Education and the Curious Case of Conservative Compromise

• Author: Jeffrey M. Berry,Deborah J. Schildkraut,James M. Glaser
• Date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912919866509
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919866509

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(1) 59 –75

© 2019 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919866509

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Article

Over the decades, education has been found to be one of

the most important explanations for many social and

political attitudes and behaviors (Bartels 2006; Converse

1964; Erikson and Tedin 2015; Prior 2005; Rosenstone

and Hansen 1993). Education is included in just about

every model that attempts to explain political thinking.

Even if it is not to be part of the story someone is telling,

it is so routinely significant that it must be accounted for.

Why education should matter so much to democratic

thinking and participation is not hard to fathom. Formal

education contributes to things that would have to have

political consequences. Better educated people are more

likely to have the knowledge that makes policy and poli-

tics more understandable (Delli Carpini and Keeter

1996). With that foundation, educated people are more

likely to seek additional information (American Press

Institute 2014; Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee 1954).

So it is not surprising that better educated citizens vote

and participate in other ways at higher rates than those

with less education (Hillygus 2005; Prior 2005;

Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Wolfinger and Rosenstone

1980).

The benefits of education go beyond providing the

ability to be an active citizen. Education contributes to

the type of citizen one can become. Political scientists

have found that educated people are more likely to be

politically efficacious, believing that their contributions

to the political system matter and that they are obligated

to participate (Abramson 1983; Cassel and Hill 1981;

Semetko and Valkenburg 1998). Education gives people

the confidence and ability to sort out complex political

questions, distinguish between political alternatives

(Sniderman, Glaser, and Griffin 1990), and engage in

political discussion, further stimulating interest and a

sense of obligation to participate. Samuel Popkin (1991,

36) argues that education affects politics “by increasing

the number of issues that citizens see as politically rele-

vant, and by increasing the number of connections they

make between their own lives and national and interna-

tional events.” This is not to say that education is a pana-

cea. Plenty of well-educated people are apolitical, and

there are less educated people who engage in politics. All

else the same, however, education is a consistent and

powerful contributor to meaningful citizenship.

In this project, we explore the effect of education on

one dimension of democratic thinking: acceptance of

866509PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919866509Political Research QuarterlyGlaser et al.

research-article2019

1Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Deborah J. Schildkraut, Department of Political Science, Tufts

University, Medford, MA 02155, USA.

Email: Deborah.schildkraut@tufts.edu

Education and the Curious Case of

Conservative Compromise

James M. Glaser1, Jeffrey M. Berry1,

and Deborah J. Schildkraut1

Abstract

“Education,” notes Philip Converse, “is everywhere the universal solvent.” Whatever the ill of the body politic,

many believe that greater education improves the condition. Much scholarship explores the impact of education

on political attitudes and behaviors, but scholars have not examined the relationship of education to support for

political compromise. This is especially topical, as compromise between parties seems harder than ever to achieve, yet

compromise is necessary for democratic governance. We examine whether higher levels of education lead to support

for compromise and find that education does matter, but the relationship is conditional. For liberals and moderates,

more education promotes greater support for compromise. For conservatives, those with more education are not

more likely to support compromise than those with less education. We argue that for conservatives, education

matters for compromise support, but it also leads to better understanding of bedrock ideological principles that inhibit

approval of compromise.

Keywords

compromise, ideology, education

60 Political Research Quarterly 74(1)

compromise. Democratic practice is necessarily messy.

Different interests, beliefs, and priorities get articulated

in the process of policymaking and get sorted out as rep-

resentatives distribute resources, determine which values

will be maximized, and set a course for the future.

Democratic theory suggests that our presidential, first-

past-the-post, bicameral and tripartite, pluralistic system

works because our system is designed to generate politi-

cal outcomes that satisfy majorities. The processes of

American governance are imperfect—slow, tortuous,

often conflict-ridden—but somehow, we have been able

to get to the necessary compromises required for demo-

cratic self-governance.

