sciencedaily | Most partisans -- average Democratic and Republican voters -- act like
fans in sports rivalries instead of making political choices based on
issues, according to a new study with a University of Kansas researcher
as the lead author.
"What is the consequence of today's polarized politics? What's
motivating partisans to vote in this climate?" said Patrick Miller, a
University of Kansas assistant professor of political science. "For too
many of them, it's not high-minded, good-government, issue-based goals.
It's, 'I hate the other party. I'm going to go out, and we're going to
beat them.' That's troubling."
Miller and Pamela Johnston Conover, a distinguished professor of
political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
are co-authors of the study "Red and Blue States of Mind: Partisan
Hostility and Voting in the United States," published recently in the
journal Political Research Quarterly.
The researchers analyzed the attitudes of voters nationwide in survey
data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. They found
that many average voters with strong party commitments -- both
Democrats and Republicans -- care more about their parties simply
winning the election than they do either ideology or issues. Unlike
previous research, the study found that loyalty to the party itself was
the source of partisan rivalry and incivility, instead of a fundamental
disagreement over issues.
The survey showed that 41 percent of partisans agreed that simply
winning elections is more important to them than policy or ideological
goals, while just 35 percent agreed that policy is a more important
motivator for them to participate in politics. Only 24 percent valued
both equally or expressed no opinion.
When it came to uncivil attitudes, 38 percent of partisans agreed
that their parties should use any tactics necessary to "win elections
and issue debates." When those who agreed with this view were asked what
tactics they had in mind, the most common ones they offered were voter
suppression, stealing or cheating in elections, physical violence and
threats against the other party, lying, personal attacks on opponents,
not allowing the other party to speak and using the filibuster to
gridlock Congress. Democrats and Republicans were equally likely to
express this opinion.
"This is the first research to show that strong partisans who are
motivated by partisan conflict are endorsing uncivil attitudes about the
political process," Miller said. "This comes to an important point. If
our politicians are polarized and uncivil, maybe it's because many
voters are polarized and uncivil."
