All in the Family: Partisan Disagreement and Electoral Mobilization in Intimate Networks—A Spillover Experiment

Abstract

We advance the debate about the impact of political disagreement in social networks on electoral participation by addressing issues of causal inference common in network studies, focusing on voters' most important context of interpersonal influence: the household. We leverage a randomly assigned spillover experiment conducted in the United Kingdom, combined with a detailed database of pretreatment party preferences and public turnout records, to identify social influence within heterogeneous and homogeneous partisan households. Our results show that intrahousehold mobilization effects are larger as a result of campaign contact in heterogeneous than in homogeneous partisan households, and larger still when the partisan intensity of the message is exogenously increased, suggesting discussion rather than behavioral contagion as a mechanism. Our results qualify findings from influential observational studies and suggest that within intimate social networks, negative correlations between political heterogeneity and electoral participation are unlikely to result from political disagreement. Forthcoming in the American Journal of Political ScienceFinal pre-publication version: June 10, 2016 AbstractWe advance the debate about the impact of political disagreement in social networks on electoral participation by addressing issues of causal inference common in network studies, focusing on voters' most important context of interpersonal influence: the household. We leverage a randomly assigned spillover experiment conducted in the UK, combined with a detailed database of pre-treatment party preferences and public turnout records, to identify social influence within heterogeneous and homogeneous partisan households. Our results show that intra-household mobilization effects are larger as a result of campaign contact in heterogeneous than in homogeneous partisan households, and larger still when the partisan intensity of the message is exogenously increased, suggesting discussion rather than behavioral contagion as a mechanism.Our results qualify findings from influential observational studies, and suggest that within intimate social networks, negative correlations between political heterogeneity and electoral participation are unlikely to result from political disagreement.

Learning from the other side: how social networks influence turnout in a referendum campaign

“…Berelson et al, 1954;Haythornthwaite, 2002), we can expect network diversity to exert a stronger influence on political participation if individuals experience diversity within their core social network. This expectation finds support in recent studies showing that exchanging different viewpoints in the householdthat is within strong-tie networkscan enhance political engagement and voter participation (Zuckerman and Kotler-Berkowitz, 1998;Cutts and Fieldhouse, 2009;Foos and de Rooij, 2017). Thus, we expect also strong-tie diversity to be an important weighting factor in the relationship between network diversity and political participation.…”

“…On the one hand, some studies find that discussion within heterogeneous social networks reduces political participation (Mutz, 2002a(Mutz, , 2006Eveland and Hively, 2009;Valenzuela et al, 2012). On the opposite, others find evidence that discussing politics with not like-minded people actually increases political engagement (Lake and Huckfeldt, 1998;McClurg, 2003;Scheufele et al, 2004;Klofstad, 2007Klofstad, , 2015Foos and de Rooij, 2017). In addition, it is not clear which mechanisms drive these effects, since politically heterogeneous networks can either decrease participation by making voters more ambivalent (e.g.…”

On the Limits of Officials’ Ability to Change Citizens’ Priorities: A Field Experiment in Local Politics

“…Information is a tool that has the potential to affect opinion and mobilize citizens to action (Foos and de Rooij 2017a). We test whether local elected officials can change the political agendas and issue priorities of the people with whom they regularly communicate.…”

Who Cares If You Vote? Partisan Pressure and Social Norms of Voting

“…It is important to remember that these findings relate to interpersonal influence through dyadic injunctive norms and partisanship, not to the character of whole networks (Huckfeldt et al 2004;Nir 2011). While we find that shared partisanship stimulates social pressure to vote, it is entirely plausible that disagreement could simultaneously stimulate turnout through increased partisan discussion (Foos and de Rooij 2016). The latter, as Foos and de Rooij point out, may reflect friendly competition ('I will vote to offset your vote') whilst the former relies on a desire for cooperation ('you should vote because our party needs your support').…”