Less Than Lethal: Minimal Support for Partisan Violence

• In Event: Experimental Research & Migration and Citizenship & Politics, Literature and Film & Civic Engagement Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual Poster Session: Virtual Poster Session: Experimental Research

Abstract

Political scientists, pundits, and citizens worry that America is entering a new period of political conflict defined by overt acts of violence. Provocative survey data show that nearly 15% of the public support politically motivated violence in hypothetical scenarios. Yet political violence is incredibly rare: new analysis of news coverage and Department of Justice statistics show that while there were more than 15,000 documented hate crimes in 2019, there were fewer than two dozen acts of political violence without a racial or religious component. We reconcile these seemingly conflicting results with two large survey experiments (N=2,011) that show self-reported attitudes on political violence are inflated by expressive responding, random clicking, and preferences for violence that are unrelated to partisanship. Study 1 finds that tolerance for political violence is indistinguishable from tolerance for entirely non-political (but otherwise identical) acts of violence. Study 2, using a design that elicits suggested sentences and support for a potential governor’s pardon for individuals convicted of a specific crime, shows that although a sizable portion of the public is willing to overlook non-violent crimes committed with partisan motivations, there is no systematic or substantive support for violent political acts. We also find that while the current hypothetical survey measure predicts general support for violence, it fails to discriminate between support for political or non-political violence. Our results are robust to several other predicted causes of political violence: aggression, affective polarization and political engagement. These findings suggest that although recent acts of political violence dominate news, they do not portend a new era of violent conflict.

Authors

• Justin Grimmer, Stanford University

• Clayton M. Nall, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Matthew Tyler, Stanford University

• Sean Westwood, Dartmouth College