Ratio Working Papers
No 131:
Conservative Magazines and the Presumption of Liberty: A Content Analysis on Sex, Gambling, and Drugs
Daniel Klein ()
and Jason Briggeman ()
Abstract: Conservatives say they are for small government and
individual liberty, but a content analysis of leading conservative
magazines shows that most have preponderantly failed to take pro-liberty
positions on sex, gambling, and drugs. Besides many anti-liberty
commissions, the magazines may be criticized for anti-liberty omission—that
is, failing to oppose anti-liberty policies. Magazines investigated include
National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Enterprise, and The
American Spectator. We find that National Review has had the strongest
record on liberty on the issues treated, while the others have
preponderantly failed to be pro-liberty or have even been anti-liberty.
Keywords: Conservative; liberty; sex; drugs; gambling; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: A13; (follow links to similar papers)
13 pages, February 24, 2009
To appear in The Independent Review
Before downloading any of the electronic versions below
you should read our statement on
copyright.
Download GhostScript
for viewing Postscript files and the
Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing pdf files.
Full text versions of the paper:
dk_jb_magazines.pdf 
Download Statistics
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Niclas Berggren ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ()
or Björn Thodenius ().
Programing by
Design by Joachim Ekebom
