Partisan Cues and Public Perceptions of Non-Electoral Institutions

• In Event: Assessing Mechanisms Explaining Trust in Government

Abstract

Compared to Congress and the Presidency, rule of law institutions like the Supreme Court generally garner high levels of public support. However, unlike the elected branches of government, the public possess very little information about non-electoral institutions. Given this informational vacuum, how do elected branches of government influence public perceptions of politically insulated institutions? We address this question by exploring how external partisan cues affect public perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We argue that citizen perceptions of non-electoral actors and institutions are influenced by the partisan president as the key cognitive heuristic. Using multiple survey experiments in combination with observational data, we show that partisan cues are the key driver for both individual-level and institutional support for non-electoral institutions. Notably, we find that perceptions of the policy preferences of non-electoral actors are manipulable based on partisan cues. These findings offer important substantive and normative implications towards a richer understanding of the intricacies between political elites as source cues, party politics, and the malleable nature of support that permeates institutional boundaries.

Authors

• Ali Shiraz Masood, Rhodes College

• Ryan Strickler, University of South Carolina

• Michael Zilis, University of Kentucky