2014
DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12048
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Public Preferences for Bipartisanship in the Policymaking Process

Abstract: At a time of a high level of polarization in Congress, public opinion surveys routinely find that Americans want politicians to compromise. When evaluating legislation, does the preference for bipartisanship in the legislative process trump partisan identities? We find that it does not. We conduct two experiments in which we alter aspects of the political context to see how people respond to parties (not) coming together to achieve broadly popular public policy goals. Although citizens can recognize bipartisan… Show more

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Cited by 84 publications
(52 citation statements)
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References 32 publications
(33 reference statements)
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“…Asking Americans about their support for bipartisan compromise has limitations, however. While Americans claim support for bipartisan cooperation when asked directly, they may actually prefer partisan goal seeking (Harbridge, Malhotra, & Harrison, ). Thus, antideliberative attitudes should be measured in a less obvious way.…”
Section: Studymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Asking Americans about their support for bipartisan compromise has limitations, however. While Americans claim support for bipartisan cooperation when asked directly, they may actually prefer partisan goal seeking (Harbridge, Malhotra, & Harrison, ). Thus, antideliberative attitudes should be measured in a less obvious way.…”
Section: Studymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…). Moreover, when individuals are forced to interact with outgroup members, they often become anxious (e.g., Plant and Devine ), grow weary (e.g., Richeson and Trawalter ), and develop feelings of resentment or hostility (e.g., Enos , ). In light of research that citizen partisanship sometimes mimics the properties of social identities like race and gender (Green et al.…”
Section: Citizen Preference For Copartisan Contactmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…They are unlikely to recognize or pay attention to nuanced movements in policy positions, but they can recognize a member's commitment to an ideological stance and they observe the benefits their district receives through their representative, particularly when interest groups and media communicate these actions to voters. Indeed, extant evidence suggests both that voters prefer uncompromising representatives and that excessive partisan loyalty can be electorally damaging (Carson et al, 2010;Harbridge, Malhotra and Harrison, 2014), especially in extreme constituencies (Harbridge and Malhotra, 2011). Thus, undermining ideological purity to move policy is a sub-optimal electoral strategy for representatives in extreme districts.…”
Section: A Theory Of Strategic Party Disloyaltymentioning
confidence: 99%