Cancel Culture? A Spiral of Silence in Political Science

• In Event: Free Speech, Censorship, & Self-Censorship

Abstract

Recent years have seen extensive debate in popular commentary about a pervasive ‘cancel culture’ thought to be taking over college campuses. A progressive orthodoxy, it is argued, has silenced conservative voices and diverse perspectives. This development, it is claimed, has ostracized contrarians, limited academic freedom, strengthened conformism, and eviscerated robust intellectual debate. Former President Trump has even claimed that ‘patriotic education’ needs to protect students from the dangers of leftwing indoctrination. But does systematic empirical evidence support these claims?

Part I reviews the arguments and builds theoretically upon Noelle-Neumann’s classic concept of a ‘spiral of silence’, where ideological minorities become reluctant to express their views openly for fear of violating prevalent social norms, may provide insights into these contrasts. Part II of this study outline several propositions arising from the cancel culture thesis and describes the sources of empirical survey evidence and measures used to test these claims within the discipline of political science. Data is derived from a new global survey, the World of Political Science, 2019, with 2,446 responses collected from scholars studying or working in 102 countries. Part III presents the results. Overall the study confirms the significant impact of Left-Right ideology on reported experience of the cancel culture in political science – but important contrasts were found by type of societal culture. In post-industrial societies with increasingly liberal social values, like the US and UK, scholars on the right were most likely to perceive that they faced a growing chilly climate. By contrast, in developing societies characterized by more traditional cultures, like Nigeria, it was liberal scholars who thought that a cancel culture had worsened. Part IV summarizes the key findings and considers their broader implications.

Author

• Pippa Norris, Harvard University