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Stapleton and Wolak also analyze reactions to a vignette in which an employer rejects someone’s application for a marketing internship “after seeing that the prospective intern was the president of either a College Democrats or College Republicans group.” As might be expected, Democratic respondents found the employer’s decision more acceptable overall if the prospective intern was a Republican, and vice versa.
But — and this is key — not everyone condones out-party discrimination equally. Among those with low political self-confidence, approval of the partisan discrimination in the vignette was very low. Among those with high political self-confidence, approval was nearly five times higher. Political self-confidence seems to erode the taboo against political discrimination. Those with greater regard for their own political competence can more readily justify treating others differently for partisan reasons. Meanwhile, as the paper concludes, “those who doubt their ability to really effect change in politics ... show less psychological commitment to inter-party battles.” That can be a good thing.
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It might seem antidemocratic to highlight the benefits of political indifference. But that depends on what you think democracy is for. If democracy is primarily a mechanism for translating everyone’s considered views into policy as faithfully as possible, then yes, political knowledge and engagement should be its highest ideals. On the other hand, if democracy is a mechanism for ensuring social stability in societies with a wide range of views, then universal political self-confidence can counterproductively amplify passions and conflict.
When the United States was less riven by partisan polarization, this insight was more intuitive. An influential 1954 book, “Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign,” based on the 1948 contest between Harry S. Truman and Thomas E. Dewey, concluded: “True, the highly interested voters vote more, and know more about the campaign, and read and listen more, and participate more; however, they are also less open to persuasion and less likely to change. Extreme interest goes with extreme partisanship and might culminate in rigid fanaticism that could destroy democratic processes if generalized throughout the community.”
The book’s authors — social scientists Bernard R. Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and William N. McPhee — highlighted the importance of a “distribution of voters” with varying degrees of engagement as opposed to “a homogenous collection of ‘ideal’ citizens.”
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The ideal distribution of political self-confidence might vary over time. In the 1950s, American politics was ripe for a surge of interest and engagement to finally reckon with the denial of Black civil rights in the South. But in the 2020s, the major deformity in American democracy is not entrenched oppression but destabilizing partisanship.
Self-government is the art of balancing — between majorities and minorities, between organized interests and the general public, between expert judgments and mass preferences. The Stapleton and Wolak paper should draw renewed attention to another type of balancing — between the politically tentative and the politically engaged. It’s that overlooked relationship that is most destructively out of whack as politically sophisticated partisans drive the system to the brink.
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The ideal democratic citizen, we learn in high school civics, is engaged and informed, confident in his or her understanding of politics and ready to make a difference. But it’s hard to look at the current political climate — deformed by polarization, saturated with “experts,” overflowing with outrage entrepreneurs — and determine that political intensity, on the left or the right, is what is lacking from American democracy.
The optimal relationship between politics and good citizenship might be due for an update. A paper published March 19 in Public Opinion Quarterly, an Oxford University journal, shows that Americans with the highest levels of self-described political knowledge and capabilities are also the most polarized and intolerant of the opposing party. “We propose that people’s feelings of self-assurance within politics can have a darker side,” write Carey E. Stapleton of the University of Massachusetts and Jennifer Wolak of Michigan State University.
The paper, “Political Self-Confidence and Affective Polarization,” analyzes data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study. It fashions a measure of political “self-confidence” based on participants’ responses (on a seven-point scale) to the statements, “I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues facing our country,” and “I consider myself well-qualified to participate in politics.” The authors control for partisanship, race, gender, education and other factors.
In theory, those who score highest on this measure are model, active citizens. In practice, the paper finds, “feelings of self-confidence within politics are uniquely associated with the expression of out-party animosities.” Respondents who described higher political self-confidence were also more likely to say they avoid those they disagree with politically. Similarly, “The likelihood of having unfriended someone on social media for political reasons is 8 percent at the lowest level . . . but 39 percent for those at the highest level” of political self-confidence.
Stapleton and Wolak also analyze reactions to a vignette in which an employer rejects someone’s application for a marketing internship “after seeing that the prospective intern was the president of either a College Democrats or College Republicans group.” As might be expected, Democratic respondents found the employer’s decision more acceptable overall if the prospective intern was a Republican, and vice versa.
But — and this is key — not everyone condones out-party discrimination equally. Among those with low political self-confidence, approval of the partisan discrimination in the vignette was very low. Among those with high political self-confidence, approval was nearly five times higher. Political self-confidence seems to erode the taboo against political discrimination. Those with greater regard for their own political competence can more readily justify treating others differently for partisan reasons. Meanwhile, as the paper concludes, “those who doubt their ability to really effect change in politics ... show less psychological commitment to inter-party battles.” That can be a good thing.
It might seem antidemocratic to highlight the benefits of political indifference. But that depends on what you think democracy is for. If democracy is primarily a mechanism for translating everyone’s considered views into policy as faithfully as possible, then yes, political knowledge and engagement should be its highest ideals. On the other hand, if democracy is a mechanism for ensuring social stability in societies with a wide range of views, then universal political self-confidence can counterproductively amplify passions and conflict.
When the United States was less riven by partisan polarization, this insight was more intuitive. An influential 1954 book, “Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign,” based on the 1948 contest between Harry S. Truman and Thomas E. Dewey, concluded: “True, the highly interested voters vote more, and know more about the campaign, and read and listen more, and participate more; however, they are also less open to persuasion and less likely to change. Extreme interest goes with extreme partisanship and might culminate in rigid fanaticism that could destroy democratic processes if generalized throughout the community.”
The book’s authors — social scientists Bernard R. Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and William N. McPhee — highlighted the importance of a “distribution of voters” with varying degrees of engagement as opposed to “a homogenous collection of ‘ideal’ citizens.”
The ideal distribution of political self-confidence might vary over time. In the 1950s, American politics was ripe for a surge of interest and engagement to finally reckon with the denial of Black civil rights in the South. But in the 2020s, the major deformity in American democracy is not entrenched oppression but destabilizing partisanship.
Self-government is the art of balancing — between majorities and minorities, between organized interests and the general public, between expert judgments and mass preferences. The Stapleton and Wolak paper should draw renewed attention to another type of balancing — between the politically tentative and the politically engaged. It’s that overlooked relationship that is most destructively out of whack as politically sophisticated partisans drive the system to the brink.
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