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Party Choice and Support for Demagogues: An Experimental Examination*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Dean Jaros  and
Gene L. Mason
Dean Jaros
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Gene L. Mason
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
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Extract

The relationship of parties to democracy and to political stability has concerned scholars for years. Extant party systems have almost continually been under attack by reformers bent on achieving various objectives, among them greater party responsibility, greater honesty, and greater efficiency of governmental operation. But party systems have not suffered from a lack of defenders: reformers have often been engaged in vigorous debate. Such controversy, apart from the merits of the arguments on either side, focuses attention on a number of interesting empirical propositions about parties in democratic systems. These propositions, unfortunately, have not often been put to rigorous systematic test.

For example, defenders of the American party system in particular point out that an important function of parties is the guiding of social conflict into moderate, non-revolutionary modes of expression. Attempts at reform, goes the argument, should be considered as to whether they might interfere with this beneficial function. Citizens are viewed as having inherent tendencies to perform destabilizing political acts or to vote for extremist political figures. Somehow, we are told, these citizens are restrained from indulging these immoderate predispositions by the party system. In a sense, the argument continues, parties save the great unwashed from themselves; all democrats should be thankful that they do and appreciate them for this service.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , March 1969 , pp. 100 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1969

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Footnotes

*

The order of the authors' names should not be interpreted to imply seniority of authorship. This is a joint enterprise. The authors wish to thank the University of Kentucky Research Foundation for financial support of the research upon which this article is based.

References

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6 In the sense that there are no relatively stable blocs of voters to whom they must defer for support.

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17 Converse and Dupeux, loc cit.

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19 Key, , Parties, Politics and Pressure Groups, p. 203 Google Scholar.

20 Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965), p. 355 Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., p. 115.

22 Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 74–77 Google Scholar.

23 Eckstein, Harry, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton: Center of International Studies, 1961), pp. 21–28, 35–38 Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 3.

25 Almond and Verba, op. cit., p. 13.

26 Alienation is measured by the Survey Research Center's Political Efficacy Scale, Campbell, Angus, et al, The Voter Decides (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1954). pp. 187–194 Google Scholar; anomie is measured by a version of Srole's instrument, see McDill, Edward L. and Ridley, Jean Clare, “Status, Anomia, Political Alienation and Political Participation,” American Journal of Sociology, 68 (09, 1962), 205–213 Google Scholar; The measure of sense of citizen duty is also taken from the Survey Research Center's arsenal, Campbell, , et. al., The Voter Decides, pp. 194–199 Google Scholar.

27 Bullock, Allen, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (New York: Bantam Books, 1961), especially pp. 43–46 Google Scholar; Kris, Ernst and Leites, Nathan, “Democratic and Totalitarian Propaganda,” in Fein, Leonard (ed.), American Democracy: Essays on Image and Realities (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), pp. 55–60 Google Scholar; and Lipset, op. cit., Chapter 5.

28 For example, a respondent who indicated that racial conflict was the most salient of the four issues, and who further indicated that his personal position was pro-Negro, was presented with a hypothetical demagogic candidate in election II to whom the following statement was attributed: “Every white man in the south is an uncivilized dog. His record of lynchings proves it. There is no white man's justice; justice comes only when the black man takes it by force.” A person choosing the same issue but indicating an anti-Negro stand was presented with a hypothetical demagogue who said, “We have a right to keep niggers from moving in next door to us and we have a right to use force to do it. We must preserve western Christian civilization. Would you want your daughter to marry a nigger?” The statement attributed to a demagogue was not always the direct counterpart of that attributed to the demagogue on the opposite side of the same issue, nor was it necessarily directly parallel to the “less extreme” statement attributed to an issue-oriented candidate in election III. This was due to the fact that our operation for generating demagogic statements sometimes produced items with less specificity of reference than those used for issue-oriented candidates. On the ground that our experts seemed to believe it was the nature of demagoguery to avoid issue-specificity, we did not interpose our own judgement. As an example of the format of the electoral choice instrument, we present the entire configuration of options offered to respondents who choose Vietnam as the most salient issue, and who indicated a pro-involvement posture. The complete instrument can be obtained from the authors.

ELECTION #1

Candidate “A” is in his early thirties and has a reputation for energy and drive. He is married, has three children, and is active in his church. He is a lawyer. He recently received an award for distinguished service to his community.

