you get there. And you’re left hanging. Because actually that last bit of what should be done it’s nowhere near substantive or detailed. And for me, that’s a really interesting question, not just about why those more solution-orientated content isn’t there because none of these issues are easy. But, there is a broader issue here that Putnam is suggesting that we can learn from history. We can learn about what happened between 1900 and 1910, and we can take those insights and lessons. He talks about investigative journalists and the muckrakers and the role they played in politics.
You could see it as a criticism of neoliberalism, but we don’t really need more criticisms of neoliberalism. It’s sort of some extent what political science has been doing for a long time. The interesting part for me was the and what can be done.
But we’re talking about the 21st century. We’re talking about an age now of Internet social media, algorithmic governance, and globalisation. I’m not wholly convinced that actually, the lessons from the 20th century are going to provide us with insights for the 21st century. Just because the pace of socio-political change and technology has moved, I made some rather terribly cliched statements that the book is on a carthorse and now we’re on the information superhighway. But the scope of change is so massive. I’m just not convinced that we can automatically say because we’ve done it again, we’ve done it in the past. We can do it again.
And coming back to reinforcing inequalities: you mentioned Donald Trump and his presidency. How has it influenced the quality in the US society, also in the context of The Upswing?
There is an obvious link between the, in many ways, declining arc of social progress that Putnam followed up until around, I think his data goes up to the mid-1999 or something like that. In many ways, what Trump has done now, if you were to carry on the data was that the dip today has gone far lower than Putnam even thought it would have done.
In many ways, again, I think what’s interesting is that populism is itself a reaction against sections of the community that feel lost, vulnerable, dejected, peripheral, and overwhelmed. They don’t support the populist strongman. They often feel they don’t have any choice. It’s almost a protest vote to make those more mainstream parties take notice of a broader constituency. So, in many ways, Trump funnelled and inflamed frustrations for his own benefit. Those in many ways came ahead in the assault on Capitol Hill itself. But I do think what’s interesting now, and I know Donald Trump thinks that he may have a second crack at the Presidency, is that if you look at current data in America about what are their key political issues and concerns, what’s fascinating is the economy is still #1. But #2 is the health of democracy. So, I think a really interesting legacy effect, which might be slightly more positive, is that a lot of Americans now realise that democracy, faith in democracy, participation and listening not just talking, are aspects of democracy that are far more fragile than they ever really understood.
Now, whether that legacy effect of alerting people to the fragility of democracy will last or have some practical value in the next elections, I’m not sure. But it is fascinating. In opinion polls at the moment, constitutional democratic issues would never really be up there as a list of key concerns. It’s right up at the moment in a post-Trump context.
What I think is interesting is that in many ways, political science doesn’t have a choice. Research funding for the discipline will increasingly require political scientists to demonstrate or provide an answer to the so what question.
So, can this book be considered a part of solution-orientated political science? What would be – in your opinion – the implications of this book for the condition of political science in general?
What I think is really interesting at the moment is that Universities and higher education academics are increasingly expected to work in a different context. That is a context where their work is expected to have some – not direct, not simplistic – but it’s able to have some relevance, potentially some impact beyond academia. I know, and I completely understand that many academics don’t agree with this agenda. And actually, I’ve just written a big piece which is actually about the importance of political science and whether political science should reject the impact agenda.Putting that to one side, what I think is interesting is that in many ways, political science doesn’t have a choice. Research funding for the discipline will increasingly require political scientists to demonstrate or provide an answer to the so what question. And for too long, political science didn’t have an answer to the so what question. That’s it, simple.
If you’re going to have public money, you need to have an explanation that you can give to anybody beyond the academic arena as to why your research should have public funding.And I think that what’s interesting about Putnam’s book is it demonstrates that there is a big public demand in public appetite out there for what I call engaged scholarship.
Putnam’s work is based on absolutely top-class political science. But it is translated and written for a more engaged mass public audience. Of course, there are many other political scientists, and social scientists who are very good at doing this sort of work. Hochschild’s book Strangers In Their Own Land around why American voters in the Deep South find Trump attractive. I’m not on commission, but Hochschild’s book is the most beautiful book that has been read by a massive audience within and beyond academia.
