Jennifer Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister | Mershon Center for International Security Studies | the Ohio State University

The Ohio State University www.osu.edu Help Campus map Find people Webmail

home > events > feb2012 > jennifer merolla and elizabeth zechmeister

September Globalization Speaker Series October Jennifer Merolla and Elizabeth Zechmeister November "Terrorist Threat and Democratic Public Opinion" December Friday, February 3, 2012 January 3:30 p.m. Jennifer Merolla February Mershon Center for International Security Studies Associate Professor of March 1501 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43201 Politics and Policy Claremont Graduate April View event recording in Flash University May View event recording in RealPlayer View event recording in Windows Media Event Archives Download podcast on Mershon subscription page

Jennifer L. Merolla is associate professor of politics and policy at Claremont Graduate University. She received her BA from Boston College in 1997 and a PhD in political science from Duke University in 2003. Her research focuses on how the political environment shapes Elizabeth Zechmeister the political behavior of individuals. Associate Professor of Political Science She is co-author, with Elizabeth Zechmeister, of Democracy at Risk: Associate Director of the How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (University of Chicago Press, Latin American Public 2009). The book examines how worry about terrorism alters individual Opinion Project (LAPOP) attitudes toward others in society, their evaluations of political Vanderbilt University leaders, and their foreign policy preferences.

She also has several projects that look at the effect of campaign messages and media coverage on different segments of the electorate such as Latinos, minor party supporters, and evangelicals. Her work has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, and Political Psychology, as well as other journals.

Elizabeth J. Zechmeister is associate professor of political science and associate director of the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University. She received her PhD from Duke University in 2003. Her research focuses on comparative political behavior, in particular in Latin America.

Her work includes studies of voting, ideology, political parties, representation, charisma, and crisis. Her research on terrorist threat and on natural disaster has received support from the National Science Foundation. She has published articles in Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Politics, Electoral Studies, and Political Behavior, among others.

She is co-author, with Jennifer Merolla, of Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (University of Chicago Press, 2009) and of Latin American Party Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Synopsis

(Click on the link to read the paper,"Terrorism and Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean")

Increased sophistication, scope, and fatalities define modern terrorism and leave few corners of the globe free from the specter of this threat. Our research suggests that individuals are more likely to reject democratic values, processes, and institutions when terrorism is a salient concern.

In this presentation, we focus on data from both experiments and surveys conducted across the Americas. We show high but varying average levels of worry about terrorism across countries in this region, and we trace these feelings to both individual and contextual factors. We then present evidence linking terrorist threat to a variety of measures of democratic public opinion. Finally, we outline several ongoing theoretical and empirical extensions to this research program.