Nicolas Valentino (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, É.-U.)

Titre : Dobbs Wasn’t Enough: Gendered Emotional Dynamics and Turnout in the 2024 US Presidential Election

Many Democratic operatives hoped that the intensely negative emotional reactions to the Dobbs decision in 2022 would carry over to the 2024 Presidential election, mobilizing women across the party spectrum to turn out in defense of their reproductive rights and to prevent further conservative shifts on this issue. It was not to be. We ran several experiments between 2016 and 2024 which demonstrated that negative emotions did seem to affect the turnout intentions of millions of women across the country, but these effects, especially the mobilizing effect of existential fear, were quite temporary, and many women reverted to their partisan attachments by the fall of 2024. We hope the work contributes to a larger debate about the role of emotions in politics, beyond its ability to help explain the reelection of Donald Trump.

Jaime Settle (William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, É.-U.)

Titre :  Talking about Politics When Everything is Political

Do people make their divisions deeper when they interact with each other about politics? This question has long motivated scholars of political psychology and communication, but it has become all the more pressing in an era defined by polarization, hyperpartisanship, and the politicization of many facets of society. In this research presentation, I theorize more fully about the nature of organic political interactions, both online and offline, and the implications of the underlying psychology of communication for the public’s willingness to engage about substantive political topics. Integrating insights from research using a diverse of methods, ranging from psychophysiological measurement to computational social science, we will unpack more realistic expectations about when political interaction might exacerbate our divides and when it might ameliorate them.

Table ronde : American Elections in Perspectve

• Nicolas Valentino (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, É.-U.)
• Jaime Settle (William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, É.-U.)
• Frédérick Gagnon (UQAM, Montréal)

Cette série de conférences est financée par le Centre pour l¹étude de la Citoyenneté démocratique lui-même financé par le Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC).