Thread by @M_B_Petersen

At #APSA2022, @EricGroenendyk asks how perceptions of politics as conflict shape other political attitudes.

While many often see politics as conflict over resources, it may also be conceptualized as joint problem-solving. Does perceptions of this matter? 1/10

This is part of a larger project. In a published paper, it has already been shown that politics-as-conflict activates motivated reasoning. The present results focus on how politics-as-conflict perceptions shape political engagement. 2/10

Prior research suggests that conflict orientations increases engagement in politics. This raises the question of whether participatory democracy is even compatible with delibrative problem-solving democracy? 3/10

The data comes from a large number of surveys collected between 2019 and 2021. 4/10

In a set of studies it is manipulated whether a survey as labelled as being about politics or about entertainment. There is significant drop-out of surveys about politics, independently of whether the questions are about controversial or non-controversial political topics. 5/10

Similarly, when people are asked by attending fictive dinner parties, they avoid them if political topics are likely to be discussed (rather than movies). 6/10

What is driving this? It is specifically people who tend to avoid conflicts who select out of political surveys and discussions. 7/10

Can we get these individuals back into political discussions? Is it possible to change people's associations of politics? This is very difficult. People have a firm understanding that politics = conflict. 8/10

What instead works is to remove the label of "politics" from discussions that are about important societal issues. People avoid "politics" but are willing to address the underlying dilemmas. People are interested in the substance but not fighting. 9/10

The implication is that our understanding of politics is a self-fulfilling prophecy: If we frame politics as conflict, we will draw conflict-minded individuals to it. This means that the public sphere will become more conflictual over time. 10/10