So, I think the importance of Putting’s book is it demonstrates that writing for a public audience doesn’t have to involve dumbing down your scholarship. In fact, I think that in many areas political science suffers. And particularly the social sciences suffer from a cultural barrier which says: if this work is readable and accessible to a broad audience, it can’t be real scholarship. And the truth is, as I said before, if you look at all the strongest, most seminal books in political science, they share a common issue: a simple, concise argument, accessible, flowing, coherent, and readable. And too much political science still is teched up, verbose, and beyond the understanding of all but the four or five people in that tiny subfield that read that work.
Now, I think things are changing. I think younger early career researchers, want to engage, they’ve got a passion for engaging. But the problem is the incentive structure within political science still has a very narrow academic currency. Whether you get a job or whether you get promoted is based on how much external research you can bring in and your peer-reviewed academic publications. Now again, people will say “Oh, that’s changing”, and it is changing, but it is changing very slowly. Because universities and higher education tend to be very risk-averse.
And I think until there is an opportunity for political science to almost cease the impact agenda and redefine what relevance is, and why the discipline therefore matters. In a sense, this is what Putnam’s book does show – that you might argue, looking around the world today, that there’s been no time when an engaged, vibrant political science was more needed in society. To help people understand some of the clashes, challenges, arguments and truths, alternative truths and fake news that’s out there. It doesn’t mean telling people what’s right or wrong.But it’s about engaging with different publics, and different communities in different ways to help them have the tools and frameworks to think for themselves more deeply about that increasingly fluid, loud and polarised context in which they’re living. So, in a sense, political science is more important than ever before, but it may need to be slightly more nimble and agile. Passionate, dare I say. I mean, where’s the passion in political science? When’s the last time anybody read a journal article and came away thinking: Blimey, that really fired me up with an interest in an area?
So in a sense, political science is more important than ever before, but it may need to be slightly more nimble and agile. Passionate dare I say. I mean where’s the passion in political science?
I read something that I had completely not thought of before. I mean, maybe people can write to me and say that they’ve read those pieces, but a lot of academics would say to me: Oh, politics study is not supposed to be passionate. It’s supposed to be technical, sophisticated, scientific. I don’t believe that politics is about emotions. It’s about relationships. And I think to some extent, what political science has allowed to happen is almost to take the passion and emotion out of the subject, which leaves you with an empty vessel.
When it comes to engagement and the ever-pressing “so what” question, some researchers emphasise that engagement can lead to a pitfall, as sometimes it means focusing on negative processes and phenomena, and it often does not bring expected effects. What’s the solution in such a case?
And then what’s really good is that there is a new strand of what’s called positive political science. This is exactly on studying success in politics, what can we learn from success instead of always studying failure where we can find success, how can we scale up, scale out, and scale down?
First of all, I think that political science has got very much hung up on problem-focused analysis. We know what most of the problems are, what we actually need is more solution-orientated political science. Now, a lot of people again will say “No, that’s not the job of political science”, but I think there is space to do both problem and solution-orientated. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. And then what’s really good is that there is a new strand of what’s called positive political science, particularly within the governance and public administration sphere led by scholars, at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and this is exactly on studying success in politics, what can we learn from success instead of always studying failure where we can find success. How can we scale up, scale-out, and scale down?
But again, there is a danger that a political science that only ever studies and promotes examples of failure, blunders, disasters, etcetera. It just becomes part of a broader negativity which fires up a politics of pessimism amongst the public. So, in a sense, I’m not calling for the political scientist to be naively positive, but it is to at least acknowledge, that many governments around the world got many things wrong. But there were also examples of where things went well and where we might learn positive lessons for building up resilience for the future.
Matthew Flindersis Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre and Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield. He is also Vice President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom and is currently Chair of the Universities Policy Engagement Network.
“Research has found that citizens in the United States are more likely to turn to late-night comedy programs than to national newspapers for their election news. As we continue to observe these phenomena, it is increasingly more important to expand the research agenda as well” – claims Caroline V. Leicht. In this interview, based on the research article Nightly News or Nightly Jokes? News Parody as a Form of Political Communication: A Review of the Literature, Leicht elaborates on the consequences of the increasing popularity of political satire, gender stereotypes and US Politics.
PSR: In your PSR article, you argued that for some people, political satire is not only entertainment but also a source of political information. How widespread is this phenomenon?