We argue that attitudes about compromise should be

related to education, with better educated people more

likely to accept compromise as an essential feature of our

politics. Education should increase the likelihood of

viewing compromise as the cost of having a functioning

government. The logic is straightforward: education

should lead people to appreciate that compromise is how

democracies maximize the preferences of the largest

number of people, even if one’s own preferences are not

maximized in the process. As we show in the upcoming

pages, the relationship between education and attitudes

toward political compromise is as expected, but with one

caveat, and an important one at that. We show that this

relationship is conditional: it looks different for conserva-

tives than for liberals and moderates. We explore why

conservatives are distinctive when it comes to compro-

mise, and in the conclusion, we discuss how this contrib-

utes to our more polarized politics (Abramowitz 2013,

2018; Lee 2016; Theriault 2008, 2013). In the end, we

add compromise to the list of political outcomes for

which the role of education is more complicated than

people often appreciate.

The Nature of Compromise

Our conventional understanding of compromise in poli-

tics is grounded in behavioral science. People negotiate

from positions in which they assign values to their own

preferences and weigh that assessment against what is

being offered in exchange. The values assigned might

not correspond with others’ judgments, but negotiations

are not dependent on such accuracy (Kahneman and

Tversky 1984). Whatever the valuations, the path to

successful outcomes is agreements that are “win-

win”—both sides believe that they are gaining from the

transaction.

For politicians, the valuations are abstractions—they

do not gain a tangible good or service in exchange for

agreeing to a compromise on legislation. But part of the

win-win is the reward of crafting good legislation that

moves us forward. A second reward is the appreciation of

constituents who, to paraphrase David Mayhew (1974),

give legislators the credit they claim.

The willingness of citizens to appreciate the value of

compromise—and to reward legislators who work to find

compromise—is critical to the functioning of a democ-

racy. As Gutmann and Thompson (2014, 1) note,

“Compromise is difficult, but governing a democracy

without compromise is impossible.” Still, there is no

guarantee that public opinion will value compromise and

accept policy solutions that only qualify as half loaves

rather than full ones. Nevertheless, as we will show, when

asked by pollsters, Americans offer strong support for

compromise and most say they prefer that their elected

officials work toward compromise rather than stand on

principle. Despite the increasing polarization of the

American electorate (Abramowitz 2013; Iyengar, Sood,

and Lelkes 2012), a majority of Americans prefer com-

promise to sticking to principle: support for compromise

stands at 53 percent in a recent Gallup Poll (Newport

2016).1 Perhaps because of polarization among politi-

cians, the preference for compromisers is actually trend-

ing upward in Gallup’s time series (Newport 2016).

Although the public professes support for compromise

in principle, whether compromise is the preferred route to

policymaking when the rubber hits the road is less clear.

The messiness of the legislative process, the veritable

sausage making, challenges the public’s patience and

understanding (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 1996, 2002).

In this era of omniscient media and a daily stream of

behind-the-scenes reporting, dealmaking becomes very

public. Opponents vilify dealmakers and use partisan

cues to undercut support for bipartisan agreements while

decrying their own party’s leaders when intraparty nego-

tiations appear to be going in the wrong direction. Our

current era of “insecure majorities,” where each election

holds the possibility that the party in the majority will

switch, has served to increase the incentives of the minor-

ity party to resist compromise at all costs (Lee 2016).

Still, one might expect that those most likely to look

past partisanship and soundbite politics are those who are

most educated. They should appreciate the challenges of

democratic government and should be most likely to pos-

sess what Gutmann and Thompson (2014, 3) term the

“compromising mindset.”2 It turns out, however, that the

relationship between education and compromise is not so

straightforward.

Education: The Universal Solvent?

Political rhetoric is most often about principles, about

values, and about those things we should cherish and

tenaciously support. This is how we think about politics,

but not so much how we think about governance. Because

parties, interest groups, and individuals hold different