Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: How Elite Polarization Constrains Leader Rhetoric

政治学博士论文研究：精英两极分化如何限制领导人言论

• 批准号: 1160445
• 负责人: James Druckman
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-03-01 至 2014-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1160445&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

My dissertation seeks to contribute to our understanding of how citizens make decisions to engage with or to ignore partisan political events and the implications of that behavior on political actors and institutions- specifically, the Presidency of the United States. During times of extreme partisanship and disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, certain types of partisans may inoculate themselves against political rhetoric or events that challenge existing political beliefs. Partisans expect their party to perform better, to produce high-quality candidates, and to take appropriate issue stands (e.g., Gerber & Huber 2010; Taber and Lodge 2006; Gerber, Huber, & Washington 2010). When partisanship is a more prominent element of politics- during times of party polarization, for example- individuals tend to engage with their partisan identity more deeply and to use it to evaluate the political world around them. Reliance on partisan identity, however, carries a potentially major liability: it predisposes citizens to a distorted view of the political world. In the heat of partisan rhetoric and political campaigns, partisan identities become more salient, leading citizens to hold situational self-conceptions as Republicans, Democrats, or Independents, and to think about politics from an "us" verses "them" perspective. To preserve expectations and to protect their partisan identities, people often engage in selective exposure and motivated reasoning, the tendency to choose to expose themselves to information that simply validates their partisan identities and to react to new information in ways that only supports previous beliefs. When confronted with uncongenial information, they tend to ignore, to discount, or to counter-argue it (Taber and Lodge 2006). I hypothesize that this may cause problems for the President and Presidential communication since the President is often viewed as both a party leader and a representative of the nation as a whole. Using survey and original experimental data, I will show that an increasingly partisan environment tends to (1) prevent Presidents from gaining access to and affecting an audience outside of like-minded partisans and ideologues; (2) increase the likelihood that individuals rely on partisanship rather than update their beliefs when confronted with new information; and (3) provide added incentives to avoid rhetoric that challenges existing political attitudes. The implications of these findings are that the President and his rhetoric may have limited influence, only having an intensifying effect for like-minded partisans while having little or no effect on the other party. This project seeks to investigate the impacts of party polarization, partisanship, selective exposure, and motivated reasoning. On a broader level, however, it is asking the value we place on a free-flowing, open marketplace of ideas in the United States and the functionality of a political system with highly polarized parties. Given the relationship between elite polarization, salience of partisanship, and biased reasoning, there may be reason to believe that meaningful political debate that transcends party lines may be in decline. It is concerning if exposure to political ideas, policies, and office holders only occurs among those who already agree with them. The President, one of only two nationally elected officials, may be becoming less effective as a uniting leader as a result of this partisan shift. Rather than having the option of pivoting between roles of party leader and national public opinion leader, the President may no longer have that option. Relatedly, political attitudes may be becoming more entrenched, particularly given that individuals can self-select the information that supports existing beliefs and can resist updating their beliefs with new information. Finally, this project will discuss the implications of this recent phenomenon on the Presidency, on political parties, and on deliberative democracy as well as possible remedies. There is inherent value in robust, informed debate between the public and our elected officials; a trend toward selective exposure and biased partisan reasoning is a potential hazard to any attempt to cultivate a genuine, deliberative democracy.

我的论文旨在为我们理解公民如何做出决定或忽略党派政治事件的决定以及这种行为对政治行为者和机构的影响，特别是美国总统职位。在民主党人与共和党之间极端党派和分歧的时期，某些类型的游击党可能会接种自己的政治言论或挑战现有政治信仰的事件。党派人士希望他们的政党表现更好，生产高质量的候选人，并采用适当的问题立场（例如Gerber＆Huber 2010; Taber and Lodge 2006; Gerber，Huber，Huber和Washington 2010）。当党派制度是政治两极分化时期的更为突出的政治要素时，例如，个人倾向于更深入地与他们的党派身份互动，并利用它来评估周围的政治世界。然而，依靠党派身份承担了潜在的重大责任：它使公民偏爱政治世界的扭曲观点。在党派言论和政治运动的热烈中，党派的身份变得更加突出，使公民作为共和党人，民主党或独立人士保持情境自我概念，并从“美国”经文“”他们的角度思考政治。为了保留期望并保护其党派身份，人们经常进行选择性的曝光和积极的推理，选择将自己暴露于简单地验证其党派身份并以仅支持先前信念的方式对新信息做出反应的信息倾向。当面对不兼容的信息时，他们倾向于忽略，打折或反对它（Taber and Lodge 2006）。我假设这可能会给总统和总统沟通带来问题，因为总统经常被视为党的领导人，又是整个国家的代表。使用调查和原始实验数据，我将表明，越来越多的党派环境倾向于（1）阻止总统获得并影响志趣相投的党派和意识形态之外的受众； （2）增加个人依赖党派的可能性，而不是在面对新信息时更新自己的信念； （3）提供了额外的激励措施，以避免言辞，以挑战现有的政治态度。 这些发现的含义是，总统及其言论的影响力可能有限，只对志趣相投的游击队人产生了强烈的影响，而对另一方几乎没有影响。该项目旨在调查政党两极分化，党派化，选择性暴露和积极推理的影响。然而，在更广泛的层面上，它询问我们在美国自由流动的，开放的思想市场上的价值以及具有高度两极化政党的政治体系的功能。鉴于精英两极分化，党派的显着性和有偏见的推理之间的关系，可能有理由相信有意义的政治辩论超越政党线路可能正在下降。这是关于暴露于政治思想，政策和办公室持有人是否仅发生在已经同意他们的人中。总统是仅有的两名全国当选官员之一，由于党派的转变，作为联合领导人的效果可能降低。总统不再可以选择党领袖和国家舆论领袖之间的角色，而是不再有这种选择。相关的是，政治态度可能变得越来越根深蒂固，特别是考虑到个人可以自我选择支持现有信念的信息，并可以通过新信息抵制更新其信念。最后，该项目将讨论这种最近现象对总统，政党以及审议民主以及可能的补救措施的影响。公众与我们当选官员之间的强大，明智的辩论具有内在的价值；选择性曝光和偏见的党派推理的趋势可能是任何试图培养真正的审议民主的企图的危害。