DOCSLIB.ORG

Why Americans Distrust the News Media and How It Matters

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Why Americans Distrust the News Media and How It Matters Why Americans Distrust the News Media and How it Matters December 2010 Forthcoming from Princeton University Press Jonathan McDonald Ladd Assistant Professor Georgetown University www.jonathanmladd.com 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgments 4 1. Why Is Everyone Mad at the Mainstream Media? 6 2. Political Conflict with the Press in the Pre-Polling Era 18 3. The Emergence of the Institutional News Media in an Era of Decreasing 57 Political Polarization 4. The Institutional News Media in an Era of Political Polarization and Media 92 Fragmentation 5. Sources of Antipathy toward the News Media 151 6. News Media Trust and Political Learning 189 7. News Media Trust and Voting 240 8. The News Media in a Democracy 262 References 298 2 To my parents 3 Acknowledgments I acquired so many debts while pursuing this project that the thanks offered here are surely insufficient. First, I am deeply indebted to Larry Bartels. Larry has provided generous assistance and wise advice from the time we met to the present day. At Princeton, he seemingly always had time to discuss new ideas and read my work. Intellectually, Larry shaped how I look at all social science research. Most importantly, he taught me the importance of steering advanced social scientific tools toward addressing fundamental questions about democracy. At Princeton, I was lucky to be also advised by Doug Arnold, Tali Mendelberg and Marty Gilens. They have been extremely generous with their time, reading drafts and providing insightful suggestions at all stages of the project. I was also very fortunate to receive feedback from many other excellent scholars at Georgetown, Princeton, and across the country. These included Paul Abramson, Chris Achen, Mike Bailey, Adam Berinsky, Shana Gadarian, Amy Gershkoff, Bill Gormley, Doris Graber, Matt Hindman, Greg Huber, Karen Jusko, David Karol, Chris Karpowitz, Paul Kellstedt, Erika King, Dave Lewis, Skip Lupia, Nolan McCarty, Hans Noel, Diana Owen, Markus Prior, John Sides, Steve R. Smith, Clyde Wilcox, John Zaller, seminar participants at George Washington University, Georgetown University, Princeton University, Temple University, University of Delaware, several anonymous reviewers, and especially Stu Jordan and Gabe Lenz. Of course, while the aforementioned should share credit for all positive aspects of this book, I am responsible for all deficiencies. I received excellent research assistance at Georgetown from Holly Boux, Danielle Bush, Amy Cohen, Rebecca Delaney, Tyronda Gibson, Meghan Keneally, Sarah Levey, Amanda Spears and Kristin Thorpe. I received financial support for various portions of this project from 4 Georgetown’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Princeton’s Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars, and Princeton’s Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. Paul DiMaggio generously provided data from his reinterviews of 2000 General Social Survey respondents, which I use in Chapter 6. James Chu of Princeton’s Office of Information Technology provided assistance implementing the media trust and learning experiment, which also appears in Chapter 6. I never would have started this project if not for the education I received from Tufts’s Political Science Department, especially Jeff Berry and Jim Glaser. They introduced me to political science and its potential, inspired me to attend graduate school, and helped me get there. Additional special thanks go to Adam Berinsky, who taught my first graduate public opinion and research design classes, employed me as a research assistant, and has continued to provide advice, encouragement and assistance. My parents, Susan Cartmell and Larry Ladd, have always provided the greatest possible support to my academic endeavors. My debt to their passions for politics and intellectual pursuits is obvious. For that and many other reasons, this book is dedicated to them. No person has experienced the day-to-day work of finishing this project as closely as my wife, Nancy. I am grateful for her seemingly endless patience and kindness. As my love and best friend, I am very lucky she chose to journey through life with me. Finally, special thanks go to my daughter Ruth. While she did not directly aid in this book’s creation, she did make the past two years extraordinary. 5 Chapter 1: Why Is Everyone Mad at the Mainstream Media? 6 In the mid-twentieth century, the news media were one of America’s most trusted institutions. The 1956 American National Election Study (ANES) found that 66% of Americans thought newspapers were “fair,” while only 27% said they were unfair. These views were bipartisan, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats viewing newspapers as fair. When the Roper Organization asked a similar question about network news in two 1964 polls, 71% and 61% of the public thought it was fair, while just 12% and 17% thought it was unfair. In 1973, when the General Social Survey (GSS) began regularly measuring confidence in various national institutions, only 15% of respondents reported having “hardly any” confidence in the press. Prominent journalists were among the most respected figures in the country. A famous 1972 poll found that 72% of Americans trusted CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, higher than any other public figure in the survey. In 1976, investigations by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s uncovering the Watergate scandal were dramatized in a movie adaptation of their book, All the President’s Men. In the commercially successful film, the journalists were depicted heroically and played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, two of the era’s most charismatic movie stars.1 In popular culture, journalists were noble defenders of democracy and the public interest. Today, the news media’s place in society has changed. In the 2008 GSS, the portion of Americans expressing “hardly any” confidence in the press had risen to 45%. A 2004 Chronicle of Higher Education poll found that only 10% of Americans had “a great deal” of confidence in the “national news media,” about the same as lawyers, in whom 9% of Americans had “a great deal” of confidence. 