Four studies demonstrated both the power of group influence in persuasion and people's blindness to it. Even under conditions of effortful processing, attitudes toward a social policy depended almost exclusively upon the stated position of one's political party. This effect overwhelmed the impact of both the policy's objective content and participants' ideological beliefs (Studies 1-3), and it ...

We examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agriculture in Akwapim, Ghana. We show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights, and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output. The intensity of investments on di¤erent plots cultivate...

Socioeconomic position Resources, material and others, within virtually all human societies are unequally distributed. The ability of an individual to access resources is strongly related to their position within the social hierarchy of that society. Following the theoretical framework of Weber, the position within the social hierarchy (socioeconomic position) can be seen as being determined by...

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, politicians’ party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected by proportional representation. In contrast, majoritarian systems force politicians to converge to the median position of their constituents, and party affiliation should ...

This article examines Spain’s neutrality during the Great War, highlighting factors such as the lack of military resources; the division of public opinion and internal conflicts; and actors such as King Alfonso XIII (whose mediating role helped to determine Spain’s neutral position). It also analyses the impact of the war in Spain until the immediate post-war period – unequal economic growth, s...

Active political participation from the citizenry is essential for a healthy democracy. However, research finds a significant sex gap in political participation, limiting the influence of a substantial group from the political system and democratic representation. This division by sex is further marked by the types of political activities in which males and females engage. Candidates, elected o...

The concepts of clientelism and patronage have been widely used in the analysis of political and social relations. In contemporary political science literature, both concepts have increasingly come to denote a particular strategy of gaining political support by individuals or parties through the distribution of individual or collective goods to prospective voters. 1 Although there is some degre...