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Putting Within-Country Political Differences in (Global) Perspective
Ximena Garcia-Rada1, Michael I Norton1
1Marketing unit, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, United States of America.
Plos One
|April 24, 2020
Summary
Political polarization in the U.S. is often exaggerated. Comparing Democrats and Republicans to global opinions reveals smaller divides on moral and free speech issues than commonly perceived.
Area of Science:
- Political Science
- Social Psychology
- International Comparative Studies
Background:
- Political discourse in the United States frequently highlights extreme polarization between liberals and conservatives.
- Research has extensively documented differences between Democrats and Republicans within the U.S. context.
Purpose of the Study:
- To contextualize U.S. political polarization by comparing partisan differences to global opinion distributions.
- To analyze differences in moral and free speech opinions between Democrats and Republicans relative to international variations.
Main Methods:
- Combined large-scale international surveys (N=37,653 across 39 countries) and detailed U.S. citizen surveys (N=40,786 across 38 countries).
- Compared opinion distributions on moral issues and freedom of speech between U.S. Democrats and Republicans against international data.
Main Results:
- U.S. partisan polarization on moral and free speech issues appears relatively small when viewed within the global context.
- Average overlap between Democrats and Republicans exceeds that of 70% of country pairs on moral issues and 79% on free speech issues.
Conclusions:
- Cross-cultural comparisons provide valuable perspective, suggesting U.S. political divides are less extreme than often portrayed.
- International comparisons are essential for accurately assessing the magnitude of domestic political polarization.
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