Political Sectarianism in America

POLITICAL SECTARIANISM POLICY FORUM In the p ast decade, political scientists have introduced various constructs to capture this SOCIAL SCIENCE nonideological type of polarization, includ- ing “affective polarization” (1) and “social polarization” (4). Scholars from psychology Political sectarianism in America and other disciplines have introduced constructs, such as “tribalism” (SM), to flesh out A poisonous cocktail of othering, aversion, and moralization its social-psychological properties. We propo se here a superordinate con- poses a threat to democracy struct, political sectarianism—the tendency to adopt a moralized identification with By Eli J. Finkel1, Christopher A. Bail2, Mina ward the in-party (see the figure, bottom one political group and against another. Cikara3, Peter H. Ditto4, Shanto Iyengar5, panel). Out-part y hate has also become Whereas the foundational metaphor for trib- Samara Klar6, Lilliana Mason7, Mary C. more powerful than in-party love as a pre- alism is kinship, the foundational metaphor McGrath1, Brendan Nyhan8, David G. Rand9, dictor of voting behavior (2), and by some for political sectarianism is religion, which Linda J. Skitka10, Joshua A. Tucker11, Jay J. Van metrics, it exceeds long-standing antipa- evokes analogies focusing less on genetic re- Bavel11, Cynthia S. Wang1, James N. Druckman1 thies around race and religion (SM). latedness than on strong faith in the moral This aversion to opposing partisans might correctness and superiority of one’s sect . olitical polarization, a concern in make strategic sense if partisan identity Politica l identity is secondary to religion Downloaded from many countries, is especially acrimo- served as a strong proxy for political ideas. in traditional forms of sectarianism, but it nious in the United States (see the But given that sectaria nism is not driven pri- is primary in political sectarianism. In the first box). For decades, scholars have marily by such ideas (SM), holding opposing United States today, even though Democrats studied polarization as an ideologi- partisans in contempt on the basis of their and Republicans differ on average in terms cal matter—how strongly Democrats identity alone precludes innovative cross- of religious affiliation, their schism is funda- Pand Republicans diverge vis-à-vis political party solutions and mutually beneficial com- mentally political rather than religious. It is, http://science.sciencemag.org/ ideals and policy goals. Such competition promises. This preclusion is unfortunate, as in this sense, quite distinct from the Sunni- among groups in the marketplace of ideas common ground remains plentiful. Indeed, versus-Shia sectarian schisms that character- is a hallmark of a healthy democracy. But despite the clear evidence that partisans have ize politics in some Muslim-majority nations. more recently, researchers have identified grown increasingly disdainful of one another, Political sectarianism consists of three core a second type of polarization, one focusing the evidence that they have polarized in ingredients: othering—the ten dency to view less on triumphs of ideas than on dominat- terms of policy preferences is equivocal (3). opposing partisans as essentially different or ing the abhorrent supporters of the oppos- Along t he way, the caus al connection be- alien to oneself; aversion—the tendency to ing party (1). This literature has produced tween policy preferences and party loyalty dislike and distrust opposing partisans; and a proliferation of insights and constructs has become warped, with partisans adjust- mora lization—the tendency to view opposing but few interdisciplinary efforts to inte- ing their policy preferences to align with partisans as iniquitous. It is the confluence grate them. We offer such an integration, their party identity (SM). For example, a of these ingredients that makes sectarianism on November 9, 2020 pinpointing the superordinate construct recent experiment demonstrated that Re- so corrosive in the political sphere. Viewing of political sectarianism and identifying publicans exhibit a liberal attitude shift opposing partisans as different, or even as its three core ingredients: othering, aver- after exposure to a clip of President Don- dislikable or immoral, may not be problem- sion, and moralization. We then consider ald Trump voicing a liberal policy position atic in isolation. But when all three converge, the causes of political sectarianism and its (SM); there is little evidence to suggest that political losses can feel like existential threats consequences for U.S. society—especially Democrats are immune to analogous shifts that must be averted—whatever the cost. the threat it poses to democracy. Finally, in response to their own political leaders. we propose