Working Papers

“Winners, Losers, and Affective Polarization.” (with Josephine Andrews) Under Review. Presented at MPSA (Chicago, April 2022).

Abstract: We analyze the winner-loser gap in affective polarization. Using data from 37 countries over years 1996 – 2016 from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we find a significant difference in winners’ versus losers’ affective polarization, and this difference is caused by winners’ consistently higher in-party favoritism than losers’. Even when controlling for partisanship, ideological distance to winning party, different types of elections and electoral rules, and a respondent’s winner-loser status in the most recent past election, winners’ affective polarization is significantly greater than losers and the difference is driven by winners’ greater in-party favoritism. Although much of the literature focuses on out-party dislike, also known as negative partisanship, our results align with research in social identity theory indicating that intergroup discrimination is driven primarily by in-group favoritism rather than out-group derogation. Our work suggests that in-party favoritism is an important but overlooked contributor to problematic implications of affective polarization.

“Impact of Winning and Losing on Affective Polarization During Campaign Period: Increasing In-party Favoritism under Different Motives.” Presented at MPSA (Chicago, April 2023) and WPSA (San Francisco, April 2023).

Abstract: Affective polarization, reflecting citizens’ preferences for their own party and aversion to opposing parties, is significantly influenced by political campaigns and election salience. However, the causal mechanisms linking elections to strengthened partisan attachment and the divergence between in-party favorability and out-party animosity remain unclear. Focusing on the most salient nature of elections, winning and losing, using both a survey experiment and observational data, I explore how partisans’ perceptions of their favored party’s electoral chances during ongoing campaigns (i.e., whether their party’s status is reassured or threatened in an electoral context) would influence their affective evaluations toward in-party and out-party. In addition, I investigate whether partisans’ changes in evaluations of in-party and out-party during campaigns are instigated by different motives when exposed to different messages in terms of their party’s election status. I expect to find that partisans will exhibit stronger favorability towards their preferred party during the campaign period, with two distinct mechanisms at play: identity confirmation when their party is expected to win, and instrumental function when their party is expected to lose. When their party is projected to win, partisans’ feelings toward the opposing party will likely remain unchanged, while they may harbor increased animosity towards the rival party if their own party is projected to lose.

“Winners, Affective Polarization, and Support for Violations of Democratic Norms.”

Abstract: Why winners, those who voted for the winning party, are more inclined to support violations of democratic norms than losers? Existing literature suggests this inclination is tied to citizens being willing to compromise democratic principles for perceived political gains. Building upon the intergroup discrimination theory in social psychology, I propose an alternative argument. I argue that winners are more likely to endorse violations of democratic principles compared to losers not due to a deliberate pursuit of political gain, but rather because they unconsciously favor actions that can benefit their own party, perceiving them subjectively democratic. This inclination stems from heightened in-party favoritism post-election, driven by the identity confirmation function and resulting in increased affective polarization. In other words, heightened in-party favoritism resulting from electoral victory makes winners more prone to let their partisan identity shape their democratic perceptions than losers, enabling them to endorse violations of democracy without considering them inherently undemocratic. To fully test if the causal effect of one’s party being in power on supporting undemocratic behavior is mediated through stronger in-party favoritism, I plan to conduct a parallel design experiment with nationally representative sample in the United States, manipulates participants’ winner-loser status and introduces a second treatment to manipulate the mediator—participants’ levels of in-party favoritism.

“Political Institutions, Party Size, and Parties’ Decisions to Enter Presidential Elections: An Analysis of South American and European Cases.” (with Feng-yu Lee) Presented at the 10th Conference of Semi-Presidentialism and Democracy (Taiwan, May 2019).

Abstract: In presidential and semi-presidential democracies, whether parties run a candidate for president exists a huge variance. In some countries, not only large parties, but also many small ones entered the presidential race. Yet in others, only large parties ran a candidate for president, or only a few parties (be they large or small) were likely to participate in presidential elections. Given that presidential elections are very important and can decide who controls executive power, why parties across the world display such a huge variation in terms of deciding whether to enter the presidential race? To explore the interactive effects of party size and political institutions on parties’ decisions to enter the presidential race, the authors compare and analyze the parties of 20 democracies in South America and Europe from 1975 to 2009. The factors of political institutions include: presidential electoral systems, concurrent elections, and government structures. To better estimate the causal relations between the exogenous and the endogenous variables of this article, the authors control for the influence of country- and year- specific effects, and they have the following findings. First, compared with a non-plurality system, a plurality one decreases the probability that all parties will run their own candidates for president. Second, for parties having more legislative seats, concurrent elections will increase the probability that they will run a candidate for president, compared with non-concurrent ones. In concurrent elections, the impact of party size on the probability that parties will enter the presidential race is also larger than that in non-current elections. Furthermore, compared with premier-presidential and president-parliamentary systems, presidential ones increase the probability that all parties will enter the presidential race. Last, compared with premier-presidential systems, president-parliamentary ones only increase the probability that smaller parties will run their own presidential candidates. In president-parliamentary systems, the impact of party size on the probability that parties will enter the presidential race is also smaller than that in premier-presidential ones.