Drivers of Political Violence in the United States
by James A. Piazza
Released by EurekAlert on December 28, 2022
Introduction:
(EurekAlert) A researcher from The Pennsylvania State University published a commentary in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing that examines four key contemporary “drivers” of political violence in the United States: “toxic” political polarization; “toxic” identity-based ideologies; assaults on democratic norms; and disinformation and conspiracy theories. The article also discusses some ideas about how to curb the influence of these drivers and reduce political violence.
The study is titled “Drivers of Political Violence in the United States” and is authored by James A. Piazza.
Read more of the
EurekAlert article here:
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975069
Introduction to the article “Drivers of Political Violence in the United States.”
First published October 26, 2022
(American Marketing Asociation) In the wake of the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, expert and public attention has turned to the issue of political violence in the United States. Public opinion surveys show that more than one-third of Americans regard the use of political violence against the government or political opponents to be acceptable (Balz, Clement, and Guskin 2022), and there is evidence that public tolerance for political violence may be increasing (Diamond et al. 2020). Recent public opinion research also finds that a plurality of Americans is concerned about the specter of violent civil unrest in the United States (Orth 2022). Scholars who typically study civil wars in other countries have begun to examine whether the United States is on track to itself experience widespread domestic violent civil conflict (Walter 2022). In recent testimony before Congress, Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that, according to polling, the current level of public acceptance of political violence in the United States is approaching that exhibited in Northern Ireland during the height of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the early 1970s (Kleinfeld 2022).
What explains the volatile situation in which the United States presently finds itself? This commentary investigates four important drivers of political violence in the United States today: toxic political polarization, toxic identity-based ideologies, assaults on democratic norms, and disinformation and political conspiracies. Each of these contributes to violent political instability. I briefly explain each in turn and discuss some potential ways to address them.
Read more here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/ ... 221133763
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