With Joe Phillips, Kal Munis, Soren Jordan, and Michael Soules

Abstract: What factors do Americans find most important when evaluating acts of political violence? Normatively, details regarding the violent act (e.g., the target and violence severity) should determine the punishment for political violence. However, recent work on polarization and identity suggests evaluations of political violence may depend on the perpetrator’s characteristics. In two pre-registered conjoint experiments, we vary both perpetrator characteristics and features of the violent act to discern the relative weight of act-centric and perpetrator-centric considerations. We find that, overall, the features of the act matter more than perpetrator identity characteristics for citizen evaluations of political violence, on average. However, perpetrator identity characteristics –especially partisanship – matter too. Though these findings can be interpreted as normatively negative given the perpetrator’s identities do influence punishment, the disproportionate effect of the violent act’s target and severity are normatively encouraging.

With Joe Phillips, Soren Jordan, and Michael Soules

Abstract: There is increasing concern in the US over the security of the right to peacefully protest, unhindered by state or mass political violence. Existing work indicates support for protest and violence against protesters is contingent on the demographic characteristics of protests. Yet, little is known about who the public (mis)perceives to comprise protesters across multiple identities as much work focuses on a specific protest. We conduct a survey experiment to measure these (mis)perceptions and then shift perceptions with experimental treatments. This pre-post design allows us to demonstrate the causal effect of shifts in demographic perceptions of protests on support for protest, political violence, and democratic norms. Contrary to much of the existing literature, we find that protester demographics do not affect support for protests, democratic norms, or political violence. Instead, support for protest and support for democratic norms are highly correlated while support for political violence is not.    

With John Kane and David Stack

Abstract: With the US Congress increasingly gridlocked, fewer bills are becoming legislation. Nevertheless, members continue to engage in what we call “symbolic legislating”--i.e.,  introducing legislation that has effectively no chance of securing enough votes to become law. Despite its prevalence, little is known about the electoral implications of sponsoring symbolic legislation. It is possible that voters reward their legislator’s efforts to move the status quo closer to their position even if it has no chance of becoming law. On the other hand, because symbolic legislation is doomed to fail, it may decrease a legislator’s perceived effectiveness and, thus, their political support. Alternatively, it is possible that sponsoring symbolic legislation has no impact, with voters interpreting it merely as a position-taking cue. In this Short Research Article, we test these competing hypotheses using a survey experiment as well as observational data. Our experimental results clearly demonstrate that, assuming shared party and issue position, symbolic legislation is strongly rewarded. Moreover, the effect is even stronger among voters who are most likely to attend to this information in the real world. Finally, we explore whether such a pattern emerges in real-world data on legislators’ behavior and find clear evidence that it does.

With Hannah Nam

Abstract: Representation has been diversifying at every level of politics in the U.S., but what do Americans think of efforts to prioritize diversity in politics—especially at the highest level of political office? Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential candidacy poses a unique opportunity to examine the role of rhetoric about diversity in the context of a consequential real-world political campaign. We examined the effects of rhetoric about the benefits of diversity, actions to promote diversity, and challenges to diversity on perceptions of Harris as a “DEI candidate,” her qualifications, and broader preferences about descriptive representation. Rhetoric about the importance of representation improved perceptions of Harris’s qualifications and increased desire for more Black and Asian political representation. Notably, rhetoric about racism decreased belief that Harris is a “DEI candidate.” This work has implications for political communication, media coverage, and strategic uses of rhetoric about racism, sexism, and diversity for political campaigns and beyond.

With Asha Venogupalan

Abstract: In the United States, there has been a recent resurgence of anti-transgender sentiment and legislating, which has drawn concern from an anti-genocide group. While political science and psychology consider negative outgroup attitudes, we draw on the genocide stages framework to organize our exploration of anti-transgender sentiment. We analyze support for the stages that describe the public's attitudes, which create support or apathy towards future stages that involve elite actions. To do so, we develop novel scales and examine the effect of two common types of anti-transgender rhetoric: gender essentialism and arguments that transgender people have too much power. Contrary to our hypotheses, we find mostly null effects of these narratives, even across levels of media exposure. However, we do find significant effects of the treatment highlighting transgender peoples' disproportionate power on support for requiring visible symbols to identify transgender people and discrimination, which is normatively concerning. These effects even tend to be concentrated among subgroups we expect to be allied with transgender people in some cases, illuminating concerns for coalition-building and political progress for transgender people. We conclude by discussing the state of public opinion about transgender people and considering negative outgroup attitudes in a genocide framework.