Caroline V. Leicht: In the United States, it is certainly a widespread phenomenon. Political satire is a key element of the US-American entertainment industry. Programs like Saturday Night Live (SNL) have been on the air for almost 50 years and more recently, news parody shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report or Last Week Tonight have had wide success as they rose to prominence in the age of social media where content is spread more rapidly and more widely. The jokes and humour on these programs are highly political; however, it is not just a means to make fun of politics but also a means to provide political commentary and contextualization. In a way, it can help in making political processes and issues more accessible to viewers. A prominent example that comes to mind is John Oliver’s segment on Last Week Tonight about Net Neutrality in which he explains the issue in more depth and provides the background that citizens would need to engage in informed discourse about the topic. And there are many other examples like this. As I detail in my PSR article, studies have shown that there are real learning effects associated with watching these types of programs. In addition to this, research has found that citizens in the United States are more likely to turn to late-night comedy programs than to national newspapers for their election news. As we continue to observe these phenomena, it is increasingly more important to expand the research agenda as well. In my PhD project, I examine the role of gender in political satire representations of candidates, a subject that I believe is immensely important for this research area but has unfortunately remained substantially unexplored to date.
You argue that “Research has shown that these programs have real effects on political attitudes and candidate evaluations”. How does political satire affect its audiences? How can political satire programmes influence political behaviours or electoral behaviours?
In my PSR article, I identified three key strands of the literature that reflect the different types of audience effects: political knowledge acquisition, political attitudes, and political participation. First, research has found that political satire programs like The Daily Show feature substantive information about politics that is comparable to traditional news media, and experimental studies have confirmed that exposure to political satire can lead to higher levels of political knowledge. Second, the literature on political satire suggests that this media format can affect issue salience and candidate evaluations. We know that news media have the power to set the agenda for their respective audience, making some political issues or characteristics of political actors more salient than others through editorial decisions and filtering. The same is true for political satire, so the issues or versions of politicians presented in these programs could become more salient for audience members. And third, prior research has found that political satire can mobilize its viewers politically, for instance through calls to action. Political participation is often measured through voting, but a slightly different “real world example” that comes to mind is the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” organized by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in 2010, just a few weeks before the midterm elections in the US that year. Over 200,000 people turned out for this rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC – that certainly shows that political satire can mobilize audience members politically and in the real world. Taking these three types of audience effects into account and considering the similarities with more traditional news media, it just becomes even clearer that political satire is a media format that should receive more research attention in political science.
We know that news media have the power to set the agenda for their respective audience, making some political issues or characteristics of political actors more salient than others through editorial decisions and filtering. The same is true for political satire, so the issues or versions of politicians presented in these programs could become more salient for audience members.
In your recent research, you’ve undertaken an impressive analysis of SNL sketches from the 2016 election cycle, referring to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Could you elaborate on the conceptual framework of this research, as well as on your latest research on the 2020 Democratic Primaries?
We know that citizens turn to political satire for election news, and we know that political satire can have real effects on its audiences; however, there are still significant gaps in the research on political satire. The literature has thus far been primarily concerned with audience effects studies, the format of news parody shows, and partisanship as a mediating factor. In my PhD research, I thus decided to address these limitations by exploring the role of gender as a mediating factor for candidate representations and focusing on an understudied genre of political satire, namely sketch comedy. My current paper combines frameworks from the research on gendered media representations and political satire to make a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to the field. Role congruity theory and gendered framing built the basis for my research questions and hypotheses as I wanted to test whether the gender stereotypes and biases that have been observed in traditional news media are also present in political satire. Understanding these gendered representations of candidates is important because it provides insights into how voters perceive political processes and actors, particularly if we take into account that political satire has effects on candidate evaluations. To test my hypotheses, I examined all Saturday Night Live sketches about the 2016 and 2020 Democratic Primaries and general elections, using a mixed-methods approach consisting of content analysis – for which I developed a comprehensive coding scheme – and framing analysis.
Saturday Night Show highlights: Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, and Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton, Creative Commons License
What kind of gendered stereotypes were the most visible in your research?
It is still a working paper, so the results are preliminary, but the initial results reflect observations from studies of more traditional news media. Female candidates were often framed through more personal characteristics or relationships. For instance, sketches about Hillary Clinton often referenced her husband, former President Bill Clinton. In 2020, Kamala Harris was often portrayed as a maternal figure. An example of this is the SNL sketch about the first presidential debate: Harris (played by Maya Rudolph) enters the stage and tells Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) and Joe Biden (Jim Carrey) to calm down, apologize for their rowdy debate behaviour, and then says she has snacks for them backstage for after the debate. She even refers to herself as “Momala” which is what the real Harris’ stepchildren call her. My initial results indicate that the male candidates were more likely to be framed through issues and policy proposals than the female candidates. So far, the results reflect a number of “typical” gendered stereotypes and show that representations and framing of candidates in political satire are indeed gendered. This is an important observation to make as it helps in tracing the origins of gendered biases observed in political processes and voting behaviours: Voters who watched the SNL sketches will have been exposed to gendered representations of the candidates as well as framing mediated by gender stereotypes, and this could influence their candidate evaluations.
