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Spatial Polarization, Partisan Climate, and Participatory Actions: Do Congenial Contexts Lead to Mobilization, Resignation, Activation, or Complacency?

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Abstract

With increasing evidence on deepening cleavages along geographic lines, we argue that the local political climate plays an important role in political decision-making and engagement. In this study, we aim to understand the role of political contexts in shaping different forms of political participation, whether centered in the local community or in digital spaces. We specifically consider two important contextual factors that potentially relate to participation: the partisan composition of the neighborhood environment and the nature of political representation at the state government level. We introduce two sets of competing arguments: Mobilization and Resignation vs. Activation and Complacency to explain different participatory mechanisms. Using both national survey data collected during the 2016 U.S. election period and zip code and state-level contextual data, we employ three-level multilevel modeling to tease out how multiple factors operating at different levels are related to online or public forms of participation. In general, our findings reveal that individuals living in a state with political underrepresentation are more likely to engage in public forms of actions. Additionally, we examine subgroup analyses to show how contextual relationships with participation are different according to political orientations, such as party identification and political interest.

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Notes

  1. 2798 Democrats with leaners, 1115 pure Independents, and 1683 Republicans with leaners. 6 did not indicate their party identification.

  2. While random slope models were also considered for the possibility that the slope of individual-level variables would vary based on the neighborhood unfavorability or state underrepresentation, we could find little evidence for significant variation. Therefore, we opted for random intercept models for parsimony.

  3. Following prior studies employing the RCS design, we included day of surveys as controls (Kosmidis, 2014; Matthews & Johnston, 2010).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Damm Fund of the Journal Foundation, and the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri for their generous support of the research.

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  1. Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Jiyoun Suk

  2. School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Douglas M. McLeod & Dhavan V. Shah

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Suk, J., McLeod, D.M. & Shah, D.V. Spatial Polarization, Partisan Climate, and Participatory Actions: Do Congenial Contexts Lead to Mobilization, Resignation, Activation, or Complacency?. Polit Behav 45, 1859–1882 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09801-6

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