1 See West (2001, 64). Details on the polling results reported in the first three paragraphs of this chapter are provided in Chapters 3 and 4. 7 This decline in media trust was accompanied by a fragmentation of the news industry. Once, the media landscape largely consisted of a few national television news networks, local television news and newspapers. The vast majority these journalists were committed to a style of “objective” journalism that rose to prominence in the early twentieth century. As a result, there was little diversity in coverage styles. Media choices have greatly proliferated in the past 40 years. New options include political talk radio, cable news channels, internet news and opinion sites, as well as many entertainment-oriented media options. These choices offer a great variety of news styles, including more partisan and tabloid-oriented approaches. As the media landscape has expanded, institutional (or “mainstream”) media outlets have come under increasing criticism from politicians, activists and pundits. Sometimes these criticisms are transmitted by institutional news sources. Yet they also come through the newer alternative media outlets. As a result, the trustworthiness of more professionalized forms of journalism is under steady assault. Overall, those practicing conventional “objective” journalism are in a much different position than they were a generation ago. They are dramatically less trusted by the public, face harsh and persistent political criticism, and must compete with less conventional news sources as well as many other entertainment options. The Conventional Wisdom It can be easy to see this as a fall from grace. Once, institutional journalists were powerful guardians of the republic, maintaining high standards of political discourse and routing out misbehavior by politicians and other public officials. Now, institutional journalists lack public trust and are swarmed by newer forms of reporting that flout the old standards, potentially leaving the public defenseless against political misbehavior. In this way of thinking, a powerful 8 media establishment free of competition or political attacks is the natural and optimal state of the world, interrupted by strange nefarious deviations in recent decades. These trends should be reversed and journalism returned to its proper place in American politics and society. In an article subtitled “Why is Everyone Mad at the Mainstream Media?” Nicholas Lemann (2005), Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism recalls some of his first memories of the media establishment from his childhood in the early 1960s: I remember being sent, as a child, from Louisiana on summer visits to my grandparents in New Jersey. My grandfather, who was a pediatrician in the town of Perth Amboy, would sit in his easy chair on Sundays reading the [New York] Times in a spirit not dissimilar to that of someone taking the sacrament. After finishing one article, he’d begin the next—who was he to decide what, of the material the Times’ editors had chosen to publish, he had the right to skip? Quite often, the aural accompaniment to this exercise was the soothing music of WQXR, the Times’ radio station, which between segments of classical music would occasionally air interviews with Times correspondents and critics—men, I inferred from their calm, distinguished voices, with neat Vandyke beards, their heads wreathed in contemplative clouds of pipe
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Brief Biography and an Appreciation
    A 'RI E F 'I O 'RAP H ' A N D A N AP P RE C I AT I O N 1 8 4 7 TH E C H I C A 'O T R I 'U N E 1 9 4 7 1 fiT R0 U CT 10N N o man of hi s time exercised a more — — decisive o r o n the whole a more bene' f fici al influence on public a fairs than Mr . ” Medill . T hus another Chicago newspaper , at the o 1 89 time f his death in March , 9 , expressed to itself in paying tribute Joseph Medill , who wh ile n o t th e fo u nder o f th e Ch ic ago of its , Tribune , laid the foundations char acter and success . In the pages which follow , the reader will find an account o f some of the achieve ments and events in the life of a man who no t was only a great editor , an editor of the u s times that gave Greeley , Raymond and w as Dana , but who , in even larger measure , a great American . Joseph Medill ’s contributions to journal i sm to , and the moral , political and economic of as i n f progress his country , will be seen evitable products of his leading ch aracter , i sti cs ; his innate feeling for the qualities which made a newspaper great; hi s u ns h at‘ terable courage; his intense patriotism ; his cle arf e ed y vision , and , perhaps his most notable trait , his sturdy common sense .