Candidate “B” is a middle aged bachelor who is employed with a business firm which recently moved to Lexington from Pennsylvania. It is rumored that he is secretly engaged to a woman twenty years younger than himself.

ELECTION #2

Candidate “C” says, “The only language the communists understand is war. Your children will be safe only when our armies have killed every last communist. The Lord is on our side in Viet Nam. To fight on to total victory is the wish of the blessed Saviour.”

Candidate “D” says, “One thing about this campaign is clear. My opponent and I are in very great disagreement on almost every point. The voters must choose between two programs. Mine is the most beneficial for all citizens.”

ELECTION #3

Candidate “E” says, “Because of the necessity of containing communism, we must remain in Viet Nam. It is simply smart world politics to stop the efforts of the expansionist powers. If they succeed, they will go after more.”

Candidate “F” says, “We must weigh the cost of staying in Viet Nam against what we gain. I believe that the costs are too high and the gain too small. I propose that we cut our costs by withdrawing from this conflict.”

ELECTION #4

Candidate “G” is a Democrat. He has stated that he respects the principles of his party and believes that Democrats can be important influences in achieving excellent government for all citizens.

Candidate “H” is a Republican. He has stated that he is impressed with the prospects for his party in the years ahead, and has pledged to make a good image for Republicans in all that he does.

29 This technique is similar to the “split ballot” discussed in Cantrill, Hadley, Gauging Public Opinion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), pp. 23ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Split ballots, by presenting different wordings or alternate forms of items to separate but matched subsamples, reveal response differences which are artifacts of instrumentation. In this study, such response differences, due to alternate instrumentation, are used as a measure of the dependent variable. Sound experimental research, of course, requires that there be no relevant contaminating differences between experimental and control groups. We sought to achieve this by random assignment of respondents. That we were successful is demonstrated in the table below. Tests for differences were performed on several variables. In no case was there anything approaching a significant difference.

30 Many scholars including philosophers of science urge experimentation on the study of politics depite the obvious difficulties of implementation in field situations. The advantages of manipulation and control of variables and of relatively easy eplication outweigh these considerations. Eysenck, H. J., The Psychology of Politics (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1955), p. 252 Google Scholar; Kapan, Abraham, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1964), pp. 145–147 Google Scholar; Kerlinger, Fred N., Foundations of Behavioral Research (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), pp. 359, 375–391 Google Scholar; French, John R. P. Jr., “Experiments in Field Settings,” in Festinger, Leon and Katz, Daniel (eds.), Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1953), pp. 98–135 Google Scholar; Stouffer, Samuel A., “Some Observations on Study Design,” American Journal of Sociology, 55 (01, 1950), 355–361 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Some scholars have successfully employed experimental method in the study of politics. One work employing a design especially similar to ours is Kamin, Leon J., “Ethnic and Party Affiliations of Candidates as Determinants of Voting,” Canadian Journal of Psychology, 12 (03, 1958), 205–213 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Other experimental studies of political behavior include the works of Theodore Becker, most of which builds upon his Political Behavioralism and Modem Jurisprudence (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1964)Google Scholar; see also LaPonce, J. A., “An Experimental Method to Measure the Tendency to Equibalance in a Political System,” This Review, 60 (12, 1966), 982–993 Google Scholar.

32 See the authors' forthcoming “Alienation and Support for Demagogues,” Polity, 1 (06, 1969)Google Scholar.

33 Though there are problems of rapidly diminishing cell size, attempts at controlling the DCC-party identification relationship for cultural attributes generally reduces slightly the magnitude of Republican-Democratic differences; the independents, however, retain the lowest DCC scores. That the DCC's of the party identification groups are not mere reflections of distributions of cultural or social attributes is evident from the following data. The party identification groups are remarkably homogenous. Republicans are of slightly higher social status and approximate the civic culture more closely than Democrats or independents. However, these differences attain statistical significance on only two of six variables.

34 We suspect that there is a political explanation for the independents' low DCC, but of a slightly different kind. Evidence collected by Malcolm Jewell suggests that some southern independents may be in a transitional stage between Democratic party identification and Republican party identification. Such persons are dealing with their dissatisfaction with the Democrats decidedly within the partisan context. Consequently, demagogues may not be attractive to them.

35 In additions to suggestions in Almond and Verba, op. cit., clear evidence confirming this expectation is found in the authors' “Alienation and Support for Demagogues,” op. cit.

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