Paying for the Party
Politicizing the Pandemic? Partisan Framing of the Early COVID-19 Pandemic Was Infrequent, Particularly in Local Newspapers
Daniel Myers
Political Communication, January/February 2025, Pages 151-170
Abstract:
Media scholars have long expressed concern that news outlets' tendency to frame policy debates in terms of partisan conflict or political gamesmanship politicizes and polarizes public opinion. This tendency may be particularly problematic with new, highly salient issues like the COVID-19 pandemic during its earliest stages. To evaluate the degree to which coverage of the pandemic in its first months was framed in partisan terms we analyze the content of COVID-19 related articles published on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a random sample of local newspapers between February 21 and May 15, 2020. Contrary to what existing work about the politicization of early-pandemic news coverage might lead us to expect, we find these newspapers employed partisan framings of the pandemic in only about one out of ten articles. However, these frequencies differ dramatically across the kind of newspaper, with the two national papers far more likely to employ partisan framings than the local newspapers, and lower-circulation local papers much less likely to employ partisan framing than higher-circulation local papers. These results suggest that the degree to which news consumers receive partisan-framed messages about the pandemic depends on whether they consume local or national media. Further, the collapse of local news outlets may have led news consumers to see more partisan-framed coverage in the early stages of the pandemic.
The Emergence of the Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement: Partisan Federalism, Not White Protectionism
Alexandra Filindra, Cassidy Reller & Craig Burnett
Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Winter 2025, Pages 3-29
Abstract:
One-third of all US counties have enacted Second Amendment Sanctuary (2AS) ordinances, preventing the enforcement of state and federal gun control laws. We test two theories to explain 2AS enactment. First, 2AS may be a manifestation of partisan federalism. This perspective predicts that the nationalization of policy issues has led partisan groups to support "sanctuary" policies in friendly jurisdictions to frustrate the opposition. Second, given the close link between gun policy preferences and racial identities, 2AS enactment may be related to racial dynamics and especially the declining political power of White Americans. Thus, we should expect that 2AS adoptions will occur in majority White counties with declining White populations. We leverage a unique dataset of county-level 2AS enactments to test these hypotheses. We find strong evidence for the partisan federalism hypothesis. In contrast, we find weak and inconsistent evidence for the racial threat hypothesis.
Partisan Inequality in Property Tax Assessments: A Fiscal Burden on Political Minorities
Ankit Kalda, Vikas Soni & Qianfan Wu
Indiana University Working Paper, November 2024
Abstract:
We document a political partisanship-based assessment gap that imposes a disproportionate fiscal burden on political minorities. In Democratic counties, Republicans face higher property tax burdens than Democrats within the same tax jurisdiction, despite being subject to identical tax administration and rates. This partisan assessment gap is economically significant, amounting to 25-50% of the racial assessment gap. The effects are primarily driven by inter-neighborhood differences rather than within-neighborhood variations and stem from disparities in assessment values rather than market values. Political polarization, differences in tax regimes and wealth, and inconsistencies in tax assessments do not explain these findings. Instead, the composition of elected county officials contributes to our results. The higher tax burden for Republicans in Democratic counties is most pronounced in areas with predominantly Democratic county commissions and decreases as Republican representation in local government increases.
Politically Contaminated Clothes, Chocolates, and Charities: Distancing From Neutral Products Liked by Out-Group or In-Group Partisans
Arvid Erlandsson et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research demonstrates that people distance themselves not just from out-group partisans or policies but also from completely neutral and apolitical consumer products that have been "contaminated" simply by being preferred by the political out-group. Using large representative samples of Swedish adults, we investigated how aesthetic judgments of clothes (Study 1), evaluations of chocolate bars (Study 2), and allocations to charitable organizations (Study 3) were influenced by a randomly assigned association between these products and the leader or supporters of the participant's least- or most-liked political party. Products liked by the least-liked party became less attractive in all studies; the results were mixed for products liked by the most-liked party. Study 4 found that the presence of in-group-observers increased distancing from products liked by the least-liked party, indicating that self-presentational concerns bolster political distancing. These results suggest that affective political polarization influences our lives more subtly and profoundly than previously known.