    [Show full text]
  • Ethics for Digital Journalists
    ETHICS FOR DIGITAL JOURNALISTS The rapid growth of online media has led to new complications in journalism ethics and practice. While traditional ethical principles may not fundamentally change when information is disseminated online, applying them across platforms has become more challenging as new kinds of interactions develop between jour- nalists and audiences. In Ethics for Digital Journalists , Lawrie Zion and David Craig draw together the international expertise and experience of journalists and scholars who have all been part of the process of shaping best practices in digital journalism. Drawing on contemporary events and controversies like the Boston Marathon bombing and the Arab Spring, the authors examine emerging best practices in everything from transparency and verifi cation to aggregation, collaboration, live blogging, tweet- ing, and the challenges of digital narratives. At a time when questions of ethics and practice are challenged and subject to intense debate, this book is designed to provide students and practitioners with the insights and skills to realize their potential as professionals. Lawrie Zion is an Associate Professor of Journalism at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and editor-in-chief of the online magazine upstart. He has worked as a broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and as a fi lm journalist for a range of print publications. He wrote and researched the 2007 documentary The Sounds of Aus , which tells the story of the Australian accent. David Craig is a Professor of Journalism and Associate Dean at the University of Oklahoma in the United States. A former newspaper copy editor, he is the author of Excellence in Online Journalism: Exploring Current Practices in an Evolving Environ- ment and The Ethics of the Story: Using Narrative Techniques Responsibly in Journalism .
    [Show full text]
  • Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson : an Idyll of Chicago
    2 LI E> HAHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS B T478b cop. I . H . S . Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson JONATHAN CAPE AND HARRISON SMITH, INCORPORATED, 139 EAST 46TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. AND 77 WELLINGTON STREET, WEST, TORONTO, CANADA; JONATHAN CAPE, LTD. 30 BEDFORD SQUARE, LONDON, W. C. 1, ENGLAND Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/hizzonerbigbilltOObrig ->-^ BIG BILL THOMPSON (CARICATURE BY CARRENO) BY JOHN BRIGHT Introduction by Harry Elmer Barnes Hizzoner Big Bill Thompson An Idyll of Chicago NEW YORK JONATHAN CAPE & HARRISON SMITH COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY JOHN BRIGHT FIRST PUBLISHED 1930 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES CO. AND BOUND BY THE J. F. TAPLEY CO. — r TH i This Book Is Respectfully Dedicated to MR. WALTER LIPPMANN ". Here and there some have found a way of life in this new world. They have put away vain hopes, have ceased to ask guaranties and are yet serene. But they are only a handful. They do the enduring work of the world, for work like theirs, done with no ulterior bias and for its own sake, is work done in truth, in beauty, and in goodness. There is not much of it, and it does not greatly occupy the attention of mankind. Its excellence is quiet. But it persists through all the spectacular commotions. And long after, it is all that men care much to remember." American Inquisitors. BIG BILL THE BUILDER A Campaign Ditty Scanning his fry's pages, we find names we love so well, Heroes of the ages—of their deeds we love to tell, But right beside them soon there'll be a name Of someone we all acclaim.
