R J Lawrence
Biographic Data
| ID | 296838 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R J Lawrence |
| GIVEN NAMES | R J |
| FAMILY NAME | Lawrence |
| SIGNATURE | LAWRENCE R J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institute for Social Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9412-7296 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 181 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1956 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Party responsiveness to party supporters, the electorate, and interest groups in a multidimensional policy space
This article sheds new light on party responsiveness by considering the role of interest group pressure in parties’ responsiveness to their supporters and the electorate on multiple policy dimensions in 12 countries. Following recent work, we expect that parties are as responsive to shifts in their supporters’ preferences as to the wider electorate. Yet, parties also attend to interest group pressure. We argue that parties’ responsiveness to vote…
Flattering Social Groups: Do Warmth and Competence Descriptions Impact the Effectiveness of Group Appeals
Political parties and candidates appeal to social groups to gain their support. Yet, we lack knowledge about what makes such group appeals effective. This article tests novel explanations for the success of in-group appeals. Specifically, we investigate (1) how voters respond to social group appeals that flatter them by describing their group’s positive qualities (warmth and competence), and (2) whether voters identifying with high or low status …
The road to citizenship: How discussing politics shapes political interest across the lifespan
Political interest is key to explaining democratic outcomes such as political knowledge and participation, and its development has been particularly studied in the context of socialization processes during adolescence. Building on a theory of expression effects, this study highlights the relationship between political discussion and political interest among individuals age 15 and above. Based on a seven-year panel study in Norway ( n = 10,695), w…
Stressors in Political Office: How Stress from Parenthood and Harassment Affect Politicians’ Motivations
Client Characteristics, Performance Information, and Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Willingness to Collaborate
Prior research shows that the framing of performance data can influence the interpretation of identical performance results. This study adds to this line of research by testing how performance information and clients’ social status and behavior interact to shape street-level bureaucrats’ problem identification and willingness to collaborate in public service provision. We hypothesize that in a situation where a client has negative performance res…
Functional team diversity in frontline service delivery: Explaining teamwork attitudes among public service professionals
Team diversity is key in public service delivery. Yet, teamwork in functionally diverse teams can be undermined by mutual scepticism among different professionals. This article examines the mechanisms explaining teamwork attitudes with two experiments. We theorize that public service professionals’ negativity towards working in functionally diverse teams arises because other team members are perceived as lacking warmth and competence. Our evidenc…
Exposure to Online Abuse of Politicians Does Not Scare Citizens Away From Politics
Recent studies suggest that online abuse directed at politicians can have negative effects on their public engagement and continued participation in politics. This article considers the broader consequences of such online abuse by testing whether exposure to online abuse of politicians also decreases the prospective political participation of ordinary citizens. In a preregistered survey experiment with 2,000 participants from Denmark, we find tha…
Social Inequality in Board Volunteering in Norway: Exploring the Role of Social Class and Individual Resources
The democratic character of Norwegian voluntary organizations is facing tension from rising social inequality and increased demands for specialized expertise. This article explores this tension by examining how social class and individual resources influence board volunteering. We argue that an occupation-based class analysis better captures socioeconomic differences in board volunteering than a resource-theory model by considering both the volum…
How group appeals shape candidate support: The role of group membership, identity strength, and deservingness perceptions
Recent research draws attention to parties’ reliance on group appeals. Such group appeals are a tool that parties and candidates use to strengthen the association between voters’ social group membership and their electoral support. However, what we know about the effects of such appeals on voters is mostly limited to class appeals. Using two survey experimental studies among British voters ( N =1,500; N =3,200), we shed light on the generalizabil…
Countering online abuse of politicians through information about consequences and norms
In recent years, a growing body of research has documented how both local and national politicians experience insults, sexism, and even threats on social media platforms. Studies show that such online abuse can have serious democratic consequences and negatively impact politicians’ mental health and wellbeing. We investigate whether online abuse directed at politicians can be countered by providing citizens with information regarding such abuse. …
The Effect of Performance Failures on User Satisfaction: Evidence From a Natural Experiment
