Shaun Bowler | University of California, Riverside
Political actors typically use language with the goal of persuading an audience. But what shapes the use of language in political settings? Is it differences between ideologues — liberals and conservatives — that change language use? Or is it support or opposition to the issue? Using techniques adapted from cognitive psychology we examine arguments used in ballot proposition elections and show them to exhibit systematic patterns in line with the theoretical arguments of Riker (1996). The actor’s choice of issue position — for or against — can be seen to imply that the arguments they advance in support of their position are constrained. More specifically, we show that arguments in support of propositions are consistently similar to each other and consistently dissimilar from arguments against a proposal in language use. These patterns of similarity and dissimilarity persist across a wide range of issues and actors. Identification of these patterns helps explain a persistent empirical regularity within ballot proposition politics: the advantage held by “NO” campaigns.
2002Do voters have a cue? Television advertisements as a source of information in citizen-initiated referendum campaigns. European Journal of Political Research. 411:777—793.
Burgess, Curt
1998From Simple Associations to the Building Blocks of Language: Modeling Meaning in Memory with the HAL Model. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers. 301: 188—198.
Burgess, Curt, and Patrick Conley
1998Representing Proper Names and Objects in a Common Semantic Space: A Computational Model. Brain and Cognition. 401:67—70.
Burgess, Curt, and Kevin Lund
2000The Dynamics of Meaning in Memory. In Eric Dietrich and Arthur B. Markman, eds. Cognitive Dynamics: Conceptual and Representational Change in Humans and Machines. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
British Broadcasting Corporation
1980 Yes, Minister: The Right to Know, 31 March 1980.
Cobb, Michael and James Kuklinski
1997Political Arguments and Political Persuasion. American Journal of Political Science. 41,1:88—121.
Edwards, Adrian, Glyn Elwyn, JudithCovey, Elaine Matthews, and Roisin Pill
2001Presenting Risk Information — A Review of the Effects of ‘Framing’ and Other Manipulations on Patient Outcomes. Journal of Health Communication 61:61—82.
Gerber, Elisabeth R
1999The Populist Paradox: Interest Group Influence and the Promise of Direct Legislation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hart, Roderick P
2000Campaign Talk: Why Elections Are Good for Us. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jerit, Jennifer
2008Issue Framing and Engagement: Rhetorical Strategy in Public Policy Debates. Political Behavior 301, 1—24.
Kahneman, Daniel, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler
1990Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem. Journal of Political Economy 981:1325—1348.
Lakoff, George
2002Moral Politics; How Liberals and Conservatives Think Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, George
2004Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. New York: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Luntz, Frank
2007Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear. New York: Hyperion.
Lupia, Arthur
1994Shortcuts versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections. American Political Science Review. 881:63—76.
Lupia, Arthur, and John G. Matsusaka
2004Direct Democracy: New Approaches to Old Questions. Annual Review of Political Science. 71:463—82.
Magleby, David G
1984Direct Legislation: Voting on Ballot Propositions in the United States. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Matsusaka John G
2005Direct Democracy Works. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 191:185—206.
Monroe, Burt L., Steven P. Abney, Michael P. Colaresi, Kevin M. Quinn, and Dragomir Radev
2005The Dynamics of Political Rhetoric and Political Representation. Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan.
Monroe, Burt L., and Ko Maeda
2004Rhetorical Ideal Point Estimation: Mapping Legislative Speech. Society for Political Methodology, Stanford University, Palo Alto.
Nelson, T. E., Oxley, Z. M., & Clawson, R. A
1997Toward a psychology of framing effects. Political Behavior, 191: 221—246.
Nicholson Stephen P
2005Voting the Agenda: Candidates, Elections, and Ballot Propositions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Nunberg, Geoffrey
2006Talking Right. New York: Public Affairs.
Osgood, Charles E
1976Focus on Meaning: Explorations in Semantic Space. Mouton Publishers,
Osgood, C.E., Suci, G.J., and Tannenbaum, P.H
1957The Measurement of Meaning. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Proksch Sven-Oliver and Jonathan B. Slapin
2007WORDFISH: Scaling Software for Estimating Political Positions from Texts. Version 1.0. 12 June 2007. http://www.wordfish.org.
Quinn, Kevin M., Burt L. Monroe, Michael Colaresi, Michael H. Crespin and Dragomir R. Radev
2006An Automated Method of Topic-Coding Legislative Speech Over Time with Application to the 105th-108th U.S. Senate http://tangra.si.umich.edu/~radev/papers/mpsa06.pdf
Riker, William
1986The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press
Riker, William
1996The Strategy of Rhetoric. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Rook, Karen S
1986Encouraging Preventive Behavior for Distant and Proximal Health Threats: Effects of Vivid versus Abstract Information. Journal of Gerontology 411:526—534.
Stratmann, Thomas
2006Is Spending More Potent For or Against a Proposition? Evidence from Ballot Measures. American Journal of Political Science. 501:788—801.
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Bowler, Shaun
2015. Information availability and information use in ballot proposition contests: Are voters over-burdened?. Electoral Studies 38 ► pp. 183 ff.
Keller, Sarah, A.J. Otjen, Mary McNally, Timothy J. Wilkinson, Brenda Dockery, Jennifer Leonard & Hayley Southworth
2021. Improving awareness of energy conservation: Rocky Mountain City. Journal of Ethics in Entrepreneurship and Technology 1:1 ► pp. 4 ff.
Li, Ping, Benjamin Schloss & D. Jake Follmer
2017. Speaking two “Languages” in America: A semantic space analysis of how presidential candidates and their supporters represent abstract political concepts differently. Behavior Research Methods 49:5 ► pp. 1668 ff.
Murphy, Chad & Chris Westbury
2013. Expanding the Scope of Selective Exposure: An Objective Approach to Measurement of Media Ideology. Communication Methods and Measures 7:3-4 ► pp. 224 ff.
Sloman, Sabina J., Daniel M. Oppenheimer, Simon DeDeo & Thomas Holtgraves
2021. Can we detect conditioned variation in political speech? two kinds of discussion and types of conversation. PLOS ONE 16:2 ► pp. e0246689 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.