Inquisitions
When the US far-right sneezes, the European far-right catches a cold. Quasi-experimental evidence of electoral contagion from Spain
Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte & José Rama
Electoral Studies, April 2022
Abstract:
Does the electoral defeat of a far-right party abroad influence support for similar parties at home? In this paper we posit, and test, the theoretical argument that signals of viability and popularity akin to bandwagon and titanic effects operate beyond the confines of national boundaries to cause voters to update domestic preferences based on comparable party performance abroad. By exploiting the quasi-experimental setting provided by the coincidental timing of Donald Trump's 2020 electoral defeat with the Spanish sociological study's monthly barometer data collection, we provide robust causal evidence to show that Trump's electoral loss in the US had a negative contagious spillover effect on self-reported support for the Spanish far-right. Empirically we estimate intent-to-treat effects based on the as good as random exposure to the electoral results to isolate the impact of Trump's defeat on the voting intentions for Spain's new far-right party, VOX. Our results -- which are robust to various modelling approaches including covariate adjustment, regional fixed effects, placebo issues, and nearest-neighbour matching -- demonstrate that Trump's defeat to Joe Biden had a sizeable negative effect on expressed support for VOX. The contagion effect is substantive: equal to 3 to 6 percentage-points among the general population and 11 percentage-points among former right-wing voters. Our findings make an important contribution to the broader literature on electoral behaviour as they indicate that the electoral success of ideologically symmetrical parties abroad can play a role in understanding a party's domestic success by serving as an important information signal of these parties' electoral viability.
The manifold effects of partisan media on viewers’ beliefs and attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers
David Broockman & Joshua Kalla
University of California Working Paper, April 2022
Abstract:
Partisan media impacts voting behavior, yet what changes in viewers’ beliefs or attitudes may underlie these impacts is poorly understood. We recruited a sample of regular Fox News viewers using data on actual TV viewership from a media company, and incentivized them to watch CNN instead for a month using real-time viewership quizzes. Despite regular Fox viewers being largely strong partisans, we found manifold effects of changing the slant of their media diets on their factual beliefs, attitudes, perceptions of issues’ importance, and overall political views. We show that these effects stem in part from a bias we call partisan coverage filtering, wherein partisan outlets selectively report information, leading viewers to learn a biased set of facts. Consistent with this, treated participants concluded that Fox concealed negative information about President Trump. Partisan media does not only present its side an electoral advantage — it may present a challenge for democratic accountability.
Does Affective Polarization Undermine Democratic Norms or Accountability? Maybe Not
David Broockman, Joshua Kalla & Sean Westwood
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars warn that affective polarization undermines democratic norms and accountability: they speculate that if citizens were less affectively polarized, they would be less likely to endorse norm violations, overlook copartisan politicians' shortcomings, oppose compromise, adopt their party's views, or misperceive economic conditions. We argue the contrary: affective polarization is not likely to influence political choices. We support this argument with four experiments which manipulate citizens' affective polarization with a trust game and trace downstream consequences, such as reactions to information about their representatives. In these experiments (total N=9,837), we produce the equivalent of three decades of change in affective polarization, but find no evidence that these changes influence many political behaviors -- only some general questions about interpersonal attitudes. A fifth experiment (N=2,504) finds similar results with alternative manipulations of affective polarization. Our results suggest caution about assuming that reducing affective polarization would meaningfully bolster democratic norms or accountability.
Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans’ support for partisan violence
Joseph Mernyk et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 April 2022
Abstract:
Scholars, policy makers, and the general public have expressed growing concern about the possibility of large-scale political violence in the United States. Prior research substantiates these worries, as studies reveal that many American partisans support the use of violence against rival partisans. Here, we propose that support for partisan violence is based in part on greatly exaggerated perceptions of rival partisans’ support for violence. We also predict that correcting these inaccurate “metaperceptions” can reduce partisans’ own support for partisan violence. We test these hypotheses in a series of preregistered, nationally representative, correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies (total n = 4,741) collected both before and after the 2020 US presidential election and the 2021 US Capitol attack. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that both Democrats’ and Republicans’ perceptions of their rival partisans’ support for violence and willingness to engage in violence were very inaccurate, with estimates ranging from 245 to 442% higher than actual levels. Further, we found that a brief, informational correction of these misperceptions reduced support for violence by 34% (Study 3) and willingness to engage in violence by 44% (Study 4). In the latter study, a follow-up survey revealed that the correction continued to significantly reduce support for violence approximately 1 mo later. Together, these results suggest that support for partisan violence in the United States stems in part from systematic overestimations of rival partisans’ support for violence and that correcting these misperceptions can durably reduce support for partisan violence in the mass public.
