PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY 投稿命中率-刊鹿论文编译

Are there Still Limits on Partisan Prejudice

Abstract:

Partisan affective polarization is believed, by some, to stem from vitriolic elite political discourse. We explore this account by replicating several 2014 studies that examine partisan prejudice. Despite claims of elevated partisan affective polarization from pundits, this extensive replication offers no evidence of an increase in the public’s partisan prejudice between 2014 and 2017. Divides in feeling thermometer ratings of the two political parties remained stable, and there was no overall increase in measures of partisan prejudice between periods. This is consistent with results from the 2012 and 2016 ANES. Moreover, the most affectively polarized members of the public became no more likely to hold prejudicial attitudes toward the other party. Despite an intervening campaign with elevated elite hostility and rampant postelection discord, the limits on partisan prejudice identified in prior research remain in place. This stability is important for understanding the nature and malleability of partisan affect. Several accounts assert that elite rhetoric causes partisan affective polarization (e.g., Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012). If true, the combination of one of the most acrimonious presidential elections in modern history (Fowler, Ridout, and Franz 2016; Pew Research Center 2016) and a contentious postelection period should increase affective polarization. We replicate a prior study on the boundaries of affective polarization and show, in contrast to this expectation, Public Opinion Quarterly doi:10.1093/poq/nfz034 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /poq/advance-articleoi/10.1093/poq/nfz034/5573090 by D rtm outh C olege Lirary, sanjw stw ood@ gm a.com on 09 O cber 2019 that elevated partisan rancor among political elites has not increased affective polarization among the public. This represents critical evidence that the public’s feelings toward the other party have not paralleled increases in elite and policy polarization. The stability we find is important for understanding the nature and malleability of partisan affect. The 2016 election was marked by appeals to “fear and anger” (Bhat et al. 2016). Ninety percent of Hillary Clinton’s ads attacked Donald Trump’s character (Fowler, Ridout, and Franz 2016), and Trump regularly called for Clinton’s jailing. Campaign media coverage in 2016 was, outside of 2000, the most negative in recent history, and focused heavily on the legal and moral wrongdoing of the candidates (Patterson 2016). Ultimately, the 2016 race left pundits unable to “think of a campaign that’s been this personal and this negative” (PBS 2016) and led 92 percent of voters to assess the election’s tone as more negative than previous campaigns (Pew Research Center 2016). This rancor continued after the election, as those on the left vocally questioned whether Trump would end American democracy (Mounk 2018) and the president often declined to enforce norms of governance. But do perceptions of increasing partisan hostility among the pundit class correspond to actual movement in the public’s affective polarization? Is movement even possible, or do ceiling effects tamper further polarization? This note details a replication effort examining whether affective polarization tracks this uptick in elite hostility in the post-2016 era. We employ a widely used framework for measuring prejudice (Allport 1954). Its prior application in 2014 revealed clear limits on the scope of partisan prejudice (Lelkes and Westwood 2017). While affectively polarized partisans in this work were more likely to avoid members of the other party and support preferential treatment for copartisan politicians, they failed to endorse direct harm to their political opponents. Have these bounds on partisan prejudice since eroded? Examination of evidence from 2014 on partisan prejudice and a 2017 replication study1 enables an over-time comparison in which neither survey is uniquely inflated by its position in the campaign timeline. Moreover, it captures baseline, noncampaign levels of partisan prejudice. We find no evidence of a general increase in partisan prejudice over this time period: The most affectively polarized members of the public became no more likely to display attitudes placing them in the highest level that Allport’s framework of prejudice tested. Complementing this off-cycle comparison with evidence collected during political campaigns, data from the 2012 and 2016 ANES show no increase in affective polarization during this time period. 