The Myth of the Independent Voter, California Style

Lascher, Edward L.; Korey, John L.

doi:10.5070/p20w2r

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…The sample is designed to be representative of the US adult population. 7 As with related work (Bullock 2011;Druckman et al 2013;Levendusky 2010) pure independents are excluded and analyses are restricted to 2090 partisans including partisan ''leaners'' who are known to be similar to partisans in vote choice and policy preferences (Lascher and Korey 2011;Magleby et al 2011). 8 Experimental stimuli, randomized by condition, were in the form of news articles (news source not revealed).…”

Section: Sample and Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisanship and Preference Formation: Competing Motivations, Elite Polarization, and Issue Importance

Mullinix

2015

Polit Behav

106

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An enduring and increasingly acute concern-in an age of polarized parties-is that people's partisan attachments distort preference formation at the expense of relevant information. For example, research suggests that a Democrat may support a policy proposed by Democrats, but oppose the same policy if proposed by Republicans. However, a related body of literature suggests that how people respond to information and form preferences is distorted by their prior issue attitudes. In neither instance is information even-handedly evaluated, rather, it is interpreted in light of partisanship or existing issue opinions. Both effects are well documented in isolation, but in most political scenarios individuals consider both partisanship and prior opinions-yet, these dynamics may or may not pull toward the same preference. Using nationally representative experiments focused on tax and education policies, I introduce and test a theory that isolates when: partisanship dominates preference formation, partisanship and issue opinions reinforce or offset each other, and issue attitudes trump partisanship. The findings make clear that the public does not blindly follow party elites. Depending on elite positions, the level of partisan polarization, and personal importance of issues, the public can be attentive to information and shirk the influence of party elites. The results have broad implications for political parties and citizen competence in contemporary democratic politics.

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Section: Sample and Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisanship and Preference Formation: Competing Motivations, Elite Polarization, and Issue Importance

Mullinix

2015

Polit Behav

106

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“…As with Levendusky's (2010, 120) experiment on partisan polarization, we excluded pure independents (also see, e.g., Bullock 2011). This approach is typical because independent leaners are similar to partisans in their vote choice and policy opinions (e.g., Lascher and Korey 2011). After excluding independents, our sample consisted of 53% Democrats and 47% Republicans.…”

Section: Experimental Tests Of Partisan Polarization and Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation

Druckman¹,

2013

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E.E. Schattschneider (1960, 138) concluded his classic book, The Semisovereign People, by defining democracy as "a competitive political system in which competing leaders and organizations define the alternatives of public policy in such a way that the public can participate in the decision-making process" (italics in original). Although his work vastly influenced the trajectory of multiple areas of political science, his concluding conception of democracy has received relatively scant attention. In this article, we take up an aspect of his definition by addressing this question: How does the tenor of political competitiona defining element of democracy-affect the nature of citizen decision making?We focus on one of the most discussed contemporary developments in U.S. politics: elite polarization. Over the last quarter-century, elected representatives and activists from the major parties have become more ideologically distinct from one another and more internally homogeneous (e.g., McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006). Therefore, following previous work, we define elite polarization as high levels of ideological distance between parties and high levels of homogeneity within parties. Lively debate revolves around the causes and consequences of elite polarization, with notable attention to whether citizens have also become polarized. Although there is far from a consensus on the status of citizen polarization (e. 582; Hetherington 2009, 429), we nonetheless turn to the more fundamental question of how elite polarization affects the nature of citizen decision making.We theorize and find, with two experiments on immigration and energy, that elite polarization dramatically changes the ways citizens form opinions. This change occurs because polarization stimulates partisan motivated reasoning, which in turn generates decision making that relies more on partisan endorsements and less on substantive arguments. We discuss the consequences of this shift in decision-making criteria for understanding the nature of public opinion. We also consider the implications of these findings for normative debates about "quality opinions" and more general discussions about polarization and democratic competition. 1 FRAMING AND PARTY COMPETITIONOur goal is to assess the impact of elite polarization on citizen decision making. To do so, we employ a counterfactual: We compare the decisions citizens reach in the presence of competing arguments made in a polarized environment against those made in less polarized environments (see Mansbridge 1983, 25). Our central question is, do opinions formed under conditions of elite polarization differ from those formed sans polarization? We specifically compare the role of perhaps the two most widely used types of information on which citizens base political decisions: substantive arguments (of varying types or "strengths") in the form of distinct issue frames and partisan cues. We discuss each in turn. FramingWe operationalize "arguments" as directional issue or emphasis frames. Few topics have been s...

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“…In line with previous experimental work on partisan behavior (e.g., Druckman, Peterson, and Slothuus ; Levendusky ), I excluded the 35 respondents who identified as pure Independents (also see Bullock ), and I grouped leaning Independents with their preferred party. Leaners behave like partisans when it comes to opinions and vote choice (Lascher and Korey ; Magleby, Nelson, and Westlye ), justifying this typical approach (which is the norm in studies of partisan elite influence). This left 344 research subjects who identified as a Democrat, as a Republican, or as a leaning Independent.…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partisanship in a Social Setting

Klar

2014

American J Political Sci

194

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No factor appears more powerful in explaining how individuals evaluate political information and form political preferences than partisanship. Yet, virtually all work on the effects of partisanship on preference formation neglects the crucial role of social settings. In this study, I examine how social settings can fundamentally change the influence of partisanship on preferences. I demonstrate that, in fact, social settings exert an independent influence over preference formation-one that is even larger than the influence of partisan ambivalence. The central implication of these findings is that, going forward, we cannot fully explore how citizens apply their partisanship in evaluating political information without also accounting for the social settings in which individuals find themselves.

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The Myth of the Independent Voter, California Style

Cited by 10 publications

References 15 publications

Partisanship and Preference Formation: Competing Motivations, Elite Polarization, and Issue Importance

Partisanship and Preference Formation: Competing Motivations, Elite Polarization, and Issue Importance

How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation

Partisanship in a Social Setting

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