Does the Salience of Partisan Competition Increase Affective Polarization in the United States?

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231192943
• Author: Shane P. Singh,Judd R. Thornton
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 45–58

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10659129231192943

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Does the Salience of Partisan Competition

Increase Affective Polarization in the

United States?

Shane P. Singh

1

and Judd R. Thornton

2



Abstract

We examine if increased salience of partisan competition causes affective polarization in the United States during

presidential elections. To do so, we leverage the random and quasi-random timing of survey interviews conducted during

election campaigns. We conduct three separate studies. In Study 1, we utilize the 2008 National Annenberg Electio n

Survey (NAES), in which random survey interview timing allows for a credible causal estimate of salience on affective

polarization. In Study 2, we employ American National Election Studies (ANES) data from 1980 to 2016, again leveraging

survey timing to assess the effect of salience on affective polarization. In Study 3, we examine changes in affective

polarization as a result of increasingly salient partisan competition using NAES and ANES pan el data from 1980 to 2008.

Across the three studies we identify a meaningful increase in affective polarization toward candidates, but not toward

parties, as a result of heightened partisan competition.

Keywords

affective polarization, elections, partisanship

Leading explanations of affective polarization attribute it

to heightened partisan competition (e.g., Iyengar, Sood,

and Lelkes 2012,West and Iyengar 2022). However, it is

diff‌icult to identify the causal impact of partisan com-

petition on affective polarization using traditional survey-

based research methods due to endogeneity threats from

reverse causation and unobserved confounders. To

overcome this problem, we exploit that the timing of

survey interview dates during campaigns is often random

or quasi-random.

We assume that political parties seek political power,

and we take “partisan competition”to refer to the jock-

eying for this power that takes place between parties. In

democracies, this battle is fought on several fronts, with

elections being the key forum. It is through elections and

their associated campaigns that parties win or lose the

off‌ices that afford them political power.

Our measure of the salience of partisan competition

depends on these features of electoral democracy.

1

Electoral competition intensif‌ies as elections approach, as

parties are more visibly disputatious in the run-up to

elections. This conf‌lict is signaled via their own campaign

communications and also through sanctioned inter-party

events, most notably debates. The media enthusiastically

report on party conf‌lict, making partisan competition more

apparent to citizens as elections get closer and the cam-

paign wears on. As such, we measure the salience of

partisan competition with the temporal proximity of an

upcoming election.

Evidence for the validity of this measurement strategy

comes from the comparative politics literature, where the

use of the (quasi-)random timing of elections vis-´

a-vis

survey interview dates as a plausibly exogenous measure

of the salience of partisan competition was pioneered. As

spelled out by Michelitch and Utych (2018, 417),

“temporal proximity to group competition, especially

high-stakes competition over societal resources...”will

lead to increased “in-group cohesion and out-group

hostility.”The enhanced communication efforts of

1

School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, Athens,

GA, USA

2

Department of Political Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Judd R. Thornton, Department of Political Science, Georgia State

University, 38 Peachtree Center Ave SE, 1057 Langdale Hall, Atlanta,

GA 30303, USA.

Email: jrthornton@gsu.edu