What were the major differences in portraying the three analysed candidates in terms of masculine and feminine traits?
For my study, I built on existing works on gendered traits to categorize the SNL characterizations of the candidates. As an example of initial results: In the 2016 general election, Hillary Clinton was often characterized as “assertive” or as a “leader”, both of which are categorized as masculine traits in the coding instrument. A possible explanation for this portrayal could be that the real Clinton was “performing” a political leadership role as the presidential candidate and political leadership roles are still regarded in more masculine terms, as research has shown. We know that gendered characterizations of candidates have been observed in traditional news media coverage, so my results could be evidence that SNL is comparable to news media in this way. This would link back to what we talked about earlier: That political satire is comparable to traditional news media in several ways and therefore warrants more research attention as a political information source
My initial results indicate that the male candidates were more likely to be framed through issues and policy proposals than the female candidates. So far, the results reflect a number of “typical” gendered stereotypes and show that representations and framing of candidates in political satire are indeed gendered.
Can you think of any examples of political satire sketches/ shows reflecting on recent political turmoil, for instance in Ukraine or Iran?
Political satire does not always have to be something to laugh about, and I think certainly with the examples you mention, there is nothing funny about them at all. But political satire, at its core, is about speaking truth to power and about reflecting opinions, discourse or the mood of a given audience. And we can definitely observe this in the examples you mentioned. For instance, the Saturday after Russia invaded Ukraine, SNL did a very somber yet also political cold open. They had the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York perform “Prayer for Ukraine”. No wigs, no costumes, no jokes – just a somber two-minute song. I think that really captured the mood at the time. A few weeks later, SNL opened with a sketch about a fictional “Fox News Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular” in which Tucker Carlson (played by Alex Moffat) and Laura Ingraham (Kate McKinnon) “apologize” for previous comments in support of Russia and then proceed to host guests like Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) to raise money for “the real victims of this invasion, the oligarchs.” The sketch does not make fun of the war, but rather offers a critique of media coverage, the focus on the war’s effect on oligarchs, and politicians’ statements. That is certainly something we can observe for these types of political topics, like the war in Ukraine or the current turmoil in Iran: Political satire offers critiques of news media coverage, critiques of international responses and politicians’ actions or lack thereof.
What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?
As I outlined before, my research addresses gaps in the current literature on political satire. There was a bit of a trend for more political satire research around the 2008 and 2012 US elections, but there is still a lot that has not been explored. The research has thus far been focused primarily on news parody shows, audience effects and partisanship. My PhD research, including my current paper which we talked about earlier, instead focuses on sketch comedy, an understudied genre of political satire, and examines the role of gender in candidate representations. My current paper combines and builds on frameworks from different sub-fields and introduces a comprehensive coding scheme for the content analysis of sketches, thus making a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to the field as well. We know that citizens use political satire programs as news sources, so it is important that we, as researchers, consider these programs news sources as well and direct more research attention to this media format. Gendered representations and framing of candidates can lead to biases in voter perceptions and can affect voting behaviour. So, it is vital to understand these biases in the coverage, examine when and how they appear, and how they are perceived by audiences. And that is precisely what I am doing in my PhD research.
Caroline V Leicht received her MA from the University of Liverpool and is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on political satire as a form of political communication in electoral contexts in the United States.
“Studies have shown that 0ne in four Americans received their election news from late-night comedy shows. And yet the literature on news parody still has significant limitations” – says Caroline V. Leicht.
🔻PSR Podcast #20🔻 @carolineleicht: "Studies have shown that 1 in 4 Americans received their election news from late night #comedy shows. And yet the literature on #news#parody still has significant limitations."
Caroline V Leicht received her MA from the University of Liverpool and is currently a PhD researcher at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on political satire as a form of political communication in electoral contexts in the United States.
