It’s no secret that the US is suffering from a diminished commitment to one of its founding principles: democratic representation. Gerrymandering, political violence and baseless allegations of electoral fraud are regularly in the news, and their widespread support raises questions as to why such a large segment of the population has suddenly turned against democratic ideas.
One of the simplest possible explanations is that it is a product of ugly bias. Rather than simply viewing political opponents as wrong, a growing segment of the American public sees their political antagonisms as a threat that must be neutralized. If your opponents are a danger to society, how could you accept that they win elections?
If that’s a major driver, lowering the partisan temperature should help. And, conveniently, social scientists have developed interventions that do just that. But now a team of researchers has tested that and found that it doesn’t work. You can make people more comfortable with their partisan opposites, and they’ll still want to suppress their voices—possibly by force.
Missed connections
The team behind the new work, coming from a collection of American universities, acknowledged that there is a bit of a gap in much of the current literature on partisan polarization. The dominant idea was that thinking less about your opponents — seeing them as a threat or morally or ethically challenged — is a prerequisite for doing something to keep them from power. And for many, that “everything” includes violating democratic ideals by suppressing voices or using violence.
According to this view, it should lead people to see their opponents in a better light, restore the willingness to give those opponents full participation in the political process. And we already have techniques that several studies have shown help reduce the kind of partisan aversion.
While these techniques restore a better view of political opponents, no one has tested whether they improve people’s view of democracy. So they went to do that.
To determine partisan hostility, they relied on two simple tests. One of these is the dictator game, where participants choose how much money they want to share with a fellow player. The other was a “joy of destruction” game, where participants could pay to reduce someone else’s property. Committed partisans would rather be expected to diminish the interests of players who support their political opposition. The participants were also simply asked what they thought of political opponents.
Support for democratic principles was measured on the basis of several questions. Examples were support for the closing of polling stations in areas where political opponents lived, support for gerrymandering in cases where it was technically illegal and finding justification for the use of force to achieve political goals.
As for interventions to change these dynamics, the researchers tested several. One focused on reminding people of friendships that transcend party boundaries. Another corrected some of the exaggerated stereotypes about opposing members. And yet another described friendships between key figures in the two parties, such as Joe Biden and John McCain.
