Dominik A. Stecula – författare

Americans today are affectively polarized: they dislike and distrust those from the opposing political party more than they did in the past, with damaging consequences for their democracy. This Element tests one strategy for ameliorating such animus: having ordinary Democrats and Republicans come together for cross-party political discussions. Building on intergroup contact theory, the authors argue that such discussions will mitigate partisan animosity. Using an original experiment, they find strong support for this hypothesis - affective polarization falls substantially among subjects who participate in heterogeneous discussion (relative to those who participate in either homogeneous political discussion or an apolitical control). This Element also provides evidence for several of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and shows that they persist for at least one week after the initial experiment. These findings have considerable importance for efforts to ameliorate animus in the mass public, and for understanding American politics more broadly.

Americans today are affectively polarized: they dislike and distrust those from the opposing political party more than they did in the past, with damaging consequences for their democracy. This Element tests one strategy for ameliorating such animus: having ordinary Democrats and Republicans come together for cross-party political discussions. Building on intergroup contact theory, the authors argue that such discussions will mitigate partisan animosity. Using an original experiment, they find strong support for this hypothesis – affective polarization falls substantially among subjects who participate in heterogeneous discussion (relative to those who participate in either homogeneous political discussion or an apolitical control). This Element also provides evidence for several of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and shows that they persist for at least one week after the initial experiment. These findings have considerable importance for efforts to ameliorate animus in the mass public, and for understanding American politics more broadly.

Americans today are affectively polarized: they dislike and distrust those from the opposing political party more than they did in the past, with damaging consequences for their democracy. This Element tests one strategy for ameliorating such animus: having ordinary Democrats and Republicans come together for cross-party political discussions. Building on intergroup contact theory, the authors argue that such discussions will mitigate partisan animosity. Using an original experiment, they find strong support for this hypothesis – affective polarization falls substantially among subjects who participate in heterogeneous discussion (relative to those who participate in either homogeneous political discussion or an apolitical control). This Element also provides evidence for several of the mechanisms underlying these effects, and shows that they persist for at least one week after the initial experiment. These findings have considerable importance for efforts to ameliorate animus in the mass public, and for understanding American politics more broadly.

The politics of white identity pervade American national discourse, and many commentators and scholars rightfully express concern about rising tides of white nationalism in America politics. Yet white Americans today exhibit broad diversity in their ethnic origins, the relative importance of those origins, and their views on race in politics and society. In White Identities in American Politics, Dominik Stecuła and Matthew P. Hitt draw on two large original surveys to codify the various forms of white identities that exist in America today. White Americans are no more monolithic politically and psychologically than any other ethnic group. The various typologies of whiteness exhibit durable and meaningful relationships with other important political attitudes, including nativism, immigration attitudes, and racial resentment. In an era where all politics can be related to identity politics, oversimplifying and overgeneralizing the attitudes and behaviors of America’s largest racial and ethnic group risks accidentally reinforcing and affirming a hegemonic form of white identity divorced from nuance and ethnic origins, one responsible for centuries of violence and bigotry in the United States.