    [Show full text]
  • Reasoning Errors 224 I Know What I Think—Don’T Confuse Me with Facts
    SIXTH EDITION Becoming a Critical Thinker A User-Friendly Manual Sherry Diestler Contra Costa College Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo In loving memory of Anne and Al Goldstein. And for John, Zachary, Nicole, Semaje, Stuart, Jenna, Laura, and Amy, may we continue their legacy of discernment and compassion. Editorial Director: Craig Campanella Operations Specialist: Christina Amato Editor in Chief: Dickson Musslewhite Art Director: Anne Bonanno Nieglos Executive Editor: Ashley Dodge Interior and Cover Designer: Ximena Tamvakopoulos Project Manager, Editorial: Kate Fernandes Cover Image: © Michael Krabs/imagebroker/Alamy Development Editor: Maggie Barbieri Director, Digital Media: Brian Hylan Director of Marketing: Brandy Dawson Digital Media Editor: Rachel Comerford Senior Marketing Manager: Laura Lee Manley Full-Service Project Management and Composition: Director of Production: Lisa Larkowski Douglas Bell, PreMediaGlobal Managing Editor: Maureen Richardson Printer/Binder: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Project Manager, Production: Shelly Kupperman Cover Printer: Lehigh/Phoenix Senior Operations Supervisor: Mary Fischer Text Font: Sabon 10/12 Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on pages 483–484. Copyright © 2012, 2009, 2005, 2001, 1998, 1994 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Education, 75 Arlington Street, Suite 300, Boston, MA 02116 or Pearson Education, 1 Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights re- served. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise.
    [Show full text]
  • Virtue, Size, and Liberty
    Per Mouritsen VIRTUE, SIZE, AND LIBERTY Republican Citizenship at the American Founding Introduction he purpose of this article* is to examine conceptions and argu- Tments about citizenship as they became formulated in the con- stitutional debate surrounding the Philadelphia Convention. This context, I shall argue, was an important setting of republican thought – a category in need of clarification. The paper traces the several manners that republican concerns with the conditions of liberty were reformulated, challenged, and eventually (all but) defeated in the context of the possibility – or spectre – of a commercial, federal, and above all large republic. These republican traces are hopefully inter- esting in themselves. The structure and flavour of my representation of the movement of concerns in early American constitutional dis- course also suggests to observers of present day and coming Euro- pean Union debate that in more ways than we may think – particu- larly in small Nordic countries – ‘we have been there before’.1 * This article was presented at the ECPR-joint sessions, April 2000 in Copenhagen, in the workshop ‘Citizenship in a Historical Perspective’. I am grateful for helpful comments from this audience as from an anonymous reviewer of this journal. 126 VIRTUE, SIZE, AND LIBERTY The American scene was different from previous contexts of re- publican discourse in several ways. First, free-holding and absence of feudal structures had created a social levelling unseen in the Old World. Americans considered themselves fundamentally equal as oppressed subjects of the British crown. The War of Independence bred a revolutionary ideology, based on doctrines of natural rights and just resistance against tyranny, which were enshrined in state constitutions, created in 1776-77 under the umbrella of the Confed- eration.
    [Show full text]
  • YAF Stops Action Laurence Lattman
    Inj unc tion Lifted; The World YAF Stops Action , Norm U. S. Forces Discover Large Arms Cache By LINDA OtSHESKY the restraining order were Martin Zehur Schwartz. Tom Richdale. Russ Farb. Laurey SAIGON — A big enemy arms cache was found yes- Collegian Staff Writer terday by U.S. forces 52 miles north of Saigon, spokesmen Petkov. Stephen Eis and Jeff Berger. said , in another setback for • the Communist command, The court injunction obtained by members Laura Wcrtheimer. Jack Swisher. K. which has lost 38,000 weapons since its offensive was of Young Americans For Freedom against Charles Betzko and YAF obtained the order launched Feb. 23. seven named students and SO John and Jane from Judge R. Paul Campbell. In addition to the men killed and weapons captured, Does was lifted yesterday at 5 p.m. The demonstration that caused the in- the enemy has lost 2,500 rockets and 110,000 mortar rounds A sit-in demonstration led by members of junction to be served began at 12:30 p.m. w ith to allied forces in the Vs-month-old offensive, the U.S. Students for a Democratic Society against the singing of protest and anti-war songs. Command said. military recruiters sparked YAF to seek the Demonstrators were permitted to sit in Unconfirmed field reports said the cache discovered restraining order. YAF claimed t h e front of the recruiting table. A path leading to yesterday included 91 machine guns .and a number of demonstrators were blocking the aisles in the the table wa.s kept open by the demonstrators mortars, ' Hetzel Union Building.