Despite long‐standing interest in satisfaction with public services and organizations, our knowledge of how responsive user satisfaction is to real‐world performance fluctuations remains limited. Existing cross‐sectional studies may suffer from selection bias, while survey experiments may overstate performance information effects, as the salience of such information is artificially primed. We exploit a unique opportunity to study the link between…
Online Abuse of Politicians: Experimental Evidence on Politicians’ Own Perceptions
Criticism from dissatisfied citizens is an inevitable part of being an elected politician in a democracy. However, when negative feedback from citizens turns into outright abuse, this can have pernicious personal and democratic consequences. In this study, we therefore investigate how politicians perceive criticisms, insults, threats, and sexist remarks in social media comments. Based on a survey experiment with more than 700 politicians from the…
Citizens’ perceptions of online abuse directed at politicians: Evidence from a survey experiment
Online abuse is becoming an increasingly pressing issue for democratic societies. Citizens play an important role in curtailing abuse as they often moderate online content through counter speech and by reporting abusive messages. However, we know little about when citizens actually perceive negative comments directed at politicians as being abusive, and the factors shaping these perceptions are also understudied. In this study, we therefore inves…
The Group Appeal Strategy: Beyond the Policy Perspective on Party Electoral Success
Political parties use policy appeals to change their policy images and increase electoral support. Building on the idea that parties’ group images also matter to voters, this article shows that group appeals can benefit parties as well. Combining manifesto data on policy and group appeals covering 50 years, we revisit the shift from class to catch-all politics in Britain and present three findings. First, a vote share analysis shows that the Labo…
How do voters interpret social class appeals? Lessons from open-ended responses
Recent research has shown that parties’ group appeals, particularly working class appeals, can raise electoral support. But how do such effects come about? This article explores the mechanisms underlying group appeals by content analysing voters’ open-ended responses to working class and upper middle class appeals in a survey experiment in Denmark. The results show that voters generally connect class-based rhetoric from candidates to issues of in…
The Social Divisions of Politics: How Parties’ Group-Based Appeals Influence Social Group Differences in Vote Choice
Social groups often differ in vote choice, but differences vary significantly between elections. Recent work argues that political parties shape group differences by the policies they propose. I posit that differences also depend on how parties use group-based appeals. This proposition is tested with a unique data set on group-based appeals, policy-based appeals, and voter preferences in Britain from 1964 to 2015. Focusing on social class as one …
Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters
Recent elections have featured various politicians directly appealing to the working class, yet we know little about how citizens react to class appeals from candidates. We investigate this question using survey experiments conducted in the United States and Denmark. We show that symbolic class rhetoric substantially influences candidate evaluations and ultimately polarizes these evaluations across class lines. We also unpack how class appeals wo…
Question order bias revisited: A split‐ballot experiment on satisfaction with public services among experienced and professional users
Public decision‐makers increasingly rely on satisfaction surveys to inform budget and policy decisions. Yet, our knowledge of whether, and under what conditions, this input from public service users provides valid performance information remains incomplete. Using a preregistered split‐ballot experiment among government grant recipients in Denmark, this article shows that the ordering of survey questions can bias satisfaction measures even for hig…
How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015
Political parties often appeal to groups. Yet, existing work does not consider how such group-based appeals are used, presumably because they are thought to have grown ineffective. Contrary to this, I argue that group-based appeals are central to party electoral strategy, and that time has only strengthened the incentive to use them. Using original data on 10,000 group-based appeals found in sentence-by-sentence coding of British election manifes…
Rethinking conceptual frameworks and models of health and natural environments
This article considers conceptual frameworks and models applied in research about the multiple relations between human contact with natural environments (specifically green public spaces), diverse kinds of human activities and uses of those spaces, and effects on physical and mental health. Conceptual frameworks are tools for thinking about such complex subjects. Conceptual models represent the multiple relations between key factors and variables…
The Demobilization of Class Politics in Denmark: The Social Democratic Party’s Group-Based Appeals 1961–2004
In Denmark, as in other Western European countries, the working class does not vote for social democratic parties to the same extent as before. Yet, what role did the social democratic parties themselves play in the demobilization of class politics? Building on core ideas from public opinion literature, this article differs from the focus on party policy positions in previous work and, instead, focuses on the group-based appeals of the Social Dem…
The more the merrier: Accounting for regional paradiplomats in Brussels
