Research: Democracy
*Indicates graduate student coauthor
Peer-Reviewed Articles |
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2024
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Inhibiting or Contributing? How Global Liberal Forces Impact Climate Change Skepticism
Kim, Jessica, Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal, Hector Cebolla Boado, and Laura Schimmöller* International Journal of Sociology 54(5-6): 530–564 Abstract
Although climate change remains a top environmental threat, significant portions of the global population continue to exhibit climate change skepticism. Currently, an extensive literature identifies the micro-level determinants of climate skepticism, often manifesting as a form of populist “backlash” to the adverse effects of globalization. However, the potential of macro-level global cultural forces—particularly embeddedness in liberal world society—to counter such pushback is unclear. Using multilevel modeling to analyze International Social Survey Program data spanning 37 countries from 2000 to 2020, we find that in general, increased embeddedness is linked to reduced climate skepticism. However, when global liberal forces encounter anti-liberal undercurrents within nation-states, a situation we refer to as cultural dissonance, the impact of liberal world society on tempering skepticism varies. Embeddedness mitigates skepticism at the national level, particularly within authoritarian regimes, but not at the individual level, especially among right-wing individuals. Paradoxically, world society also heightens ideological polarization of individual worldviews on climate change. By illuminating the contradictory role of liberal world society, which simultaneously exacerbates and inhibits anti-liberal, populist attitudes about climate change, we advance existing work examining the post-liberal turn and holds promise for making sense of other issue domains where liberal perspectives are contested. |
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2023
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Patterns of Global Democracy Promotion: Centrality in DINGO Networks, 1981-2015
Kim, Jessica and Andrew Collins* Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 9:1-4. Abstract
Despite the long-recognized role of international organizational networks in spreading global norms, including democracy, democracy-promoting international nongovernmental organizations (DINGOs) remain understudied. This visualization addresses this gap by plotting nations’ degree centrality within various DINGO networks over time from 1981 to 2015, thereby quantifying, for the first time, the configuration of nonstate democracy promotion networks. The results indicate that all networks are extremely dense, and nations’ mean centrality increases over time. Although dispersion tends to decrease over time, particularly after 2000, relatively high dispersion persists for one network: civil liberties. Thus, although more nations are increasingly integrated within DINGO networks overall, this trend is not uniform. The authors suspect that this difference reflects nations’ growing disillusionment with an enterprise that condemns civil liberties only when geopolitics allow and the subsequently declining traction of civil liberties norms. The results suggest a pivotal yet potentially controversial role of DINGO networks and motivate further research exploring their effects. |
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2023
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Making Women Visible: How Gender Quotas Shape Global Attitudes towards Women in Politics
Kim, Jessica and Kathleen Fallon Politics and Gender 19(4): 981-1006 Abstract
Since the 1990s, gender quotas have been celebrated for improving women’s equality. Yet their cross-national and longitudinal impact on attitudes toward female politicians and the mechanism through which this process occurs are not well understood. Using multilevel modeling on 87 nations, we examine how different types of quotas, with varied features and levels of strength, shape beliefs about women in politics. We give particular attention to the mechanism of visibility created by quotas in impacting attitudes. Results suggest that unlike quotas with features facilitating low visibility (i.e., weak quotas), those producing high visibility (i.e., robust quotas) significantly impact public approval of women in politics. However, the direction of this effect varies by quota type. Social context also matters. Robust quota effects—both positive and negative—are especially pronounced in democracies but are insignificant in nondemocracies. Limited differences by gender (men versus women) emerge. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed. |
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2020
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Democracy, Aid, and Diffusion: A Normative Approach to the Hybrid Regime
Kim, Jessica Sociology Compass 14(2): 1-16 Abstract
Despite its increased prioritization over the past several decades, democracy remains an elusive feat for many nations. This is due, in part, to a recent uptick in hybrid regimes, which possess qualities of both democracy and authoritarianism simultaneously. Among others, one especially salient explanation for hybrid formation is democracy aid itself, which often engenders superficial democratization while masking ongoing authoritarian practices. Still, despite considerable research examining how various factors—including aid—impact hybrid regimes, relatively little headway has been made. This is due primarily to continued disagreement over how to best measure and situate hybrids within the broader democracy literature. In this review, I demonstrate the role sociology can play in addressing this issue while advancing research on democracy, hybrids, and aid in a productive way. I argue that using sociological theories explaining the spread of global norms—such as democracy—to analyze hybrid regimes will facilitate improved understanding of democracy and the factors which shape it across the social sciences. |
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2018
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Decoupling International Agreements from Domestic Policy: The State and Soft Repression
Fallon, Kathleen M., Anna-Liisa Aunio, and, Jessica Kim. Human Rights Quarterly 40(4): 932-961 Abstract
Despite a dramatic expansion in states' adoption of UN agreements to protect human rights, these efforts often fail to deliver on the full promise of compliance within national contexts. In this paper, we examine the process and mechanisms behind this hypocrisy paradox—when states sign onto yet fail to comply with international agreements. Borrowing from repression and social movement literature, we identify one central process that states draw on to avoid garnering international condemnation while maintaining non-compliance nationally: soft repression. We highlight two mechanisms of soft repression: the mobilization of state resources (working at the macro-level to silence activists) and counterframing techniques (working at the meso-level to stigmatize activists and their goals). Using Ghana as a case study, we demonstrate how proposed domestic violence legislation lost ground when state actors mobilized resources to stall the bill and successfully counterframed the law as a foreign import and a threat to Ghanaian nationalism and families. |
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapters
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2020
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The Political Sociology of Democracy: From Measurement to Rights
Kim, Jessica and Kathleen Fallon In The New Handbook of Political Sociology edited by T. Janoski, C. de Leon, J. Misra, and I.W. Martin. Cambridge University Press. Abstract
What is the political sociology of democratization? Political scientists and sociologists alike have long theorized about democratic transitions, though their focus has changed signifcantly over time. Although early models of democracy and democratization were largely based upon the experiences of today’s advanced industrialized nations, more recent frameworks offer an updated paradigm to account for the circumstances late democratizers face. Factors that were once considered irrelevant to democratization are now deemed part and parcel of the literature, including issues of power, inequality, history, state capacity, and globalization. A political sociology of democratization, then, is the study of the inherently political process of regime change that employs a sociological analysis of the circumstances and actors that surround and shape transitions, such as those mentioned above. This chapter seeks to provide an overview of the literature that addresses issues key to the political sociology of democratization. We rst ground our discussion in the ever-changing international and historical circumstances that work to mold the contextual backdrop for de ning democratization. We then move to examine recent discussions within the literature that further provide nuances to measuring democratic citizenship. We conclude by discussing how local and transnational actors work together through social movements and global norm cascades to promote democratization |