Has the Black Lives Matter movement influenced not only public opinion but also HE institutions? Mathis Ebbinghaus and Sihao Huang suggest that there is a temporal association between these time series: the enrolment of Black students and the salience of BLM. Despite some concerns, it did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.Learn more in our interview below and read the PSR article: Institutional Consequences of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Towards Diversity in Elite Education.
Political Studies Review:You claim that “universities expressed their commitment to racial diversity, but university policies aimed at rectifying historic disadvantages were also met with criticism.” What is the situation of universities in the US in terms of racial diversity?
Mathis Ebbinghaus: Yes, that’s right. Racial diversity is one of the big contentious topics in university politics – perhaps because it relates to the meritocratic promise of the American dream. Proponents argue that greater racial diversity reflects fairer conditions that enable historically disadvantaged groups to compete. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, hundreds of universities expressed their commitment to campus equity efforts. Critics are concerned that greater racial diversity comes at the cost of new racial discrimination against academically successful students. In 2020, the enrolment-to-population ratios of Asian students are 4.3 and 3.68 in elite universities and medical schools respectively. Hispanic and Black students are underrepresented compared to their representation in the general population whereas enrolment rates for White students reflect their representation in the US population. In our article, we examine how Black and Asian student representation has changed over time. Contrary to concerns that Asian student representation has declined as a result of growing enrolment rates of Black students, we observe a steady increase in the representation of Asian students alongside increases in the representation of Hispanic students over the past decade. BLM coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities. It did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.
What are the major challenges for policies to efficiently enhance racial diversity in the HE sector?
There certainly are numerous challenges to enhancing racial diversity. As far as our research is concerned, the positive association between racial diversity and Black Lives Matter activism suggests that it will be an important challenge for social justice activists to continuously convince university staff of the worthiness of their claims and to channel the momentum of 2020 into institutional politics that fall to some extent outside the purview of legal obligations.
BLM coincided with increased Black enrolment in highly selective universities. It did not affect broader trends towards greater representation of other minority students.
Based on your research, has the Black Lives Matter protest movement influenced the HE sector in the US at the macro level?
Yes, the data that we analyzed lend credence to this interpretation. In elite education, the shares of Black students in elite undergraduate and medical schools have coincided with the growing influence of the BLM movement. Future research should investigate the same question with methods that allow for more causal interpretations.
Black Lives Matter protest, London, June 2020, phot. E. Kania
You aim at identifying the measurable impacts the BLM movement has had on elite educational institutions. Would you elaborate on your data and methods?
Certainly. But let me just stress again that it would be premature to interpret our findings causally. What we do show is that there is a temporal association between two time series: the enrolment of Black students and the salience of BLM. To measure the salience of the BLM movement we use the GDELT database that has data on TV coverage of 109 local and national television channels. Our university enrolment data span the years from 2011 to 2020. Data on medical school enrolments by race cover twelve years from 2009 to 2020. Both applicant and enrolment numbers were obtained directly from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
One of the effects that you describe is the increase in the enrolment of Black students. How can you explain that?
There are many compelling explanations that could account for this trend. We suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement may have contributed to increases in the enrolment of Black students both directly through interactions between activists and members of admission committees and indirectly through affecting the universities’ broader outlook. Awareness of the university’s values and the presence of passionate students who measure the university by their actions may create conformity pressures among admission board members. In future research, we hope to test these social mechanisms more directly.
We suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement may have contributed to increases in the enrolment of Black student both directly through interactions between acticsts and members of admission committees and indirectly through affecting the universities’ broader outlook.
Have any inter-sectional diversity challenges appeared? Were there any critical voices raised and what would be your response to them?
Yes, there were. Some critics feared that increasing Black student representation would disadvantage other racial groups. Our analysis shows that the representation of Asian students grew steadily for both types of elite education – the opposite of what critics feared. The representation of Hispanic students increased as well, which leaves us with a clear picture: The spikes in Black student representation following spikes in the salience of the BLM movement did not affect broader trends towards greater representation among other minority groups. While enrolment rates for the three largest minority groups in the US have increased over the past decade, enrolment rates for White students continuously decreased.
What are the key contributions your paper brings to the field?
There is more and more evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement shaped public opinion and policy. But movements can also have institutional consequences. Although studied less often, they are no less important. By focusing on the relationship between the Black Lives Matter movement and racial admission practices in elite educational institutions, we contribute to scholarship on the institutional consequences of social movements.
Black Lives Matter protest, source: Pixabay
ABOUT
Mathis Ebbinghaus is a DPhil candidate in sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. His research is in political sociology and he investigates social movements and extraordinary social action.
“What are you to do when your values align from the outside, but your instinct tells you this environment is toxic?” – Stephanie Stark’s comment on New York voters’ response to the confirmed allegations of sexual harassment against Governor Andrew Cuomo. Stark is a former Cuomo’s staffer, and she based her commentary on the PSR article co-authored with Dr Sofia Collignon (University of London).
The part on Governor Cuomo’s case starts at 19m10s.
“Candidate characteristics have an important impact on voter choice, and scandals are found to negatively impact a political campaign. Yet the literature, with its focus on scandals such as financial and (consensual) affairs, has failed to look into how allegations of sexual assault and harassment may impact electability” – claim Stephanie Stark and Sofía Collignon in their PSR article. Learn more about their research on sexual predators in the world of politics, in this research-based interview with one of the authors, Stephanie Stark.
A fuller analysis of these issues can be found in a PSR article: Sexual Predators in Contest for Public Office: How the American Electorate Responds to News of Allegations of Candidates Committing Sexual Assault and Harassmentby Stark and Collignon.
PSR: How would you precisely define a problem of SASH (sexual assault and sexual harassment) in relation to power and powerful institutions?
Stephanie Stark: SASH are expressions of abusing power: it is most common amongst acquaintances where there is a power imbalance. This is especially true in the context of this study. In each of the recent high-profile cases in elections that are used in the study as examples, the politicians are necessarily in a position of power, and their accusers are not. Because we know that SASH are expressions of an abuse of power within a personal relationship, consequently, the question as to how a propensity to abuse power can translate to how voters perceive an accused candidate for public office is existentially relatable. It is particularly relatable in the context of the #MeToo movement, and the 2016 election wherein 19 women officially accused then-candidate Donald Trump of SASH, and as of December 2019, wherein President Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for abusing the power of the office.
Donald J. Trump, a former US President, photo by Nathan Congleton (Flickr)
What were the “milestones” for an increased understanding of this problem? Can we say that the level of scepticism or disbelief towards claims of sexual abuse is continuously diminishing?
The understanding and perception of SASH in American public conversation has evolved throughout the last 70 years and it will likely continue to do so.
Women as property For much of American history, women’s bodies were white men’s legal property, and sexual violence was legally actionable only for men when their property (wives, sisters, and daughters) was damaged.
Sexual Revolution In the 1960s and 1970s, American women began to assert their own perspectives on the subject of sexual violence. It went from being thought of as a random attack by a stranger to women defining it as “a violent crime committed against millions of women by men they knew and trusted.” The increased awareness of SASH incited increased research.
However, the public’s understanding of sexual violence and women’s empowerment led to claims of sexual violence being regarded with increased skepticism in the 1970s (it had always had an air of mistrust because of the private nature of most encounters). The logic was that, because women were choosing to violate the norms of subordination to men, they also sacrificed their right to protection. Therefore, an empowered woman who claimed to be a victim of sexual violence generally was regarded as if she brought it upon herself because she had rejected men’s protection.
Anita Hill in the 1990s The prevalence of sexual violence is evident nowadays with victims reporting in increasing numbers new and historical accounts of SASH. It is common for women to reveal stories of SASH with the encouragement or corroboration of other victims. In the 1990s, there was a surge in reporting called the “Anita Hill effect” after a former staffer for Justice Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, testified in the Justice’s confirmation hearings about his sexual harassment.
MeToo The present-day surge in reporting can be tracked to the “#MeToo movement” that motivated women around the world to share their own experiences
Anita Hill, source: Britannica
In your article, you mention a “rape myth acceptance” – could you elaborate on this category? Are there any other common beliefs or myths that can be considered contributing factors to cycles of harassment, misconduct, and abuse of women by men in power?
Rape myth acceptance explains the reaction to accusations of SASH, and I don’t know its relationship with a propensity to be a perpetrator. Rape myth acceptance is confirmed in the literature as the level of willingness a person may have to disbelieve a victim’s story, or “the amount of stereotypic ideas people have about rape, such as that women falsely accuse men of rape, rape is not harmful, women want or enjoy rape, or women cause or deserve rape by inappropriate or risky behavior”.
In the 1960s and 1970s, American women began to assert their own perspectives on the subject of sexual violence. It went from being thought of as a random attack by a stranger to women defining it as “a violent crime committed against millions of women by men they knew and trusted.”