Although talk of a ‘Europe of the regions’ has come and gone, regions have come to Brussels but stayed. While such mobilisation has not led to the emergence of a ‘third level’, regional officials in Brussels sometimes outnumber their peers from their country’s permanent representation. Considering the perseverance and size of such a presence, we explore what factors best account for it. To this end, a series of multi-level models inform us about …
Understanding fatal assault of children: A typology and explanatory theory
Education in China: Preparation for Citizenship
Rod Lawrence's first acquaintance with China was in 1986 when he spent two years at Changchun University in northeast China as a lecturer in English. In 1990 he returned for a three-year appointment as lecturer in British studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in the south of the country, during which period he helped to develop a course book and teacher's manual for British studies at university level. He has held lecturing posts at …
Accountability
Since antiquity, accounting systems and controls have been a feature of government and business activity.1 With the vast increase in industrial and commercial concerns in the west since the nineteenth century, financial accounting has burgeoned
How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015
Political parties often appeal to groups. Yet, existing work does not consider how such group-based appeals are used, presumably because they are thought to have grown ineffective. Contrary to this, I argue that group-based appeals are central to party electoral strategy, and that time has only strengthened the incentive to use them. Using original data on 10,000 group-based appeals found in sentence-by-sentence coding of British election manifes…
Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters
Recent elections have featured various politicians directly appealing to the working class, yet we know little about how citizens react to class appeals from candidates. We investigate this question using survey experiments conducted in the United States and Denmark. We show that symbolic class rhetoric substantially influences candidate evaluations and ultimately polarizes these evaluations across class lines. We also unpack how class appeals wo…
The Social Divisions of Politics: How Parties’ Group-Based Appeals Influence Social Group Differences in Vote Choice
Social groups often differ in vote choice, but differences vary significantly between elections. Recent work argues that political parties shape group differences by the policies they propose. I posit that differences also depend on how parties use group-based appeals. This proposition is tested with a unique data set on group-based appeals, policy-based appeals, and voter preferences in Britain from 1964 to 2015. Focusing on social class as one …
The more the merrier: Accounting for regional paradiplomats in Brussels
Although talk of a ‘Europe of the regions’ has come and gone, regions have come to Brussels but stayed. While such mobilisation has not led to the emergence of a ‘third level’, regional officials in Brussels sometimes outnumber their peers from their country’s permanent representation. Considering the perseverance and size of such a presence, we explore what factors best account for it. To this end, a series of multi-level models inform us about …
The Group Appeal Strategy: Beyond the Policy Perspective on Party Electoral Success
Political parties use policy appeals to change their policy images and increase electoral support. Building on the idea that parties’ group images also matter to voters, this article shows that group appeals can benefit parties as well. Combining manifesto data on policy and group appeals covering 50 years, we revisit the shift from class to catch-all politics in Britain and present three findings. First, a vote share analysis shows that the Labo…
Question order bias revisited: A split‐ballot experiment on satisfaction with public services among experienced and professional users
Public decision‐makers increasingly rely on satisfaction surveys to inform budget and policy decisions. Yet, our knowledge of whether, and under what conditions, this input from public service users provides valid performance information remains incomplete. Using a preregistered split‐ballot experiment among government grant recipients in Denmark, this article shows that the ordering of survey questions can bias satisfaction measures even for hig…
Online Abuse of Politicians: Experimental Evidence on Politicians’ Own Perceptions
Criticism from dissatisfied citizens is an inevitable part of being an elected politician in a democracy. However, when negative feedback from citizens turns into outright abuse, this can have pernicious personal and democratic consequences. In this study, we therefore investigate how politicians perceive criticisms, insults, threats, and sexist remarks in social media comments. Based on a survey experiment with more than 700 politicians from the…
Citizens’ perceptions of online abuse directed at politicians: Evidence from a survey experiment
Online abuse is becoming an increasingly pressing issue for democratic societies. Citizens play an important role in curtailing abuse as they often moderate online content through counter speech and by reporting abusive messages. However, we know little about when citizens actually perceive negative comments directed at politicians as being abusive, and the factors shaping these perceptions are also understudied. In this study, we therefore inves…
How do voters interpret social class appeals? Lessons from open-ended responses
Recent research has shown that parties’ group appeals, particularly working class appeals, can raise electoral support. But how do such effects come about? This article explores the mechanisms underlying group appeals by content analysing voters’ open-ended responses to working class and upper middle class appeals in a survey experiment in Denmark. The results show that voters generally connect class-based rhetoric from candidates to issues of in…
