scholarly journals The electoral implications of uncivil and intolerant rhetoric in American politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205316802110507
Author(s):  
Bryan T. Gervais
Keyword(s):  
American Politics ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Racial Intolerance

Can political incivility bolster support for American candidates? Conventional wisdom holds that it does and Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral victories demonstrate the power of uncivil rhetoric—particularly, when it is paired with racially intolerant rhetoric. However, recent studies have demonstrated that leveraging political incivility can backfire on elites. As such, it is unclear whether uncivil rhetoric has electoral value, or if its utility is bolstered when it is joined by intolerant rhetoric. Leveraging a survey experiment, I find that both political incivility and racial intolerance induce feelings of disgust. The presence of intolerance in a message weakens the effects of incivility on disgust for out-group elites, suggesting that multiple rhetorical norm violations result in diminishing (negative) returns. Moreover, the effects of intolerance on disgust are moderated by a subject’s level of racial resentment. These aversive reactions to incivility and intolerance reduce electoral support for the elite sponsoring the message. In-group candidates pay a larger electoral penalty, although the penalty for intolerance is moderated by subject racial resentment. I conclude that, contra claims that political incivility works, uncivil messaging serves as a strategic liability for candidates.

Electoral Manipulation and Regime Support

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ora John Reuter ◽  
David Szakonyi
Keyword(s):  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Electoral Fraud ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Regime Support ◽  
Core Base ◽  
Ruling Party

ABSTRACT Does electoral fraud stabilize authoritarian rule or undermine it? The answer to this question rests in part on how voters evaluate regime candidates who engage in fraud. Using a survey experiment conducted after the 2016 elections in Russia, the authors find that voters withdraw their support from ruling party candidates who commit electoral fraud. This effect is especially large among strong supporters of the regime. Core regime supporters are more likely to have ex ante beliefs that elections are free and fair. Revealing that fraud has occurred significantly reduces their propensity to support the regime. The authors’ findings illustrate that fraud is costly for autocrats not just because it may ignite protest, but also because it can undermine the regime’s core base of electoral support. Because many of its strongest supporters expect free and fair elections, the regime has strong incentives to conceal or otherwise limit its use of electoral fraud.

scholarly journals Partisan Ambivalence and Electoral Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Craig ◽  
Paulina Cossette ◽  
Michael Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Campaign Ads ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
High Degree

American politics today is driven largely by deep divisions between Democrats and Republicans. That said, there are many people who view the opposition in an overwhelmingly negative light – but who simultaneously possess a mix of positive and negative feelings toward their own party. This paper is a response to prior research (e.g., Lavine, Johnson, and Steenbergen 2012) indicating that such ambivalence increases the probability that voters will engage in "deliberative" (or "effortful") rather than "heuristic" thinking when responding to the choices presented to them in political campaigns. We extend the logic of this argument to a hypothetical race for Congress, using data from a survey experiment to determine whether a high degree of ambivalence toward one's party makes voters more responsive to a negative attack against the candidate of that party. In fact, we find little evidence that partisan ambivalence promotes a deliberative response to negative campaign ads.

Rejecting Ethnic Pandering in Urban Africa: A Survey Experiment on Voter Preferences in Nairobi, Kenya

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110405
Author(s):  
Hye-Sung Kim ◽  
Jeremy Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Urban Africa ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Vignette Experiment

Ethnic pandering, in which candidates promise to cater to the interests of coethnic voters, is presumed to be an effective strategy for increasing electoral support in Africa’s emerging multiethnic democracies. However, ethnic political mobilization may be disdained by citizens for its divisive and polarizing effects, particularly in urban areas. As a result, pandering may fall on deaf ears among Africa’s urban voters. This study examines how voters in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, respond to ethnic pandering using data from a vignette experiment conducted in 2015 and a replication study implemented in 2016. Results show that respondents are more supportive of candidates who make ethnically inclusive rather than targeted appeals, regardless of whether the candidate is identified as a coethnic. We propose that the results are driven by a broad distaste among urban voters for parochial politics, rather than by strategic calculations related to candidate viability.

scholarly journals The Lesser Evil? Corruption Voting and the Importance of Clean Alternatives

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Agerberg
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Public Office ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The World ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Choice Option

Surveys show that citizens in all parts of the world have a strong distaste for corruption. At the same time, and contrary to the predictions of democratic theory, politicians involved in the most glaring abuse of public office often continue to receive electoral support. Using an original survey experiment conducted in Spain, this article explores a previously understudied aspect of this apparent paradox: the importance of viable and clean political alternatives. The results suggest that voters do punish political corruption when a clean alternative exists, even when the corrupt candidate is very appealing in other respects. However, when only given corrupt alternatives, respondents become much more likely to tolerate a candidate accused of corruption—even when given a convenient “no-choice” option. I discuss how these results can help us understand corruption voting and why some societies seem to be stuck in a high-corruption equilibrium.