1. Unlike 2017, the year 2014 was a midterm election year, and past work shows that affect toward partisans moves in response to elections (Michelitch and Utych 2018). Our 2014 data were collected six to seven months before the midterm elections. Westwood, Peterson, and Lelkes Page 2 of 14 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /poq/advance-articleoi/10.1093/poq/nfz034/5573090 by D rtm outh C olege Lirary, sanjw stw ood@ gm a.com on 09 O cber 2019 Overall, despite an intervening campaign with substantial elite conflict, previously identified limits on partisan prejudice remain in place. This implies that either (1) elite rhetoric is less successful at elevating affective polarization than previously supposed; or (2) affective polarization has reached a ceiling at which elites are unable to generate additional outparty animus. From Elite Hostility to Affective Polarization Partisan hostility is a prominent element of elite political discourse. In Congress, legislators regularly taunt their partisan opponents (Grimmer and King 2011). On the campaign trail, candidates use negative advertising to critique their challengers (Fowler, Ridout, and Franz 2016). This extends to news coverage, where partisan media outlets produce a steady flow of coverage insulting the other party (Berry and Sobieraj 2014). Prior scholarship offers several paths for how this elite hostility can produce affective polarization among the public. One path relates to the media’s role in generating affective polarization through the combination of a high-choice media environment and a proliferation of partisan news outlets (e.g., Sunstein 2017). For those exposed to it, partisan news teaches that being a member of their party involves hostility toward the opposition. This point is made by pejorative comparisons of outpartisans to Nazis (Berry and Sobieraj 2014) and a focus on the opposing party’s flaws, such as involvement in scandals (Budak, Goel, and Rao 2016). Evidence from survey and experimental studies links partisan news exposure to affective polarization (Levendusky 2013; Kelly Garrett et al. 2014). A second focus is the role of negative political campaigning in bringing elite hostility to the public. Like partisan news, campaigns increase the salience of an individual’s partisan identity (Michelitch and Utych 2018) and, in an era of negative campaigning, portray the other party as an existential threat (Bhat et al. 2016; Fowler, Ridout, and Franz 2016). Unlike partisan news, campaigns use advertisements and outreach to create persistent exposure to this negativity among individuals who might otherwise avoid it. Indicative of this, residents of battleground states are more affectively polarized than those with less campaign exposure (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012). Additionally, people are far more polarized at the end of political campaigns than at the beginning (Sood and Iyengar 2016), especially those exposed to negative campaign ads. However, in contrast to these findings, Ridout et al. (2018) find that affective polarization in 2014 was negatively correlated with the level of advertising in a media market. As indicated by both public assessments of campaign tone (Pew Research Center 2016) and scholarly analyses of campaign content (Bhat et al. 2016; Fowler, Ridout, and Franz 2016; Patterson 2016; Faris et al. 2017), these potential sources of affective polarization were elevated in 2016. As a result, Limits on Partisan Prejudice Still Exist Page 3 of 14 D ow naded rom http/academ ic.p.com /poq/advance-articleoi/10.1093/poq/nfz034/5573090 by D rtm outh C olege Lirary, sanjw stw ood@ gm a.com on 09 O cber 2019 the last two years offer a possible breakpoint for examining the consequences of elite animus for affective polarization. If accounts of the relationship between elite discourse and affective polarization are true, affective polarization among the American public should have increased over the last several years. Stable Affective Partisan Polarization We begin by comparing affective polarization over time in two contexts: outside of political campaigns and during the peak presidential campaign environment. First, to compare affective polarization outside of campaigns, we use surveys conducted on respondents from the Research Now/SSI panel (collected via Qualtrics).2 The 2017 data (n = 1,377) were collected in June, and the 2014 data (n = 2,045) were collected in several surveys conducted over the first half of the year. Both studies were quota sampled to benchmarks from the American Community Survey. Leaners were coded as partisans, and pure independents were excluded. Second, to compare affective polarization at the height of political campaigns—where it may be elevated in a cyclical fashion (Michelitch and Utych 2018)—we use the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Studies, both collected in the final months of each presidential campaign. Both comparisons measure affective polarization as the difference in feeling thermometer ratings of the party an individual identifies with and their rating of the other party (e.g., Hetherington and Weiler 2009; Haidt and Hetherington 2012; Mason 2015). This difference is rescaled between zero and one. Higher numbers indicate greater affective polarization. If elite hostility spilled into the public, we would anticipate more affective polarization in the later surveys. Figure 1 indicates this is not the case. The top panel (A) shows the average level of affect

Author Listing： Sean J. Westwood;Erik Peterson;Yphtach Lelkes

Volume： 83

Pages： 584-597

DOI： 10.1093/poq/nfz034

Language： English

Journal： Public Opinion Quarterly

PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY

PUBLIC OPIN QUART

影响因子：2.7

是否综述期刊：是

是否OA：否

是否预警：不在预警名单内

发行时间：-

ISSN：0033-362X

发刊频率：-

收录数据库：Scopus收录

出版国家/地区：-

出版社：Oxford University Press

期刊介绍

年发文量	49
国人发稿量	-
国人发文占比	0%
自引率	10.3%
平均录取率	-
平均审稿周期	-
版面费	-
偏重研究方向	Multiple-
期刊官网	https://academic.oup.com/poq
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研究类文章占比	OA被引用占比	撤稿占比	出版后修正文章占比
96.49%	19.75%	0.00%	0.00%

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