    [Show full text]
  • The Trust Factor an EJN Review of Journalism and Self-Regulation
    Ethical EJN Journalism Network The Trust Factor An EJN Review of Journalism and Self-regulation EDITED BY AIDAN WHITE The Trust Factor Published in London by the Ethical Journalism Network © Ethical Journalism Network 11 Vicarage Road, London, E15 4HD United Kingdom No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The contents of this book are covered by authors’ rights and the right to use of contributions with the Editor and the authors themselves. Designed by Mary Schrider [email protected] PHOTO CREDITS Page 30: “Amsterdam Airport: Flight MH17 Memorial (Explored)” by Roman Boed (https://flic.kr/p/omR2y3) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Cover: “Reading the newspaper” by James Cridland (https://flic. Page 32: “Private News” by Michael Coghlan (https://flic.kr/p/ kr/p/NpdZw) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 pFJ1ou) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Page iv: “The Devil Changes his Clothes by Surian Soosay (https:// Page 34: “NVJ Nacht van de Journalistiek” by Sebastiaan ter Burg flic.kr/p/a1sHKz) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (https://flic.kr/p/pqzB2G) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Page vi: “Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina” by gardnergp (https:// Page 36: “Reading the newspaper” by James Cridland (https://flic. flic.kr/p/4gJESU) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 kr/p/NpdZw) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Page 5: “Participants writing on their new blogs” by David Brewer Page 44: “Karachi Street” by Mishari Muqbil (https://flic.kr/p/ (https://flic.kr/p/bBoixK) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 a98TgZ) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Page 7: “Kosovo Basic Education Program” by Stephen Luke Page 46: “TEDxKarachi” by Nadir Siddiqui (https://flic.kr/p/8bJFGN) (https://flic.kr/p/fYgBaB) is licensed under CC BY 2.0 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Page 8: “Riocinha Favela” by David Berkowitz (https://flic.
    [Show full text]
  • HOUSE of REPRESENTATIVES ARIZONA Edith A
    .6872 :coNGRESSIONAL RECORD~HOUSE AUGUST 17 Albert Kualii Brickwood Lyman KENTUCKY Mabel B. McConnico, Port Lavaca. •Tames Kirk Zaidee G. Neville, Arlington. Guy E. Warren, Refugio . J ames Kerr Crain Edward W. Cubbage, Clarkson. John A. Nicholson, Sanger. John Elliott Wood Ralph E. Vaughn, Greensburg. John T. Davis, Jr., Throckmorton. Herbert Daskum Gibson' Frances W. LyeJl, Hickory. Emma S. Vick, Valentine. Edmund Bower Sebree Dalph E. Creal, Hodgenville. Margaret E. Lasseter, Westbrook. Joseph Nicholas Dalton May K. Hall, Island. UTAH Anthony Clement McAuliffe Amelia B. Samuels, Lebanon Junction. Elbridge Gerry Chapman, Jr. Theophilus B. Terry, Sonora. Wells P. Starley, Fillmore. George Pierce Howell Homer B. Burks, Upton. WEST VIRGINIA Hugh Joseph Gaffey Reginald William Buzzell MARYLAND Leo B. Ott, Terra Alta. Jacob R . L. Wink, Manchester. Kenneth Frank Cramer WISCONSIN Henry Cotheal Evans Charles W. Carney, Mount Savage. Edwin Whiting Jones Malcolm F. Caplan, St. Michaels. Helen A. Tuttle, Balsam Lake. George Heiderer, Butternut. Alexander Gallatin Paxton MASSACHUSETTS Nat Smith Perrine George J. Armbruster, Cedarburg. Frances A. Rogers, Billerica. Leo J. Ford, Janesville. Ralph Clifford Tobin John R . McManus, Concord. Hanford MacNider Edward F. Smith, King. Charles L. Goodspeed, Dennis. Leo M. Meyer, Loyal. Joseph Wilson, Byron William J . Farley, Hanson. John Reed Kilpatrick Levy Williamson, Mineral Point. · Mary E. Sheehan, Hatfield. Albert Hansen, New Lisbon. IN THE NAVY Josephine R. McLaughlin, Hathorne. Frank·J. Horak, Oconto. TEMPORARY SERVICE Harry T. Swett, Manchester. Gregory C. Flatley, Oconto Falls. Gladys V. Crane, Merrimac. Richard S. Edwards to be a vice admiral in Meridan D. Anderson, Omro. Veronica Manning, Minot. Rudolph I.