Authoritarianism and Potential Support for the Radical Right in Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-166
Author(s):  
Erik R. Tillman
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Support ◽  
Mainstream Party ◽  
West European

Although the radical right is gaining support in many West European societies, there remain a few states such as Ireland without a successful radical right party. This absence raises the question of whether unique historical or cultural factors prevent the rise of the radical right in these countries or whether it is contingent. This chapter examines potential electoral support for a radical right party in Ireland. It presents the results of a novel survey experiment, in which voters read about the formation of a hypothetical new party and expressed their willingness to vote for it compared to existing parties. The results show that high authoritarians express greater willingness to vote for a hypothetical new radical right party compared to a hypothetical new mainstream party, while low authoritarians display the opposite pattern. In addition, high authoritarians express greater concern about declining social cohesion in Ireland. Because authoritarianism does not structure voting behaviour, a new radical right party could draw high authoritarians from all of the established parties. These results confirm that the same latent patterns of radical right party support exist in Ireland as in other West European societies and challenge arguments emphasizing cultural uniqueness.

Partisanship vs. Principle: Understanding Public Opinion on Same-Day Registration

2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-583
Author(s):  
Devin McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Major Party ◽  
Opposing Party ◽  
Rule Change ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Election Laws

Abstract Voter access has become a deeply polarized issue in American politics. It is well known that policymakers’ positions on election laws are often dictated by whether they think the laws will help their electoral interests and those of their party. But we know little about whether public opinion on election laws is similarly driven by partisan interest or is instead constrained by concerns of procedural legitimacy. To answer this question, I conduct a survey experiment that frames the issue of same-day registration (SDR) in terms of which major party it is expected to help electorally. The results provide clear evidence that both Democrats and Republicans are less likely to support SDR after being told the policy will primarily increase turnout among voters of the opposing party, but little evidence that being told SDR will benefit their own party affects opinion. These findings suggest an asymmetry in citizens’ willingness to choose partisan interest over democratic principles based on whether they perceive a rule change as benefiting the in-party or out-party.

Trumping the equality norm? Presidential tweets and revealed racial attitudes

2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482093629
Author(s):  
Nicolas M Anspach
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Willingness To Use

One noteworthy characteristic of Donald Trump’s candidacy and subsequent presidency is his willingness to use racial rhetoric. This is especially the case on Twitter, where he communicates directly with millions of followers. This article utilizes a survey experiment to understand how Trump’s tweets influence subjects’ revealed racial attitudes. Subjects are exposed to one of three tweets made by Trump: a control tweet about the economy, a tweet with an implicitly racist message, or a tweet with an explicitly racist message. Analyses indicate that while exposure to racist messages does not influence respondents’ issue prioritization, both implicitly and explicitly racist messages interact with racial resentment to increase the propensity to describe African-Americans in starkly stereotypical and negative language. These findings suggest that the norm of racial equality, long thought to dampen support for elites who invoke explicitly racist rhetoric, has weakened in the Trump era.

Political Parties in the Capital Economy of Modern Campaigns

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Krasno
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Fundamental Transformation

This chapter takes up two claims regarding political parties in American politics. First, the chapter contends with the conventional wisdom about the rise of candidate-centered campaigns sometime following 1950. The emphasis on candidate-centered campaigns obscures a much more fundamental transformation, especially for parties, from a campaign economy based mainly on labor to one based mainly on capital. Second, this chapter posits that parties' and candidates' goals, though overlapping, are distinct and separate. This has always been true, but the parties' transition from mobilizing election workers and volunteers to providing money or paid services exposes a fundamental conflict between the interests of parties and of candidates. This conflict has had immediate and serious ramifications for how parties allocate their resources, present themselves to the electorate, and mobilize voters, ultimately calling into question many of scholars' assumptions about parties.

Political Periods and Political Participation

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 737-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Allen Beck ◽  
M. Kent Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
The Political ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Left Wing

Analysis of complementary data sets, a 1965–1973 panel study of young adults and their parents and the 1956–1976 Michigan presidential election series, shows that the late 1960s and early 1970s were a deviant period where participation in American politics was concerned. During this time, the young were more active politically than their elders, substantially increasing their participation from previous years, and Americans on the ideological left participated more than those at other positions along the ideological continuum. While this surge of left-wing activism was not restricted to the young, it probably accounts for the relative participation advantage enjoyed by the young. These findings challenge the “conventional wisdom” about patterns of participation in America. They are best explained by recognizing that the opportunities for political action among the American citizenry are not fixed, but instead vary with changes in the political stimuli across different periods.

scholarly journals Politicians Appear More Competent When Using Numerical Rhetoric

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmus T. Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
Positive Impact ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

AbstractPolitically relevant numbers often have very limited effects on the policy attitudes of ordinary citizens, which make the widespread use of numbers by politicians somewhat puzzling. This paper argues that politicians’ numerical rhetoric may function as a voter heuristic and that the use of numbers by politicians therefore has a positive impact on voters’ perceptions of these politicians. A survey experiment confirms that even when numbers do little to move voters’ policy positions, numbers do have the effect of making politicians appear more competent. As a consequence, numerical rhetoric can in some cases increase electoral support for a politician.

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