Taking up the tiki torch: Understanding alt-right interest using internet search data
Anna Kyler & Raphaël Charron-Chénier
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The alt-right is a white supremacist social movement that operates primarily online. Its broader constituency has not been studied systematically. Participants in white supremacist movements tend to join in response to threats to their social and economic status. Quantitative work suggests they come primarily from working- and lower-middle class backgrounds. Alt-right leadership, however, argues their movement successfully mobilizes a more affluent population of college-educated professionals. In this paper, we examine predictors of county-level Internet search volume for alt-right content. Results indicate that counties with larger percentages of college graduates, of highly educated non-white and immigrant groups, and higher poverty levels for college graduates tend to have a higher search volume for alt-right content. We interpret this as evidence that the alt-right appeals to college-educated whites experiencing real or perceived threats to their economic and social status.
Who Supports QAnon? A Case Study in Political Extremism
Adam Enders et al.
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The QAnon conspiracy theory has garnered increasing attention as more than 80 pro-QAnon congressional candidates vied for nominations in 2020 primary races. The QAnon movement is widely characterized as “far right” and “growing,” but such claims rest on flimsy evidence. Using six public opinion polls from 2018 to 2020, we find that support for QAnon is both meager and stable across time. QAnon also appears to find support among both the political right and left; rather than partisan valence, it is the extremity of political orientations that relates to QAnon support. Finally, we demonstrate that while QAnon supporters are “extreme,” they are not so in the ideological sense. Rather, QAnon support is best explained by conspiratorial worldviews, dark triad personality traits, and a predisposition toward other nonnormative behavior. These findings have implications for the study of conspiracy theories and the spread of misinformation and suggest new directions for research on political extremism.
Let Them Tweet Cake: Estimating Public Dissent Using Twitter
Ethan Spangler & Ben Smith
Defence and Peace Economics, April 2022, Pages 327-346
Abstract:
This paper establishes a new method of estimating public dissent that is both cost-effective and adaptable. Twitter allows users to post short messages that can be viewed and shared by other users, creating a network of freely and easily observable information. Drawing data directly from Twitter, we collect tweets containing specified words and phrases from citizens voicing dissatisfaction with their government. The collected tweets are processed using a regular expression based algorithm to estimate individual dissent; which is aggregated to an overall measure of public dissent. A comparative case study of Canada and Kenya during the summer of 2016 provides proof of concept. Controlling for user base differences, we find there is more public dissent in Kenya than Canada. This obvious, but necessary, result suggests that our measure of public dissent is a better representation of each country’s internal dynamics than other more sporadic measures. As a robustness check, we test our estimates against real-world civil unrest events. Results show our estimates of public dissent are significantly predictive of civil unrest events days before they occur in both countries.
Other People’s Terrorism: Ideology and the Perceived Legitimacy of Political Violence
Julie Norman
Perspectives on Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
When do Americans view political violence as legitimate? In this article, I use experimental methods to examine public perceptions of domestic political violence perpetrated to advance right-wing or left-wing agendas. Specifically, I examine the extent to which the alignment of political ideology (conservative/liberal) with a political cause influences perceptions of legitimacy for objectively equivalent acts of violence. Controlling for variables such as perpetrator identity, I demonstrate that political ideology influences both how members of the public perceive the morality of political violence and the extent to which they view an act as constituting terrorism, even when the severity of violence and type of target are identical. The findings have implications for policy makers and practitioners in designating acts as terrorism and developing policies to prevent or counter political violence.