    [Show full text]
  • Why the People Are So Damn Angry New Economic Realities Putting the ‘American Dream’ out of Reach of the Middle Class by BRIAN A
    V21, 39 Thursday, June 9, 2016 Why the people are so damn angry New economic realities putting the ‘American Dream’ out of reach of the middle class By BRIAN A. HOWEY MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – Ameri- cans and Hoosiers are angry. They are seeking political retribution. They are finding Republican presidential nomi- nee Donald Trump as the answer. But the critical question that has remained largely unanswered is why? Why are We the People so pissed off? Appearing at two events in Angry Donald Trump supporters confront U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in Marion on the eve of the Elkhart last week, President Barack Indiana primary on May 2 Obama laid out the template for the doesn’t always yield the wisest decision making. sizzling anger that is fueling one of the most unpredict- At the Lerner Theater in Elkhart, PBS moderator able political climates in modern times. And Prof. Robert J. Gwen Ifill listened as Obama made what Howey Politics In- Gordon of Northwestern University, a macroeconomist and diana called an “economic victory lap,” where the president economic historian, supplies an array of data that helps reminded the Republican-dominated county that the 20% understand why the political decisions of 2016 are almost Continued on page 4 certainly being framed in the context of an emotion which Party of Lincoln stained By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS – On May 17, 1860, the Repub- lican convention campaign team of native son Abraham Lincoln met with the Indiana and Pennsylvania delega- tions in Chicago. What emerged hours later was that the Hoosier delegation would vote “Oh, look at my African-Ameri- as a solid bloc for the president who would go on to become the can over here.
    [Show full text]
  • Political Discourse and the Pennsylvania Constitution, 1776 - 1790
    Virtuous Democrats, Liberal Aristocrats: Political Discourse and the Pennsylvania Constitution, 1776 - 1790 Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie im Fachbereich 10 – Neuere Philologien der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität zu Frankfurt am Main vorgelegt von Thomas W. Clark aus Frankfurt am Main 2001 If we can agree where the liberty and freedom of the people lies, that will do all. - Colonel Ireton, The Putney Debates But, notwithstanding this almost unanimous agreement in favour of liberty, neither were all disposed to go the same lenghts for it, nor were they perfectly in unison in the idea annexed to it. - Alexander Graydon, Memoirs of a Life, Chiefly passed in Pennsylvania Fraud lurks in generals. There is not a more unintelligible word in the English language than republicanism. - John Adams to Mercy Otis Warren CONTENTS PREFACE vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi 1. PART I REVOLUTIONARY PARADIGMS 1.1 Ex Uno Plures or The American Revolution as a Discourse Community 1 1.1.1 Truth and Difference, Republicans and Scholars 1 1.1.2 Revolutionary Pennsylvania as a Discourse Community 18 1.2 Revolutionary Ideology between Republicanism and Liberalism 36 1.2.1 Liberalism Versus Republicanism 36 1.2.2 Classical Republicanism 42 1.2.3 Liberalism 55 1.2.4 Transformation, Opposition, Permeation 61 1.3 Social as Political Conflict: The Few, the Many, the People 75 1.3.1 Rhetoric, Reality, and Radicalism 75 1.3.2 The Discourse of Popular Sovereignty 87 1.3.3 Limiting and Affirming the People: an Exemplary Analysis 96 1.4 Deference to Diversity: Politics and Society in Pennsylvania 105 1.4.1 Quaker Conflict and Hegemony 107 1.4.2 Ethnocultural Pluralism, Sectionalism and the Politics of Heterogeneity 115 1.4.3 Social Diversity and the Emergence of Popular Radicalism 124 1.4.4 Power Struggles, 1776-1790 136 2.
