In their new book, “Independent Politics,” political scientists Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov unpack one of the more important trends in the U.S. electorate: why the percentage of Americans calling themselves “independent” continues to rise, even though partisanship is stronger than ever. They answered some questions via email. An edited transcript is below.
Q: Political science research on independents often emphasizes that, in reality, many of them think and behave like Democrats or Republicans. Your book doesn’t dispute that, but you ask a different question: Why are so many people “going undercover” as independents if they’re really somewhat partisan? What is your answer, in a nutshell?
KRUPNIKOV: Our goal isn’t to suggest that independents are real, but to ask, in essence, “If they are no different than partisans, why won’t they just admit that?”
People “go undercover” — or hide their partisanship behind the label “independent” — because they are too embarrassed to admit their partisanship. Being embarrassed to admit your partisanship leads you to avoid behaviors that are overtly partisan.
This is a big problem for democratic politics, since overtly partisan behaviors are often the behaviors that have the most political “voice.” In short, independents are just the tip of the much larger, more consequential iceberg of political inaction.
Q: What’s changed in popular portrayals of partisanship that’s made it such an undesirable identity?
KLAR: Popular portrayals of partisanship, particularly over the last two decades, have been decidedly negative, focusing on polarization and disagreement. There is a prevailing narrative of conflict and polarization, suggesting that the parties have insurmountable levels of disagreement and that the parties dislike each other intensely.
The parties provide plenty of fodder for this narrative. In the book we coded a series of presidential debates, as just one example. We find that the percentage of phrases used in presidential debates that conveys insurmountable conflict between the two candidates has dramatically increased over recent decades.
When Americans learn about politics, they learn that partisans are angry and stubborn. And, understandably, people don’t want to seem this way to others. With dozens of surveys and experiments, one clear message resonated over and over again: Associating oneself with partisan anger, stubbornness, and inflexibility does not seem like the best way to make a great impression.
On the other hand, being independent and above the partisan morass seems much more impressive. This is yet more evidence that, even in anonymous surveys, people behave in ways that they perceive to be socially desirable and that cast them in the most positive light.
Q: In fact, you did a fun experiment where you asked people about how they would describe their partisanship if they wanted to make the “best impression” or the “worst impression.” What did you find?
KRUPNIKOV: This is a classic experiment for figuring out if people might lie about their responses to seem more impressive to others. People are asked to answer a question, but some are randomly assigned to answer the question as if their goal is to make the best impression on a person and others are assigned to answer the question as if their goal is to make the worst impression on a person.
In our version of the experiment, people are significantly more likely to pick independent — or report that they are independent with a partisan leaning – when they are asked to make a good impression. In contrast, people report that they are strong partisans when they are asked to make a bad impression.
Q: Part of what seems unattractive to people about partisanship is when partisans disagree. How does this affect people’s views of partisans?
KRUPNIKOV: People are especially likely to reject partisanship when they are reminded of partisan disagreement. By disagreement, we don’t mean that the parties have different positions on political issues, but that the parties are engaged in interminable political battles.
For example, we asked some people to read an article about political disagreement and others to read an article about bipartisanship. Then, we showed people photographs of two beautiful neighborhoods and asked them to compare the two photos. We manipulated these photos so that some people compared a neighborhood in which a political yard sign was visible with a neighborhood that had no political yard sign. Others compared the same two photos but without any political yard sign in either of them.
We found that when both photos had no political signs, people liked the neighborhoods equally. It didn’t matter if they had read about political disagreement or bipartisanship, the neighborhoods seemed virtually identical to them.
In contrast, the combination of reading about partisan disagreement and seeing a photograph of a neighborhood with political signs led people to evaluate the neighborhood a lot less favorably. Nothing else about the neighborhood had changed — it was still the same photograph of the same neighborhood — but people didn’t want to live in that neighborhood and they didn’t want to socialize with people from that neighborhood.
We don’t see this among people who read about bipartisanship, so reading about disagreement specifically changed the way people felt about living with neighbors who are publicly partisan.
Q: Partisan disagreement affects behavior too, you argue. Another fun experiment involved political stickers. Tell us a bit about that.
KLAR: It was really important for us to measure people’s willingness to do something, rather than just having them speculate as to whether they might do it.
I conducted the sticker experiment with the help of undergraduate students at the University of Arizona. The students approached people around Tucson and asked them to complete a short survey in which some people were randomly assigned to read about another negative example of partisanship. Afterward, students offered them a “thank-you token” of a sticker, and the respondents were invited to choose which sticker they preferred.
One sticker had the Democratic logo, one had the Republican logo, and one had simply a photo of an eagle. The students marked down which sticker the respondent took and whether he or she placed the sticker somewhere visible or hid it away in a bag or a pocket.
We found that respondents who were randomly assigned to first read the negative partisan message were less likely to take a partisan sticker and were less likely to place it somewhere prominent, like on their shirt or laptop. This was a really illustrative example of how negativity in politics suppresses public expressions of partisanship.
Q: You’d think that people who seem so averse to partisanship would embrace bipartisanship or compromise. But that doesn’t happen either. In fact, you say it’s a myth.
KRUPNIKOV: There is often a narrative around election-time that people who are independent are frustrated with “politics as usual” and want more compromise and bipartisanship. This is what people who say they are independents often tell journalists and report in surveys. The problem is that it’s easy to say that you want compromise in the abstract and there is nothing on the line.
In our study, we gave people actual scenarios of political compromise. In some cases, compromise follows a long, contentious debate. Moreover, in some cases compromise means that one party has to make numerous concessions. We found that people who say that they are independent and only admit that they “lean” toward a party actually don’t support compromise that much. They are especially opposed to compromise when the party they “lean” toward makes concessions after a long debate.
What’s more, these independents who only lean toward a party actually like the party better when it doesn’t compromise — and produces gridlock — than when it makes concessions to actually pass legislation.
Independents may talk a good game about bipartisanship, but when faced with scenarios of actual bipartisan compromise, independents behave just like partisans.
Q: If people are really “undercover partisans,” is this a good thing or a bad thing for democracy?
KLAR: I think it’s safe to say that we have a problem. Early work on independents focused almost exclusively on their voting behavior. Given that independents do vote like partisans, this can give the impression that independents are of no real consequence for democracy.
But the broader consequences we identify — a reluctance to discuss politics in social settings, a refusal to wear stickers or put up yard signs, a hesitance to even publicly admit which candidate you’re supporting — are, ultimately, a bad thing for democracy.
Democracies require that individuals publicly express their preferences in order for their representatives to act on their behalf. We find that the negative stigma associated with partisan politics is discouraging individuals from speaking out.
Q: People have often described candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as “outsiders” to traditional party politics. Does your work help to explain their appeal?
KLAR: To say this may anger both Sanders and Trump supporters, but there is something very similar about these two political candidates. Both argue that they are independent from typical establishment politics and their appeal relies on their supporters’ desire to be above the political fray.
As we’ve written elsewhere, supporting Trump and Sanders allows people to reject the established party without doing anything too crazy like voting for a third party. In this way, Trump and Sanders are the perfect candidates to profit off of the rise of undercover partisans who are tired of partisan partisans but are, nonetheless, still partisans themselves.