Devolution Reconsidered
How group appeals shape candidate support: The role of group membership, identity strength, and deservingness perceptions
Recent research draws attention to parties’ reliance on group appeals. Such group appeals are a tool that parties and candidates use to strengthen the association between voters’ social group membership and their electoral support. However, what we know about the effects of such appeals on voters is mostly limited to class appeals. Using two survey experimental studies among British voters ( N =1,500; N =3,200), we shed light on the generalizabil…
Understanding fatal assault of children: A typology and explanatory theory
Education in China: Preparation for Citizenship
Rod Lawrence's first acquaintance with China was in 1986 when he spent two years at Changchun University in northeast China as a lecturer in English. In 1990 he returned for a three-year appointment as lecturer in British studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in the south of the country, during which period he helped to develop a course book and teacher's manual for British studies at university level. He has held lecturing posts at …
A Social Transaction Model for the Analysis of Social Welfare
The Health Services in Northern Ireland
The Health Services in Northern Ireland
Devolution Reconsidered
Devolution: A Rejoinder
Utilization of ambulance services in a rural community
Utilization of ambulance services in a rural community. J A Waller, R Garner, and R LawrenceCopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.56.3.513 Published Online: August 29, 2011
Northern Ireland at Westminster
Journal Article NORTHERN IRELAND AT WESTMINSTER Get access R. J. Lawrence R. J. Lawrence Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 20, Issue 1, September 1966, Pages 90–93, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a051388 Published: 01 September 1966
A Social Transaction Model for the Analysis of Social Welfare
Accountability
Since antiquity, accounting systems and controls have been a feature of government and business activity.1 With the vast increase in industrial and commercial concerns in the west since the nineteenth century, financial accounting has burgeoned
Education in China: Preparation for Citizenship
Rod Lawrence's first acquaintance with China was in 1986 when he spent two years at Changchun University in northeast China as a lecturer in English. In 1990 he returned for a three-year appointment as lecturer in British studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in the south of the country, during which period he helped to develop a course book and teacher's manual for British studies at university level. He has held lecturing posts at …
Understanding fatal assault of children: A typology and explanatory theory
The more the merrier: Accounting for regional paradiplomats in Brussels
Although talk of a ‘Europe of the regions’ has come and gone, regions have come to Brussels but stayed. While such mobilisation has not led to the emergence of a ‘third level’, regional officials in Brussels sometimes outnumber their peers from their country’s permanent representation. Considering the perseverance and size of such a presence, we explore what factors best account for it. To this end, a series of multi-level models inform us about …
The Demobilization of Class Politics in Denmark: The Social Democratic Party’s Group-Based Appeals 1961–2004
In Denmark, as in other Western European countries, the working class does not vote for social democratic parties to the same extent as before. Yet, what role did the social democratic parties themselves play in the demobilization of class politics? Building on core ideas from public opinion literature, this article differs from the focus on party policy positions in previous work and, instead, focuses on the group-based appeals of the Social Dem…
How Political Parties Use Group-Based Appeals: Evidence from Britain 1964–2015
Political parties often appeal to groups. Yet, existing work does not consider how such group-based appeals are used, presumably because they are thought to have grown ineffective. Contrary to this, I argue that group-based appeals are central to party electoral strategy, and that time has only strengthened the incentive to use them. Using original data on 10,000 group-based appeals found in sentence-by-sentence coding of British election manifes…
Rethinking conceptual frameworks and models of health and natural environments
This article considers conceptual frameworks and models applied in research about the multiple relations between human contact with natural environments (specifically green public spaces), diverse kinds of human activities and uses of those spaces, and effects on physical and mental health. Conceptual frameworks are tools for thinking about such complex subjects. Conceptual models represent the multiple relations between key factors and variables…
Question order bias revisited: A split‐ballot experiment on satisfaction with public services among experienced and professional users
Public decision‐makers increasingly rely on satisfaction surveys to inform budget and policy decisions. Yet, our knowledge of whether, and under what conditions, this input from public service users provides valid performance information remains incomplete. Using a preregistered split‐ballot experiment among government grant recipients in Denmark, this article shows that the ordering of survey questions can bias satisfaction measures even for hig…
The Social Divisions of Politics: How Parties’ Group-Based Appeals Influence Social Group Differences in Vote Choice
