Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Polling Predispositions: The Structure and Strength of Political Orientations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

政治学博士论文研究：民意测验倾向：捷克共和国和斯洛伐克政治取向的结构和力量我们如何解释捷克和斯洛伐克在后共产主义时代截然不同的政治偏好，尽管捷克和斯洛伐克有着共同的半个世纪的政治史和相似的政治制度？如何解释民众对欧盟成员国身份等政府倡议的支持程度不同，以及每个国家不同类型政党在选举中获胜的原因？长期以来，党派之争一直被认为是公民政治偏好的最强有力的预测因素。然而，在发达民主国家，党派之争似乎正在减弱。特别是在欧洲的新民主国家，党派之争即使在民众层面上也是不均衡的，但它的重要性就更小了。在现有研究的基础上，这位博士生将公民的倾向视为做出政治判断的“主要因素”。学生在这个项目中有三个主要目标。首先是确定新欧洲民主国家的公民在做出政治决策时所参考的倾向，特别是功利主义的利己主义与群体情感。第二个是展示这种倾向和政治判断之间的联系--实际上，是为了描绘公民的信仰体系。第三个目标是测试这些联系的强度：面对有说服力的信息，这些倾向-态度联系的弹性有多大。对偏好形成机制的探索令人望而生畏。为了消除潜在的调查偏差，学生使用了一份深入的认知问卷，对一小部分公民进行了调查。在让受访者用自己的话解释他们是如何做出政治决定的--实际上就是他们信仰体系的显露组织--之后，学生们进行了一项大规模的调查实验，以测试他们信仰体系的组织和力量。这一双重方法的目的是通过不同途径确定衡量标准的可靠性以及倾向和政治判断之间的预期关系。为了避免生态谬误，这一设计被用来检验个人和总体层面上偏好形成的潜在机制。广泛的影响：这些案例是无价的，因为它们允许我们保持经常被引用的解释变量不变，例如政治制度、向民主的过渡，以及第一次世界大战后的政治史。然而，两国之间存在许多差异，例如第一次世界大战前的历史经验、宗教和阶级等社会人口特征，以及少数民族的存在，这些可能被证明与政治判断和最终政治结果的差异有关。因此，它们提供了一个独特的比较集，可以在虚拟实验室中探索政治倾向和政治决策之间的关系。

Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Polling Predispositions: TheStructure and Strength of Political Orientations in the Czech Republic and SlovakiaHow can we account for the strikingly different political preferences of Czechs andSlovaks in the post-communist era, despite a shared half-century of political history andsimilar political institutions? What can explain the divergent levels of popular supportfor government initiatives, such as EU membership, and the electoral success of differenttypes of parties in each country? Partisanship has long been considered the strongestpredictor of citizens' political preferences. However, partisanship appears to be on the wane in advanced democracies. In the new democracies of Europe in particular, where partisanship is unevenly, if at all, crystallized at the popular level, it matters even less .Building upon extant research, the Ph.D. student looks to citizens' predispositions as the 'primary ingredients' of political judgment-making. The student has three main objectives for this project. The first is to identify those predispositions to which citizens in new European democracies refer, specifically utilitarian self-interest vs. group affect, when making political decisions. The second is to demonstrate the linkages between such predispositions and political judgments -- in effect, to map citizens' belief systems. The third objective is to test these linkages for their strength: how resilient are these predispositional-attitudinal linkages in the face of persuasive messagesThe quest for the mechanism underlying preference formation is a daunting one. Tominimize potential survey bias, the student employs an in-depth cognitive questionnaire with a small sample of citizens. After letting respondents explain how they make political decisions in their own words -- in effect, the revealed organization of their belief systems - the student implements a large-scale survey experiment to test the organization and strength of their belief systems. The purpose of this dual methodology is to establish reliability of the measures and expected relationships between predispositions and political judgments via different avenues. In order to avoid the ecological fallacy, this design is employed to examine the mechanism underlying preference formation at both the individual and aggregate levels.Broader Impact: These cases are invaluable because they allow us to hold constant often-cited explanatory variables, such as political institutions, transition to democracy, and post-World War I political history. Yet there are many differences between the two countries, such as pre-World War I historical experience, sociodemographic characteristics such as religion and class, and the presence of ethnic minorities, which may prove relevant to differences in political judgment-making and ultimately, political outcomes. Thus they provide a unique comparative set within which to explore the relationship between politicalpredispositions and political decision-making in a virtual laboratory.