Public Attitudes Towards Harassment of British MPs Graeme Davies, Robert Johns, Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, Reed Wood and Peter Geoghegan (chair)
Event details
A recent report by the Jo Cox Foundation makes the powerful case that threats and abuse towards parliamentary candidates now amounts to a crisis in British democracy. Beyond the horrific examples of Jo Cox and David Amess, there is ample evidence of the extent both of abuse and of MPs’ fears for their safety.
There is much less evidence on how the public perceives the problem. To what extent does the general public tolerate abuse and harassment of MPs? Does counter-narrative messaging reduce this tolerance?
Using a survey experiment in the UK, our expert speakers explore whether viewing social media posts that contain threatening messages directed toward MPs influences citizens’ attitudes about the acceptability of that abuse and towards regulation of free expression in online discussion space.
Join Sarah Shair-Rosenfield and Graeme Davies of the University of York, Robert Johns of the University of Southampton, Reed Wood of the University of Essex and chair of the event, journalist Peter Geoghegan.
This event will take place live on Zoom Webinar. You will receive a link to join a couple of days before the event and a reminder an hour before. During the event, you can ask questions via a Q&A function, but audience cameras and microphones will remain muted throughout.
About the speakers
Graeme Davies is a Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of York. His research examines the relationship between domestic politics and state behaviour in the international system. His work has two strands: the first investigates how public opinion influences the likelihood of international conflict. He has examined how public dissatisfaction with the Government leads to more aggressive behaviours on the international stage and he has also investigated how public opinion influences the likelihood of successful coercive diplomacy. He has published work on US, Iranian and North Korean foreign policies. The second strand of research looks at the influences on public opinion about international relations (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)). His work has examined media representations of drone strikes (winner of British Journal of Politics and International Relations best article of 2018), public support for attacking Islamic States (published in the Journal of Politics) and attitudes towards coercive diplomacy (published in International Studies Quarterly) among others. He is currently conducting research on Chinese public attitudes towards international affairs.
Peter Geoghegan is an Irish writer, broadcaster and journalist based in the UK. He edits Political Insight, the Political Studies Association of the UK's quarterly magazine, and writes the popular Democracy for Sale newsletter on Substack. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books and many other publications. His most recent book, Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics, was a Sunday Times bestseller.
Robert Johns is a Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. He has 20 years' experience of research and teaching in the fields of elections, public opinion, political psychology and survey methodology. Basically, he is interested in what people think about politics, where those opinions come from, and how we can go about measuring slippery things like beliefs, attitudes and values. Rob has worked on a large number of (often ESRC-funded) survey projects, most notably as a founding investigator on the Scottish Election Study series and has particular expertise in the design of survey experiments.
Sarah Shair-Rosenfield is a Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of York. Her research focuses on comparative political institutions with a special interest in the link between gender and political representation. Her published works examine diverse topics including decentralised governance, electoral rules, peacebuilding and peace durability, public health outcomes, executive authority, and gender and language. Her ongoing projects investigate the relationship between decentralised governance and maternal health in Southeast Asia and exploring how gendered language structures and usage shape opportunities for and evaluations of political leadership around the world. She has consulted with the United Nations and US Agency for International Development, conducted fieldwork and partnership activities in Indonesia and the Philippines, currently serves as joint editor-in-chief of Political Studies (the flagship journal of the UK’s Political Studies Association), and is the co-founder of the Women in Southeast Asian Social Sciences network.
Reed Wood is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. He received a PhD (2010) in Political Science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. His research investigates the complex interconnections between gender and political violence and its implications for politics and society. His recent research has focused on the participation of women in rebel and terrorist organisations and their impact on the dynamics and duration of armed conflict, the influence of gender diversity on conflict resolution and post-conflict peace, and the effects of election violence on descriptive representation in national legislatures. He is currently involved in several ongoing data collection projects, including the Women in Armed Rebellion Dataset (WARD), the Sub-National Analysis of Repression Project (SNARP), and the Political Terror Scale (PTS).
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