This study aim at providing an answer to the core research question “What is the role of Twitter in the conduct of public diplomacy in The Netherlands?” On the basis of qualitative interviews with...Show moreThis study aim at providing an answer to the core research question “What is the role of Twitter in the conduct of public diplomacy in The Netherlands?” On the basis of qualitative interviews with foreign diplomats and experts on public diplomacy in The Netherlands, it was discovered that they use Twitter as a tool for providing the local communities with information about the advocated countries and their foreign policies. The foreign officials also employ Twitter to address certain members of the Dutch general public, attract their attention to specific topics and engage in discussions with them to enhance their perceptions of the represented states. The conducted content analysis of the Tweets posted by diplomats from the Embassy of Ecuador, the Embassy of Poland, the Embassy of Sweden, and the Embassy of the USA to the Netherlands also demonstrated that they post direct Tweets and personal messages concerning important topics to engage with the foreign publics. However, it is also found that only a small number of them use the language of the local community members, namely Dutch, to disseminate information about their foreign policies. Some of the interviewees explained that they translate only content that is relevant to the Dutch audiences in Dutch. Nevertheless, to engage in more debates with the local communities and enhance their understanding and image of the represented countries, it is recommended that foreign diplomats should provide all messages on Twitter in the language of the host state. Thus, they can use it as an effective tool for accomplishing their public diplomacy goals.Show less
Trust in political parties is declining and with it the relevance of parties, or so the de-alignment hypothesis claims. Using data from recent World Values Surveys, this paper provides evidence...Show moreTrust in political parties is declining and with it the relevance of parties, or so the de-alignment hypothesis claims. Using data from recent World Values Surveys, this paper provides evidence that the assumption is rather problematic. Longitudinal data shows that confidence is neither increasing nor declining but languishing at high levels. Additionally, cross-sectional data from the 2005-2008 WVS was analyzed using statistical tests at the individual and country level. The results demonstrate that one important factor increasing distrust is electoral disproportionality. Regime durability, interpersonal trust, and perceived democraticness reduce such sentiments. Corruption perception notably has no effect on individual respondents but decreases distrust on the national level. The results pose the question whether distrust is a reason for concern or just a phenomenon natural to representative democracy.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to examine the consequences of the economic crisis on the voting behavior of Greek citizens. The study seeks to discover the degree of influence of the economic issue on...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to examine the consequences of the economic crisis on the voting behavior of Greek citizens. The study seeks to discover the degree of influence of the economic issue on vote choice and provides an answer to the question of whether decreased support for the two traditional incumbent parties and increased support for the opposition parties can be attributed to the deterioration of the national economy. The analysis demonstrates that electoral volatility cannot be explained by the economic factor in the Greek case. The results suggest that partisan loyalties, which have affected political decisions in Greece historically, continue to have a strong impact in recent times. Greek voters seem to be highly influenced by long-term components, even in the context of the current economic recession.Show less
The main goal of this thesis is is to look for an answer to the question ”what motivates citizens to engage in politics using Facebook”. The thesis will discuss which benefits citizens are getting...Show moreThe main goal of this thesis is is to look for an answer to the question ”what motivates citizens to engage in politics using Facebook”. The thesis will discuss which benefits citizens are getting when they opt to political participation over social network sites, specifically Facebook. In order to answer this question so a survey was conducted, which examined the relationship between political participation on Facebook and three topics factors. The first was resources for political participation that citizens use or need to sacrifice if they want to engage with politics. The second was the sense of internal and external political efficacy, with which citizen estimate their ability to understand and discuss politics, along with the openesss of the political system for new idea. The third and last one was, self presentation of political impressions, how individuals presesnt their political identity to their peers. The survey found that Facebook does not overwhelmingly reduce costs of participation, and that citizens who engage in politics on Facebook would not necessarily assume that their activities would bring change in policy. However, citizens who do carry on political participation on Facebook may expect a high sense of internal political efficacy and would use Facebook not so much for changing government policy, but as a mobilizing tool, and as a stage for one’s display of an idealized political impression.Show less
The main aim of this research was to investigate if satirical impersonations on television influence viewers’ evaluations of the impersonated politician. The research studied the influence on...Show moreThe main aim of this research was to investigate if satirical impersonations on television influence viewers’ evaluations of the impersonated politician. The research studied the influence on overall evaluations and on the evaluations of ten traits (leadership, knowledgeable, intelligent, cares, inspiring, honest, trustworthy, compassionate, arrogant, and moral). A possible moderating effect of political knowledge was studied as well. An experiment was conducted at a high school in the Netherlands using four experimental groups. Three satirical clips of an impersonation of the Dutch Prime-Minister Mark Rutte were used as stimulus material and a clip of the real Mark Rutte was used as control material. Although there was little significant evidence, the evidence did support the expectation that exposure to a satirical impersonation results in lower overall and trait evaluations of Mark Rutte. Like previous research, this research did find trait dimensions as well: integrity and competence. Exposure to a satirical impersonation significantly influenced the ratings of these dimensions. The research did not find a moderating effect of political knowledge.Show less
In order to investigate the influence of voice pitch and facial dominance on voting behaviour and leadership perceptions, an experiment including 180 Dutch adults was conducted containing a 2*3...Show moreIn order to investigate the influence of voice pitch and facial dominance on voting behaviour and leadership perceptions, an experiment including 180 Dutch adults was conducted containing a 2*3 factorial design. The participants were exposed to a normal and manipulated picture of Jan-peter Balkenende, the former Dutch prime-minister. Respondents were also exposed to a manipulated version of his voice in which the voice pitch had been lowered by 20 herz. The respondents seemed unaware of the picture and voice pitch manipulations as the respondents exposed to the manipulations noted to be just as familiar with the person displayed on the picture as respondents in the control group. However, the manipulations did not have the effect that was expected based on previous studies, the experiment largely showed the subtle nature of these effects on leadership perceptions and voting behaviour. The findings in this study indicate the limited influence of voice pitch and facial dominance on voting behaviour and perceptions of a well known leader's dominance, honesty and power.Show less