interventions for minimizing Overall, the severity of political conflict WHY SECTARIANISM IS SURGING its most corrosive aspects. has grown increasingly divorced from the Rising political sectarianism in the United magnitude of policy disagreement (4). States is multiply determined; here we con- ASCENDANCE OF POLITICAL HATRED D emocrats and Republicans—t he 85% of U.S. citizens who do not identify as pure On American exceptionalism independents—have grown more contemp- tuous of opposing partisans for decades, A recent study offers valuable international perspective on political polarization, and at similar rates [see supplementary leveraging data from 1975 through 2017 in nine Western democracies to examine feel- materials (SM)]. Only recently, however, ings toward copartisans and opposing partisans. The study controls statistically for the has this aversion exceeded their affection number of parties and offers a valuable, albeit noncomprehensive, comparison set (13). for copartisans. On a “feeling thermome- Four nations—America, Canada, New Zealand, and Switzerland—exhibit increasing ter” scale ranging from cold (0°) to neutral sectarianism over time, with the rate steepest in America. By contrast, Australia, Britain, (50°) to warm (100°), affect toward copar- Norway, Sweden, and Germany exhibit decreasing sectarianism over time. The most tisans has consistently hovered in the 70° notable findings pertain to out-party hate [increasingly “frigid” evaluations of opposing to 75° range. By contrast, affect toward op- partisans, via a “feeling thermometer” (see main text)]. Across the eight other nations, posing partisans has plummeted from 48° the mean rate of change in out-party hate was 0.004° per year (range: –0.2° to +0.2°) in the 1970s to 20° today (see the figure, on the 0°-to-100° scale. In the United States, the rate of change was –0.6° per year. By top panel). And cold feelings toward the 2017, out-party hate was stronger in America than in any other nation. out-party now exceed warm feelings to- SCIENCE sciencemag.org 30 OCTOBER 2020 • VOL 370 ISSUE 6516 533 Published by AAAS INSIGHTS | POLICY FORUM The rise of out-party hate ducing cable news faltered with the launch With the exception of 2020, all data come from the American National Election Study (ANES), as reported in (1). of the conservative Fox News in 1996 and the To calculate the estimates for the lower panel, we used upper-panel estimates to compute, relative to the neutral liberal pivot of MSNBC a decade later. People point on the feeling thermometer, the strength of in-party love (in-party score – 50) and out-party hate (50 – w ho are already sectarian selectively seek out out-party score), and then took the difference of those two scores. See supplementary materials for details. congenial news, but consumin g such content also amplifies their sectarianism (SM). Warmth toward the opposing party (out-party) has diminished for decades In recent years, social media companies In-party Out-party like Facebook and Twitter have played an 100° Warm influential role in political discourse, inten- sifying political sectarianism. Scholars from sociology, political science, economics, psy- 75° chology, and computational social science debate whether such web platforms create Neutral 50° polarizing echo chambers (7) (SM). However, a recent field experiment offers intriguing evidence that Americans who deactivate their 25° Facebook account become less politically polarized (8). In addition, emotional and mor- Feeling thermometer ratings thermometer Feeling Cold 0° alized posts—those containing words like 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 “hate,” “shame,” or “greed”—are especially Downloaded from likely to be retweeted within rather than be- tween partisan networks (9). Social-m edia Out-party hate has emerged as a stronger force than in-party love technology employs popularity-based algo- 25° Mean = 19.2 rithms that tailor content to maximize user engagement, increa sing sectarianism within 20° Mean = 11.3 homogeneous networks (SM), in part be- http://science.sciencemag.org/ 15° cause of the contagious power of content that elicits sectarian fear or indignation. 10° Third, i n contrast to the equivocal ideo- 5° logical-polarization trends among the pub- Mean = –4.5 lic, politici ans and other political elites have 0° unambiguously polarized recently on ideo- -5° logical grounds, with Republican politicians moving further to the right than Democratic In-party love – Out-party hate – Out-party love In-party -10° politicians have moved to the left (SM). This ide ological divergence is driven in part by ex- -15° 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 treme economic inequality in America today, on November 9, 2020

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