    [Show full text]
  • The Westchester Historian Index, 1990 – 2019
    Westchester Historian Index v. 66-95, 1990 – 2019 Authors ARIANO, Terry Beasts and ballyhoo: the menagerie men of Somers. Summer 2008, 84(3):100-111, illus. BANDON, Alexandra If these walls could talk. Spring 2001, 77(2):52-57, illus. BAROLINI, Helen Aaron Copland lived in Ossining, too. Spring 1999, 75(2):47-49, illus. American 19th-century feminists at Sing Sing. Winter, 2002, 78(1):4-14, illus. Garibaldi in Hastings. Fall 2005, 81(4):105-108, 110, 112-113, illus. BASS, Andy Martin Luther King, Jr.: Visits to Westchester, 1956-1967. Spring 2018, 94(2):36-69, illus. BARRETT, Paul M. Estates of the country place era in Tarrytown. Summer 2014, 90(3):72-93, illus. “Morning” shines again: a lost Westchester treasure is found. Winter 2014, 90(1):4-11, illus. BEDINI, Silvio A. Clock on a wheelbarrow: the advent of the county atlas. Fall 2000, 76(4):100-103, illus. BELL, Blake A. The Hindenburg thrilled Westchester County before its fiery crash. Spring 2005, 81(2):50, illus. John McGraw of Pelham Manor: baseball hall of famer. Spring 2010, 86(2):36-47, illus. Pelham and the Toonerville Trolley. Fall 2006, 82(4):96-111, illus. The Pelhamville train wreck of 1885: “One of the most novel in the records of railroad disasters.” Spring 2004, 80(2):36-47, illus. The sea serpent of the sound: Westchester’s own sea monster. Summer 2016, 92(3):82-93. Thomas Pell’s treaty oak. Summer 2002, 78(3):73-81, illus. The War of 1812 reaches Westchester County.
    [Show full text]
  • Democratic Disaffection: on the Pathologies of Postwar Democracy
    DEMOCRATIC DISAFFECTION: ON THE PATHOLOGIES OF POSTWAR DEMOCRACY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Kyong Min Son August 2012 © 2012 Kyong Min Son DEMOCRATIC DISAFFECTION: ON THE PATHOLOGIES OF POSTWAR DEMOCRACY Kyong Min Son, Ph. D. Cornell University 2012 This dissertation interrogates the phenomenon of disaffection in post-World War II democracies and, in doing so, offers a theory of the affective dimension of democratic politics. Although many countries have formally democratized after World War II, they suffer from political apathy, withdrawal, and disillusionment—in short, disaffection. Why have democratic institutions failed to inspire popular support necessary to sustain democratic forms of life? A dominant strand of democratic theory represented by Rawls and Habermas is not well-equipped to address this vital question, insofar as it fails to consider how affect works with reason, not as a subsidiary but an equally constitutive force, in establishing and realizing norms of democratic politics. This is theoretically blinding since a unique frame of democracy that became dominant in the postwar era (which I call “instrumental democracy”) has systemic tendencies to produce democratic disaffection. Instrumental democracy reduces democracy to an instrument that merely legitimizes, rather than contests or renegotiates, political goals predetermined by elites and technocrats. I trace the origins of instrumental democracy to the Cold War when anti-totalitarianism, market capitalism, and a highly insulted technocracy concomitantly emerged to the effect of dissolving the collective, public dimension of democracy. I scrutinize the logics of instrumental democracy by analyzing behavioralism and rational choice theory as symptomatic articulations of Cold War imperatives, and investigate its evolution in the late twentieth century by examining democratization in Chile and South Korea.
    [Show full text]