Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Political Science

Elections, and the winner-take-all competition between partisan group it represents, is often captured by common metaphors about politics being similar to a sports competition. In a three article dissertation, I examine how a focus on closeness of political partisan competition affects people's people degree of affective polarization, their tolerance of election cheating, and how it does not affect political engagement. Article 1: In recent political history, most elections have become increasingly non-competitive. Yet even though most elections are non-competitive, the Americans have become increasingly polarized and have even grown to hate or loath their opposing partisan group. If there is so little struggle over partisan control of the U.S. government, then why are Americans so entrenched against their partisan out-group? Using a survey of Americans' perceptions of election competitiveness, I explore what drives people's perceptions of competition and how it influences attitudes. I find people are biased towards perceiving elections as competitive and partisans are bias in vote-share perceptions. Greater perceptions of national partisan competition, but not other levels of office, is a predictor of higher levels of affective polarization. Real levels of partisan competition also affect people's level of affective polarization but in more nuanced ways. Given these findings, I discuss insight on effective methods for reducing partisan competition and thus affective polarization. Article 2: American government supports that highly competitive practices like elections are the best way to represent the will of voters. However, in an era of high partisan animus, it is worth examining the negative effects that this focus has on people's attitudes. Using an original survey experiment, I investigate the effects of salient partisan competition on people's tolerance of election cheating. I find that greater salience of partisan competition increases participants' tol (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Thomas Nelson (Committee Chair); Gregory Calderia (Committee Member); Thomas Wood (Committee Member); Thomas Nelson (Advisor) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Political Science; Psychology