American anti-democratic sentiments thrive despite depolarization efforts, new study suggests

A new study revealed that depolarization initiatives do not affect anti-democratic attitudes. The Strengthening Democracy Project, a team of social scientists from Northwestern and three other universities, surveyed 8,000 partisans who were randomly assigned to interventions designed to reduce affective polarization.

The initiatives ranged from “correcting misperceptions about supporters of the other party, asking people to think of a friend who supports the other party, or showing the friendship between the late Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic President Joe Biden.” The researchers found that these interventions significantly decreased the level of out-party animosity among study participants, but were ineffective in combating anti-democratic sentiments.

James Druckman, one of the study’s researchers, is a Professor of Political Science at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

“Interventions that reduce the extent to which partisans do not like each other do not seem to alter or reduce the extent to which they hold anti-democratic attitudes,” said Druckman. “We need to think about ways to help people see the value of democracy unto itself regardless of party.”

Druckman is the Payson S. Wild Professor of Political Science and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. He is also an Honorary Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University in Denmark. His research focuses on political preference formation and communication. His work examines how citizens make political, economic, and social decisions in various contexts (e.g., settings with multiple competing messages, online information, deliberation). He also researches the relationship between citizens’ preferences and public policy and the polarization of American society.

Learn more in Northwestern Now’s article, “Partisans willing to upend democracy to help their party win even when polarization is diminished.”