POLITICAL SCIENCE MYSTERY: Why do partisans who feel colder toward the opposing political party seem LESS supportive of antidemocratic actions against them (e.g., closing polling stations)? Intuitively, dislike = more norm violations. What’s going on?🧵 - ThreadSky

icedteas.bsky.social • 100 days ago

POLITICAL SCIENCE MYSTERY:
Why do partisans who feel colder toward the opposing political party seem LESS supportive of antidemocratic actions against them (e.g., closing polling stations)? Intuitively, dislike = more norm violations. What’s going on?🧵

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dmnd.me•97 days ago

“I hate them so much, they suck so bad… so we should have no problem beating them fair and square. And if we do this, they’ll do it back to us even worse.”

maxkagan.bsky.social•100 days ago

My guess: the people who care less about democratic norms are also lower in afpol because they are less politically engaged, vs. politically engaged people who simultaneously care more about norms while also being highly effectively polarized

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

Thanks! Though I checked for that and political interest (extent to which one follows politics) didn't eliminate the effect

jonathancorbin.bsky.social•98 days ago

I'd be interested in more behavioral indicators (voting history), or knowledge measures of engagement.

Did you look for random responders as well?

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

For context: Affective polarization (how much people dislike the opposing party) is often blamed for democratic backsliding. But in my data, it’s negatively related to support for antidemocratic actions. Isn’t that the opposite of what we’d expect?

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

I've seen this before in work by Campos & @cmfederico.bsky.social and @elijfinkel.bsky.social et al., especially when accounting for political sectarianism (othering + aversion + moralization). But I thought affective polarization was just unrelated, not negatively related!

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

Let’s look at some possible explanations (and rule them out):

1️⃣ Maybe people who are more polarized are also more politically conscious, which is related to more commitment to democratic norms?

Nah, I controlled for political interest and it does nothing.

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

2️⃣ Maybe it's because I'm not using a combination of inparty warmth minus outparty cold…coldness(?)..coldth(??)

Tried that too and found the same negative relationship!

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

3️⃣ Could skew in the data explain it?

There’s definitely skew, but I find it hard to believe that it would fully account for the results.

icedteas.bsky.social•100 days ago

This points to the need for better measures of affective polarization like political sectarianism—the moralized, toxic view of the other side. (come to my SPSP symposium about this!)

But still... why would colder feelings lead to less support for antidemocratic actions?

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