Compromise vs. Compromises: Preferences for Bipartisanship in the American Electorate Laurel Harbridge* Assistant Professor, Northwestern University Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
[email protected] Scott Hall 601 University Place Evanston, IL 60208 (847) 467-1147 Neil Malhotra Associate Professor, Stanford Graduate School of Business
[email protected] 655 Knight Way Stanford, CA 94035 (408) 772-7969 Brian F. Harrison PhD Candidate, Northwestern University
[email protected] Scott Hall 601 University Place Evanston, IL 60208 * Corresponding author. We thank Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS) for providing the majority of the financial support of this project. TESS is funded by the National Science Foundation (SES- 0818839). A previous version of this paper was scheduled for presentation at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Abstract Public opinion surveys regularly assert that Americans want political leaders to work together and to engage in bipartisan compromise. If so, why has Congress become increasingly acrimonious even though the American public wants it to be “bipartisan”? Many scholars claim that this is simply a breakdown of representation. We offer another explanation: although people profess support for “bipartisanship” in an abstract sense, what they desire procedurally out of their party representatives in Congress is to not compromise with the other side. To test this argument, we conduct two experiments in which we alter aspects of the political context to see how people respond to parties (not) coming together to achieve broadly popular public policy goals. We find that citizens’ proclaimed desire for bipartisanship in actuality reflects self-serving partisan desires.