Social groups often differ in vote choice, but differences vary significantly between elections. Recent work argues that political parties shape group differences by the policies they propose. I posit that differences also depend on how parties use group-based appeals. This proposition is tested with a unique data set on group-based appeals, policy-based appeals, and voter preferences in Britain from 1964 to 2015. Focusing on social class as one …
Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters
Recent elections have featured various politicians directly appealing to the working class, yet we know little about how citizens react to class appeals from candidates. We investigate this question using survey experiments conducted in the United States and Denmark. We show that symbolic class rhetoric substantially influences candidate evaluations and ultimately polarizes these evaluations across class lines. We also unpack how class appeals wo…
How do voters interpret social class appeals? Lessons from open-ended responses
Recent research has shown that parties’ group appeals, particularly working class appeals, can raise electoral support. But how do such effects come about? This article explores the mechanisms underlying group appeals by content analysing voters’ open-ended responses to working class and upper middle class appeals in a survey experiment in Denmark. The results show that voters generally connect class-based rhetoric from candidates to issues of in…
The Group Appeal Strategy: Beyond the Policy Perspective on Party Electoral Success
Political parties use policy appeals to change their policy images and increase electoral support. Building on the idea that parties’ group images also matter to voters, this article shows that group appeals can benefit parties as well. Combining manifesto data on policy and group appeals covering 50 years, we revisit the shift from class to catch-all politics in Britain and present three findings. First, a vote share analysis shows that the Labo…
Client Characteristics, Performance Information, and Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Willingness to Collaborate
Prior research shows that the framing of performance data can influence the interpretation of identical performance results. This study adds to this line of research by testing how performance information and clients’ social status and behavior interact to shape street-level bureaucrats’ problem identification and willingness to collaborate in public service provision. We hypothesize that in a situation where a client has negative performance res…
Functional team diversity in frontline service delivery: Explaining teamwork attitudes among public service professionals
Team diversity is key in public service delivery. Yet, teamwork in functionally diverse teams can be undermined by mutual scepticism among different professionals. This article examines the mechanisms explaining teamwork attitudes with two experiments. We theorize that public service professionals’ negativity towards working in functionally diverse teams arises because other team members are perceived as lacking warmth and competence. Our evidenc…
Exposure to Online Abuse of Politicians Does Not Scare Citizens Away From Politics
Recent studies suggest that online abuse directed at politicians can have negative effects on their public engagement and continued participation in politics. This article considers the broader consequences of such online abuse by testing whether exposure to online abuse of politicians also decreases the prospective political participation of ordinary citizens. In a preregistered survey experiment with 2,000 participants from Denmark, we find tha…
Social Inequality in Board Volunteering in Norway: Exploring the Role of Social Class and Individual Resources
The democratic character of Norwegian voluntary organizations is facing tension from rising social inequality and increased demands for specialized expertise. This article explores this tension by examining how social class and individual resources influence board volunteering. We argue that an occupation-based class analysis better captures socioeconomic differences in board volunteering than a resource-theory model by considering both the volum…
How group appeals shape candidate support: The role of group membership, identity strength, and deservingness perceptions
Recent research draws attention to parties’ reliance on group appeals. Such group appeals are a tool that parties and candidates use to strengthen the association between voters’ social group membership and their electoral support. However, what we know about the effects of such appeals on voters is mostly limited to class appeals. Using two survey experimental studies among British voters ( N =1,500; N =3,200), we shed light on the generalizabil…
Countering online abuse of politicians through information about consequences and norms
In recent years, a growing body of research has documented how both local and national politicians experience insults, sexism, and even threats on social media platforms. Studies show that such online abuse can have serious democratic consequences and negatively impact politicians’ mental health and wellbeing. We investigate whether online abuse directed at politicians can be countered by providing citizens with information regarding such abuse. …
The Effect of Performance Failures on User Satisfaction: Evidence From a Natural Experiment
Despite long‐standing interest in satisfaction with public services and organizations, our knowledge of how responsive user satisfaction is to real‐world performance fluctuations remains limited. Existing cross‐sectional studies may suffer from selection bias, while survey experiments may overstate performance information effects, as the salience of such information is artificially primed. We exploit a unique opportunity to study the link between…
Political science (21 works) · Law (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (13 works) · Politics (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Social Media and Politics (7 works)