Internet use by voters and representatives in the United Kingdom is thought to provide a number of democratic benefits such as increased participation, heightened political deliberation and reduced...Show moreInternet use by voters and representatives in the United Kingdom is thought to provide a number of democratic benefits such as increased participation, heightened political deliberation and reduced distance between the political elite and mass. Furthermore, the use of online technologies allows British citizens to communicate faster, easier and more conveniently than ever before with, with social networking sites allowing real-time interaction overcoming geographical and time constraints. There is limited research looking at the use of online communication by Member of Parliaments (MP) in their constituency role, which is surprising as the constituency responsibility of an MP has become of increasing importance in the last 50 years due social and political changes including heightened demands from citizens. Using an original field experiment, this thesis tests which method of communication is the most effective for constituents to use when contacting their local MP, with specific interest in their adoption and use of the social networking site Twitter. The research finds that the majority of MPs have a Twitter account; however theses Members tend to be young, on the left of the political spectrum and reside in marginal constituencies. Members do not appear to be using Twitter to correspond with constituents, although it is the fastest of the tools tested. Email had both the highest response rate and is most likely to provide the constituent with the information they requested, and is therefore the most effective medium for MP-constituent communication.Show less
Newspapers in Greece have long been considered as mouthpieces for the parties. This connection between parties and press is typically described as "parallelism". Even though conventional wisdom...Show moreNewspapers in Greece have long been considered as mouthpieces for the parties. This connection between parties and press is typically described as "parallelism". Even though conventional wisdom agrees on the party preferences of newspapers, such claims have not been empirically tested. Based on a content analysis of newspaper front pages during two election campaigns, this study tests the validity of those claims, and assesses their nature. The findings support popular perceptions of newspaper party preferences. They also show that newspaper support is more likely to rely on negativity, by means of attacking the opponent party, rather than praising the affiliated party. This tendency towards negativity is higher when the newspaper's preferred party is the challenger during that campaign. Finally it is shown that, contrary to research on campaign ads, negative coverage in Greece is not more likely to address policy issues than positive coverage. Thus, it has poor contribution to the information environment available to voters. The findings cover a void in the literature and offer insight into the stance of partisan press during election campaigns. They can be tested in countries with similar, but also different, levels of parallelism in an effort to search for common patterns.Show less
Abstract: Existing literature on the impact of economic changes on governmental trust presents mixed and contradicting findings. These contradicting outcomes of objective economic performance on...Show moreAbstract: Existing literature on the impact of economic changes on governmental trust presents mixed and contradicting findings. These contradicting outcomes of objective economic performance on trust can be partially explained by an asymmetrical bias. When economy is bad, trust will be affected, if economy is good then trust will not be affected. The credit and sovereign debt crisis changed the economic situation in the eurozone countries. In order to examine these contradicting claims, this research investigated the changes in governmental trust during the sovereign debt crisis. Which factors can be related to governmental trust is examined at aggregated and individual level. Trust in EU and national government is examined in order to see if they are influenced by the same factors. During the sovereign debt crisis trust levels in the eurozone dropped considerably. At aggregated country level, governmental trust is related to unemployment before and during the crisis. A general trend of decline in governmental trust was not found. Positive and negative trend lines were found for different countries. Trust in national government and EU government is strong and positively correlated to each other, yet the direction of causality was not examined. At individual level trust can be best explained by crisis performance and by objective and subjective economic indicators. Finally, problem solving capacity, economic uncertainty, social status and life satisfaction are of significant, but weak influence on trust in national and EU government.Show less
Using the Schwartz’ value module of the European Social Survey, the development of value priority within the Netherlands was explored between 2002 and 2010, also the relation between value priority...Show moreUsing the Schwartz’ value module of the European Social Survey, the development of value priority within the Netherlands was explored between 2002 and 2010, also the relation between value priority and the attitude towards immigration was tested. The value priority within Dutch society proved to be fairly stable over time and underlined the assumptions of the current theory on human values. Unexpected was a decline in priority for values promoting Conservation and am increase in priority for values promoted by Openness to Change from 2002 on. This is attributed to events in 2001 and 2002, both in the Netherlands and abroad, which probably temporarily increased the importance of Conservation values. Also the development for the value priority of specific antecedents of individual value priority was assessed. In nearly all cases the development of the value priority followed the pattern of the general sample. The relation between the attitude on immigration and value priority proved to be constant in all rounds of the ESS, but appears to be different from earlier studies. The conflict line between values that support or oppose immigration is situated in the middle of the circular value model, dividing the Conservation higher order value type plus power and benevolence and the Openness to Change higher order value type plus achievement and universalism.Show less
This thesis tests the RAS model created by John Zaller. By using the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study from 1998 to 2003, the observed change in public opinion of Dutch voters towards non western...Show moreThis thesis tests the RAS model created by John Zaller. By using the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study from 1998 to 2003, the observed change in public opinion of Dutch voters towards non western immigrants is tested. Results include the inability to explain the changes in public opinion according to the RAS model. However, key variables such as political knowledge and political predispositions prove to be significant explanatory variables in this case.Show less
