Showing papers by "Peter Hays Gries published in 2012"

Toward the Scientific Study of Polytheism: Beyond Forced‐Choice Measures of Religious Belief

Abstract: This article argues that zero-sum, forced-choice approaches to measuring religious belief do not work well outside of the Abrahamic world. Positive-sum approaches to measuring religious beliefs (in the plural) are better suited to the study of polytheistic societies. Using results from a nationally representative survey conducted in 2011 Taiwan, we demonstrate that in a polytheistic society like Taiwan, religious belief is not zero sum. We also contrast our results with those of the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), and seek to show that our positive-sum approach to measuring religious beliefs can help us better understand the disparate causes and consequences of different religious beliefs in polytheistic societies. The challenge of Christocentrism in quantitative studies of religion is also discussed.

Disillusionment and dismay: How Chinese netizens think and feel about the two Koreas

Abstract: North Korea’s military aggression is probably best explained by the leadership transition in Pyongyang. And China’s policy response was likely driven by “traditionalists” within the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party and conservatives within the People’s Liberation Army.1 But China’s 2010 behavior was deeply alarming to South Koreans expecting that increasing PRC–ROK economic interdependence and interpersonal interactions would lead to improved bilateral relations. Th e 2010 setback in bilateral relations raised a serious question in Seoul: how do Chinese feel and think about the two Koreas?

God, guns, and … China?How ideology impacts American attitudes and policy preferences toward China

Abstract: What impact does ideology have on American attitudes and policy preferences toward China? Based on two large N surveys, we first utilize exploratory factor analysis to uncover six distinct American ideological dimensions and two distinct dimensions of attitudes toward China that distinguish between its government and its people. We then utilize structural equation modeling to explore how attitudes toward the Chinese people (i.e. prejudice) and attitudes toward the Chinese government differentially mediate relationships between ideological beliefs, on the one hand, and Americans’ China policy preferences, on the other. Results suggest both direct and indirect effects of ideology on policy preferences, with the latter effects being differentially mediated by prejudice and attitudes toward the Chinese government.

Sino-Japanese relations: The American factor

Abstract: The fundamental American national interest in Sino–Japanese relations is that the U.S. does not get drawn into a war with China stemming from a Sino–Japanese conflict. This interest is thus the same as the American national interest in not getting drawn into a war with China based on tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Indeed, unlike power transitions and other neorealist international relations (IR) theorists who view conflict between the U.S. and China as the inevitable outcome of structural and material factors — China’s military and economic rise leading inexorably to a direct conflict with the U.S. — I view a U.S.–China conflict as most likely stemming from the U.S. being drawn into a conflict between China and either Japan or Taiwan. Furthermore, such a conflict is most likely to stem not from clashes of material interest — the economic and security interdependence between both Beijing and Tokyo and Beijing and Taipei is a force more for cooperation than for conflict — but from the clash of histories and identities. This chapter, therefore, will urge both China and Japan to work hard to overcome the domestic political dynamics that securitize the issue of Sino–Japanese relations and turn it into a zero-sum game of identity politics. Instead, both sides should work to desecuritize the relationship in domestic discourses by reframing the bilateral relationship as one of