How Strong Policy Attitudes Activate Support for Aggressive Political Action
Scott Clifford & Lucas Lothamer
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is a long history of political violence in the United States. Scholars have documented numerous dispositions that predict support for violence as a political tactic, finding that a general tendency toward aggression is consistently among the strongest predictors. Yet, we know much less about how political attitudes might activate aggressive personalities and direct them toward specific targets. In this paper, we examine how policy attitudes interact with dispositional aggression to motivate support for political violence. Across two studies, using novel measures and within-subjects designs, we show that intense policy opposition strongly predicts support for aggressive political tactics against politicians responsible for the legislation -- primarily among those who are dispositionally prone to aggression. Surprisingly, the strength of partisan identity plays little role in explaining support for political aggression. Our findings suggest that policy attitudes are a crucial factor for understanding when aggressive individuals might turn to political violence.
The Culture War and Partisan Polarization: State Political Parties, 1960-2018
Gerald Gamm et al.
Studies in American Political Development, October 2024, Pages 117-137
Abstract:
Partisan polarization on "culture war" issues has become a defining feature of contemporary American politics. This was not always the case; for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights played no role in politics. Where and when did the partisan divide begin? Did the initiative come from state or national parties? Was there a critical moment, or was position change incremental? We have constructed an original database of nearly 2,000 state party platforms from 1960 to 2018. These platforms allow us to trace position-taking on these issues and generate estimates of platform ideology. By the time national parties took positions, we show, they lagged state-level position-taking. Contrary to long-held assumptions, we show that state party system polarization did not occur around any critical moment but rather was incremental.
Partisan Prejudice: The Role of Beliefs About the Unchanging Nature of Ideology and Partisans
Crystal Hoyt, Jeni Burnette & Meghan Moore
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although there is a tendency to think all forms of essentialism -- the belief that characteristics are inherent and unchangeable -- are similar, some theories suggest different foundations and outcomes. We investigated if belief systems about the stability of political ideology (trait essentialism) and the fundamental nature of partisans (social essentialism) predict prejudice in opposite ways and if they do so via differential relations with blame. Across six studies (N = 2,231), we found that the more people believe the trait of political ideology is fixed (trait essentialism), the more they think that Republicans and Democrats are inherently different (social essentialism). Crucially, despite this positive correlation, trait essentialism was negatively linked to partisan prejudice and social essentialism was positively linked. The essentialism to prejudice links were driven, in part, by differential associations with blame attributions. Media messaging robustly influenced both types of essentialist thinking, with implications for prejudice.
Unemployment, Immigration, and Populism
Shuai Chen
Journal of Law and Economics, November 2024, Pages 951-986
Abstract:
This paper examines how unemployment and cultural anxiety have triggered different dimensions of current populism in the United States. I exploit the Great Recession and the 2014 Northern Triangle immigrant influx to investigate the effects of recent unemployment and unauthorized immigration on attitudes related to populism. Recent unemployment during the Great Recession increased the probability of having attitudes against wealthy elites by 15 percentage points, connected with left-wing populism. Perceived economic unfairness is a mechanism. However, cultural anxiety, rather than economic distress, more likely led to the rise of over 10 percentage points in the probability of having anti-immigration attitudes, related to right-wing populism, during the influx. This study intentionally links distinct economic and cultural forces to different types of populism, while still accounting for their potential interaction effects. This strategy facilitates disentangling the economic and cultural triggers of populism.
The effect of incarceration on political beliefs for vulnerable populations
Hope Martinez
Social Science Quarterly, December 2024, Pages 2269-2279
Method: I use a series of logit models to analyze responses to the Marshall Project's 2020 prison survey.
Results: My analysis reveals a significant change in political beliefs since being incarcerated. There is an increased effect of changing political beliefs for women and people of color incarcerated. The effect reveals that people of color are becoming, either for the first time or further aligned, with the Republican Party since being incarcerated.