Negative partisanship is not more prevalent than positive partisanship

The dominant narrative among scholars and political pundits characterizes American partisanship as overwhelmingly negative --- portraying citizens as more repelled by the opposing party than attached to their own party. To assess the valence of partisan identity, we use novel measures, several new and existing nationally representative surveys, and behavioral outcomes obtained from two experiments. Our findings consistently depart from the negative partisanship narrative. For the majority of Americans, partisanship is either equally positive and negative or more positive than negative. Only partisan leaners stand out as negative partisans. We pair these observational findings with experimental data that differentiate between positive group behavior and negative group behavior in the partisan context. We find that the behavioral manifestations of party identity similarly include both positive and negative biases in balance, reinforcing our conclusion that descriptions of partisanship as primarily negative are exaggerated.

Reflections on the Past and Present of Research on Partisan Identity

Scholarship on partisanship has been transformed by political scientists’ embrace of social and cognitive psychology in the past few decades. This interdisciplinary union has drastically changed the way political scientists examine the origins and effects of partisanship. In this essay, I provide a brief history of scholarship on partisanship, its transformation into a partisan identity as well as its role in the study of polarization. I then demonstrate how this identity framework has propelled research on negative partisan identity in the U.S. two-party system and European multi-party systems. I conclude with a few avenues for future research that could enrich our understanding of partisanship. Scholarship on partisanship has been transformed by political scientists’ embrace of social and cognitive psychology in the past few decades. Since then, the concept of partisan identity has become widely known beyond the narrow subfield of political psychology. Indeed, the sheer volume of research on the origins, measurement, and effect of partisan identity on political behavior is indicative of its centrality in the general discipline of political science. In this essay, I provide a brief (and therefore necessarily incomplete) history of scholarship on partisanship as well as its transformation into a partisan identity. I then review contemporary research on positive and negative partisan identity in the U.S. and beyond, focusing on their differential effects on political attitudes and behavior. Last, I sketch out a few thoughts on the complexities and caveats of current scholarship, including a plea for more research on the interaction of partisanship with other identities, the necessity of studying partisanship in more externally valid contexts, as well as the promise of common identities in bridging partisan divisions.

Partisan Identity and Affective Polarization in Presidential Debates

This study presents the results of a quasi-experiment to assess the effects of viewing the live televised general election presidential and vice-presidential campaign debates. We contribute to a growing empirical record on the polarizing effects of campaign debates by testing some contextual variables that have confounded past researchers. Specifically, we use Trump’s aggressive first debate performance as a test-case of polarizing content and compare it with Trump’s second debate performance along with the other 2020 debates. We also test whether, as some have hypothesized, vice-presidential debates are more polarizing. Finally, we consider Biden—a candidate who has been polarizing and depolarizing in his vice-presidential debates, as a candidate-specific source of uncertainty in existing findings. We find further evidence that campaign debates increase ingroup affection—or the extent to which co-partisans reward the ingroup candidate. Conversely, outgroup hostility did not increase even after Trump’s first debate. We conclude that debates may contribute to polarization, but only through ingroup affection, not outgroup animosity.

The importance of attachment to an ideological group in multi-party systems: Evidence from Israel

In this research, we examine the role of attachment to an ideological group as a source of stability in a volatile multi-party system. In two studies conducted in Israel ( N = 1320), we show that a multi-item Attachment to an Ideological Group (AIG) scale is strongly tied to vote choice and political engagement, and its effects are independent of, and more powerful than, issue-based ideology and partisan identity strength. Compared to individuals with a weak ideological attachment, those who score highly on the AIG scale are more likely to vote for a party from their ideological camp and participate in politics. Moreover, in two survey experiments, respondents high in AIG displayed stronger anger or enthusiasm—known harbingers of political action—in response to threat or reassurance to their ideological group’s status, attesting to a link between AIG and political engagement. Our findings underscore the importance of ideological group attachments in a volatile multi-party system.

POSTKOMODIFIKASI PORTAL BERITA DI KOMPAS.COM PADA PEMBERITAAN VAKSIN COVID-19

The coverage of the Covid 19 vaccine on Kompas.com is the object of this research. The purpose of this study is to find out, analyze, and reveal how the political discourse in the news of the Covid 19 Vaccine and how post-commodification of information occurs through the news of the Covid 19 vaccine on Kompas.com. The technique used is documentation. This research is an interpretive qualitative research with a critical paradigm with Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse analysis in this theory is carried out at three levels, namely text, discursive practice, and sociocultural practice. The results showed that the political discourse that developed in the news of the Covid 19 vaccine on Kompas.com was in the practice of media commodification. Political discourse in the news of the Covid-19 vaccine is represented as an identity battle between related parties, especially in government circles. The news on the Covid 19 vaccine, narrated by Kompas.com, is very political to gain recognition, support, and representation of media ideology by turning news into a millennial industry, ammunition for political competition and political partisan identity within the government.