The Effect of Partisan Competition on Tolerance of Election Cheating

• In Event: Lightning Round: Research in Five: Graduate Students III

Abstract

American government has long been structured on the foundation on that competitive elections are the best way to represent the American people in government. Even most American politics scholars approach representation and elections with a focus on the normative good of political competition (Schattschneider, 1960). However, in an era of hyper-partisanship (Mason, 2018) and extreme partisan animus (Iyengar, Sood, & Lelkes, 2012), it is worth examining how this emphasis on competition affects everyday Americans. Although little studied in the specific context of American competitive elections, major work in political science and social psychology (i.e., realistic group conflict theory; Maxwell-Smith et al., 2016; Sherif, 1966) explains how conflict is stoked and created between groups when competing over zero-sum resources. Further foundational work (i.e., social identity theory; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) emphasizes how group members, such as everyday Democrats and Republicans, are willing to engage in competitive action on behalf of their group.

For how America’s focus on highly competitive elections could dangerously affect Americans’ attitudes, we need to look no further than elections themselves. If competitive elections erode people’s willingness to “play fair” in elections, then competitive elections are at best substantively flawed and at worst self-defeating. As equal treatment in elections is a cornerstone for functional democracies, it is important that scholars and policy makers understand how competitive elections affect democratic practices (Griffith, Plamenatz, & Pennock, 1956).

To examine this potential effect of salient partisan competition on equal treatment in elections, I conducted an original survey experiment. First, participants were randomly assigned between reading a fabricated news article about a competitive congressional election or a simulated news article about a non-competitive congressional election. After reading one of these two articles, participants responded to a series of questions about instances of election cheating. These questions asked participants about their tolerance of/agreement with situations such as support for a candidate who deliberately misinformed people about the date of election day. For these election cheating questions, participants were randomly assigned to receive a version in which their own political party would benefit from cheating or their opposing political party would benefit from cheating.

I find significant differences of tolerance of election cheating between salience of partisan competition and group that would benefit from cheating. In general, there is a statically significant difference between participants’ tolerance of election cheating depending on whether their own political party or their opposing political party benefit from cheating (Ψ = 2.11, p < .001). While this finding is unsurprising, salience of partisan competition affected how participants tolerated election cheating in both circumstances. When primed with partisan competition, participants became more tolerant of election cheating when their own political party benefited (Ψ = 1.35, p = .029) and less tolerant of election cheating when their opposing political party benefited (Ψ = -1.07, p = .042). These effects of salient partisan competition mean that salient partisan competition increased the difference in how participants tolerated election cheating depending on whether their own political party or their opposing political party benefited from cheating (Ψ = 4.54, p < .001). These effects of salience of partisan competition were greater than other significant predictors of tolerance of election cheating such as political ideology and demographic factors.

These findings have important implications for modern democratic government. Although further research should be conducted to examine the natural scope of these findings, the externality of these results indicate that purposefully designing elections to be maximally competitive (e.g., the efficiency gap) has troubling consequences for democratic stability. Rather than placing high value on competition, democratic governments, like that of the U.S., should instead pay special attention to other considerations such as representation and participation. With this in mind, there should be an effort to design elections in a minimally competitive system such as in the instance of majority-minority districts which increase contact with government and voter turnout (Banducci, Donovan, & Karp, 2004; Barreto, Segura, & Woods, 2004). Further, efforts should be made to move away from a type of “adversarial democracy”, to those which are participatory like unitary systems (Mansbridge, 1983). Although not a simple or straightforward task, this study provides evidence that the U.S. should move away from an emphasis on extreme political competition and instead to a renewed value on representation and participation in elections.

Author

• Erik Clarke, Ohio State University