You mention various politicians accused of sexual abuse in the US. Some of them were able to avoid any repercussions. What about Joe Biden? In March 2020, Tara Reade, a former staffer in Biden’s U.S. Senate office, alleged that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 when she was a staff assistant in his office. President Biden denied these allegations, but what were public perceptions of this accusation?
This is a good question. What our research finds is that 1) Democrats are more likely than Republicans, male or female, to NOT want to vote for a candidate that has been accused of SASH. This means that there were likely some people who chose not to vote for Biden because of the accusation. The research also finds that we need more women like Tara to speak out in order for us to be able to study this topic further. The #MeToo movement allowed women to feel more comfortable speaking out about SASH, which enables us to be able to study it at all. What I mean to say here is that it is worth studying more angles to the scenario. The Tara Reade accusation begs the question: What happens in the electorate when both candidates for office have been accused of SASH? I would imagine, some people may have chosen not to vote at all because both candidates had been accused, contributing to a weakening of our democratic systems and our trust and value in democracy.
You claim that scandals “have a markedly negative impact on voters’ judgment of the candidate”. Is that also the case in relation to sexual scandals? Are we able to determine how reactions differ among particular groups of electorates or particular political parties?
It’s important to note that this study measured SASH, and shouldn’t be put in the same category as sexual scandals, because the former is a crime, and the latter is a consensual experience.
There have been many studies about how scandals, including sex scandals, impact public perception. Those studies informed our research but our study was the first that made the distinction that they should be considered differently because after the #MeToo movement, we’re more aware of what SASH IS. Scandals like financial scandals and sex scandals and corruption scandals are found to negatively impact voters’ judgments, but their judgement is tied to how they see the scandal impacting the JOB of holding public office. So the significance there and relation there to our study is that when people see SASH as a character marker of someone who would abuse power, they relate it to that candidate’s ability to do the job with integrity.
We looked at reactions based on age, gender, political affiliation, race and region of the US, and included in our results only the answers about age, gender and political affiliation. Democrats are more likely to change their mind about a candidate that has been accused of SASH than Republicans. There is no difference when it comes to age: or in other words, we couldn’t find a trend saying young people care more than older people.
Surprisingly there was no significant difference between genders. I will elaborate on that more in the next question
What our research finds is that Democrats are more likely than Republicans, male or female, to NOT want to vote for a candidate that has been accused of SASH.
You’ve conducted very important research on this topic. What are the most important findings?
Thank you. I had hypothesized that women would be more likely than men to change their opinion about a candidate for office that had been accused, but one of my most important findings was that there was not a significant difference between men’s and women’s reactions. In fact, Democratic men are more likely to vote for a candidate that has been accused of SASH than Republican women. Democrats see an allegation of SASH as an abuse of power, and thus they relate it to a propensity to abuse the power of public office. Republicans, though, are more likely to not believe an accusation, and therefore they don’t relate it to a factor that should be considered in how they are judging the candidate.
Second, it bothers me to my core that people actually think that women make accusations about SASH to “get attention” as if the kind of attention they receive is desirable. I want people to understand that SASH accusations should be taken seriously because they show who that person is. We need to believe women. I want women to know that we need their stories in order to be able to research this more and that when we can research it more, we will be able to make more informed choices about who our leaders are based on their integrity.
What are the key contributions your article brings to the field?
Our research opens the door to viewing SASH allegations as a legitimate act that is worth taking seriously as a barometer for the character. We contributed to the study of harassment and intimidation of women by showing that some sectors of the population are more likely to believe in allegations at face value than others. It requires courage to speak out about such incidents, particularly when they are oftentimes not believed and/or the perpetrator is allowed to continue to progress in their career. When this happens, it adds to a cycle of victimization and injustice.
Stephanie Stark obtained her Master’s in Media, Power and Public Affairs from the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London (2018). She is a digital communications strategist who has been advising on and creating digital media campaigns for non-profit organizations, political campaigns and elected officials in New York and London for a decade.
Dr Sofia Collignonis a Lecturer in Political Communication at the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is Co Investigator in the ESCR-funded Representative Audit of Britain project, part of Parliamentary Candidates UK and Principal Investigator in the Survey of Local Candidates in England. Her main research focuses on include the study of candidates, elections and parties, in particular on the harassment and intimidation of political elites and violence against women in politics.