Voter Outreach Campaigns Can Reduce Affective Polarization among Implementing Political Activists: Evidence from Inside Three Campaigns
Joshua Kalla & David Broockman
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Campaigns regularly dispatch activists to contact voters. Much research considers these conversations’ effects on voters, but we know little about their influence on the implementing activists—an important population given the outsized influence politically active Americans wield. We argue personal persuasion campaigns can reduce affective polarization among the implementing activists by creating opportunities for perspective-getting. We report unique data from three real-world campaigns wherein activists attempted to persuade voters who had opposing viewpoints: two campaigns about a politicized issue (immigration) and a third about the 2020 presidential election. All campaigns trained activists to persuade voters through in-depth, two-way conversations. In preregistered studies, we find that these efforts reduced affective polarization among implementing activists, with reductions large enough to reverse over a decade’s increase in affective polarization. Qualitative responses are consistent with these conversations producing perspective-getting, which reduced animosity by humanizing and individuating out-partisans. We discuss implications for theories of prejudice reduction.
Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
Adam Mastroianni & Jason Dana
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 7 March 2022
Abstract:
America is embroiled in cultural wars over abortion, immigration, gun control, climate change, religion, race, gender, and everything in between. Do people know how much attitudes have shifted on these contentious issues, or even which side is winning? Two preregistered studies suggest they do not. In Study 1, we asked a nationally representative sample of participants to estimate how 51 different attitudes had changed over time and compared their estimates to actual polling data. Participants overestimated the amount of change on 29 attitudes (57%), underestimated change on 10 attitudes (20%), estimated change in the wrong direction on 10 attitudes (20%), and estimated change correctly on only two attitudes (4%). In most cases, participants did not know whether an attitude had grown to a majority or shrunk to a minority. These misperceptions had little to do with participants’ demographics or ideologies and seemed instead to arise from a stereotype that the present is far more liberal than the past. Indeed, in Study 2, participants overestimated the liberal shift on most attitudes, believing that the liberal side had gained ground that it had in fact lost (e.g., gun control), or already held (e.g., climate change), or never held (e.g., religion). In three additional preregistered studies, we found that these misperceptions could justify policies that would otherwise seem objectionable. Overall, our findings suggest that widely shared stereotypes of the past lead people to misperceive attitude change, and these misperceptions can lend legitimacy to policies that people may not actually prefer.
Proportional Representation and Right-Wing Populism: Evidence from Electoral System Change in Europe
Michael Becher, Irene Menéndez González & Daniel Stegmueller
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
How much do electoral institutions matter for the rise of populist parties? Evidence on this question is mixed, with some scholars arguing that the role of electoral rules is small. We provide new evidence for the impact of electoral system change. The UK's adoption of a proportional electoral system for European elections in 1999 provides a unique opportunity to study the link between electoral rules and the ascendancy of right-wing populist parties. Employing both synthetic control and difference-in-difference methods, we estimate that the electoral reform increased the vote share of right-wing populists by about 12 to 13.5 percentage points on average. During a time when populism was rising across Europe, the reform abruptly shifted populist votes in the UK above the European trend and above more plausible comparison cases. Our results also imply that caution is needed when empirical results based on partial reforms are extrapolated to electoral system change.
Social networks of independents and partisans: Are independents a moderating force?
Thom Reilly & Eric Hedberg
Politics & Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
While scholars have long recognized that social networks impact political engagement for partisans, comparatively little work has examined the role of networks for independent voters. In this article, we contribute to existing research on social networks and politics by surveying Arizona registered voters about their political persuasion, personal networks, and media consumption habits. Our findings show that independents have networks that are structurally different from partisans. Specifically, we found that both Democrat and Republican respondents were more likely to frequently talk about politics with independents than with members of the opposing party. Independents were also less likely than partisans to end a friendship over a political dispute. Taken together these findings show that independents may be frequent and reliable discussion partners for partisans and may be able to moderate political views. We find evidence for the moderating force of independents is especially apparent in the media consumption habits of Republican respondents.