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In
The Power of Partisanship, Joshua J. Dyck and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz argue that the growth in partisan polarization in the United States, and the resulting negativity voters feel towards their respective opposition party, has far-reaching effects on how Americans behave both inside and outside the realm of politics. Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz show how partisanship influences the electorate's support for democratic norms, willingness to engage in risk related to financial and healthcare decisions, interracial interactions, and previously non-political decisions like what we like to eat for dinner. Drawing on a series of original surveys and experiments conducted between 2014 and 2020, Dyck and Pearson-Merkowitz show how the dominance of partisanship as a decision cue has fundamentally transformed our understanding of both political and non-political behavior.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Partisanship and Ideology in Political Decision-Making
- Chapter 2: Elite Cues, Negative Partisanship, and the Changing Media Landscape
- Chapter 3: Partisanship, Policy, Compromise, and the Non-political
- Chapter 4: Partisanship, Race, and Intergroup Contact
- Chapter 5: Prospect Theory and Partisan Cues
- Chapter 6: Political Responsiveness to the Lived Experience
- Chapter 7: Independents, Knowledge, and Alienation
- Chapter 8: An Elite Problem Calls for an Elite Solution
- Appendix
About the author
Joshua J. Dyck is Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department and Director of the Center for Public Opinion at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is co-author of Initiatives without Engagement.
Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz is Saul I. Stern Professor of Civic Engagement and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.
