Partisan Conflict and Citizens’ Democratic Attitudes: How Partisanship Shapes Reactions to Legislative Brawls

Explaining Physical Violence in Parliaments

“…14 The fact that the presence in parliaments of greater numbers of smaller, often more ideologically committed parties also drives violence further points to a strong role of performative violence. Lawmakers from these smaller parties are more likely to be on the extreme ends of the political spectrum, less likely to be part of ruling majorities and have greater incentives to focus on communicating their strongly held views to voters and supporters (Batto and Beaulieu 2020). Therefore, another way to discourage fights in parliament is to adopt measures that could reduce party fragmentation and in particular the entrance of small extremist parties into parliament.…”

“…While spontaneous, gratuitous, or even trivial violence does exist, brawls in legislatures usually serve two strategic purposes. First, violence can be conceptualized as a public performance through which lawmakers communicate with the wider polity (Batto and Beaulieu 2020; Shukan 2010, 2013; Spary 2013; Spary, Armitage, and Johnson 2014). Carole Spary, for instance, showed how disruptive actions are planned and carried out in order to draw attention to particular issues, constituting “a ritual for performing political contention” (Spary 2013; Spary, Armitage, and Johnson 2014, 204).…”

“…We also contend that we should observe more violence when more seats in parliament are held by smaller, fringe parties whose MPs we believe to be more likely to engage in performative violence. These lawmakers are more likely to hold more radical, less compromising, and more provocative political views, to be less able to drive substantive legislative outcomes and therefore to care much more than others about appealing and signaling commitment to die-hard party loyalists (Batto and Beaulieu 2020). Given that splintered parliaments tend to include more of such MPs and parties (Belchior 2013), we should be able to use the degree of parliamentary fragmentation as a proxy.…”

“…Given the performative nature of violence, we also argue that parliaments with a greater number of smaller parties should also witness a greater amount of brawls. Smaller parties are more likely to composed of MPs holding more extreme views (Belchior 2013), less likely to be included in ruling majorities, and thus more inclined to use radical steps to publicize their cause and signal their ideological commitment to die-hard supporters (Batto and Beaulieu 2020).…”

Candidate Aggression and Gendered Voter Evaluations

“…Uncivil behavior and aggressive personality traits code as masculine, and voters generally value masculinity in political candidates (Bauer, 2020a;Conroy, 2015;Holman, Merolla, & Zechmeister, bs_bs_banner 2017). Extreme displays of aggression are off-putting for most voters (Batto & Beaulieu, 2020;Mutz, 2015;Sydnor, 2019), but voters with a predisposition for aggressive behavior in their own interactions may be more tolerant of incivility from political leaders (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). We investigate how uncivil displays from female and male candidates interact with aggressive personality traits of voters to shape candidate evaluations.…”