Abstract
In this paper, we examine how the relationship between authoritarianism and partisanship is conditioned by education. Arguing against perspectives suggesting that authoritarianism is the province of the “unsophisticated,” we hypothesize that the relationship between education and Republican partisanship should be stronger among educated Americans. Moreover, going beyond previous work on how education may moderate the political impact of psychological dispositions, we also argue that partisan signals pertinent to authoritarianism come more strongly from the right, producing a pattern in which the positive relationship between authoritarianism and preference for the Republican Party over independence is stronger among the educated but the negative relationship between authoritarianism and preference for the Democratic Party over independence is not stronger among the educated. Data from the 2004 and 2008 American National Election Studies indicate clear support for both hypotheses.
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Notes
In supplementary analyses not shown here, all of the models reported below were also re-run with an additional interaction between religiosity and biblical literalism included; this was done to explore the possibility that religiosity predicts partisanship more among the religiously traditional. These interactions were not significant, and their inclusion did not change any of our primary results.
In supplementary analyses, two-way Beliefs about Government × College Degree interactions are added to the models in Table 1. This specification allows the effect of beliefs about government as well as the effect of authoritarianism to vary across education levels. Although these interactions were significant in both 2004 and 2008 (ps < 0.001), their inclusion did not change the results for the Authoritarian Predisposition × College Degree interactions.
Use of the survey weights also computes standard errors using the linearized variance estimator, which provides a correction similar to that given by the Huber/White robust standard estimator in the context of regression without survey weights (Wolter 2007). Thus, the significance tests in our OLS models are protected against the heteroskedasticity implied by our second hypothesis.
To verify that the moderating effect of education was monotonic, we recoded education as a five- category ordinal variable: (1) less than a high-school degree, (2) high school degree only, (3) more than 12 years of schooling but no bachelor’s, (4) bachelor’s degree, and (5) advanced degree. This variable was then substituted for the college-degree indicator, and the model was re-run. CLARIFY (King et al. 2000) was then used to simulate conditional effects of the authoritarian predisposition at the five education levels. These estimates revealed a monotonic progression (from the lowest to the highest education group): −0.04, 0.03, 0.11, 0.18, and 0.25. The 95% confidence intervals for the top three categories did not contain zero. This replicates our basic interaction effect.
CLARIFY estimates similar to those performed in 2004 for the same five education categories again revealed a monotonic progression of effect sizes (from lowest to highest education): 0.01, 0.03, 0.06, 0.08, and 0.10. The 95% confidence intervals for the top three categories did not contain zero.
In supplementary analyses, two-way Beliefs about Government × College Degree interactions are added to the models in Tables 2 and 3. Again, this specification allows the effect of beliefs about government to vary across education levels. These interactions failed to reach significance in any of the equations for the 2004 and 2008 data (ps > 0.10), and their inclusion did not change the results for the Authoritarian Predisposition × College Degree interactions.
To verify that the moderating effect of education was monotonic in the equation for the Republican versus independent comparison, we repeated our analysis with the five-category education measure described about and used CLARIFY to simulate first differences for the authoritarian predisposition in each category. Again, the first differences varied in a monotonic fashion (from lowest to highest education): -0.01, 0.06, 0.13, 0.21, and 0.29. The 95% confidence intervals for the top three categories did not contain zero. The analysis for the Democratic versus independent comparison revealed no first differences whose confidence intervals excluded zero.
To verify that a monotonic moderating effect of education for the Republican versus independent comparison, we repeated our analysis with the five-category education measure described above for 2004. The first differences varied in a monotonic fashion (from lowest to highest education): 0.03, 0.05, 0.08, 0.10, and 0.14. The 95% confidence intervals for the top three categories did not contain zero. A similar analysis for the Democratic versus independent comparison revealed no first differences whose confidence intervals excluded zero.
The pre and post information ratings were highly correlated (r = 0.73 in 2004, r = 0.67 in 2008).
The stronger effects of the authoritarian predisposition among the well-educated do not appear to be due to markedly greater reliability in the measure among those with college degrees (Cohen et al. 2003). In both datasets, the authoritarian predisposition had similar reliability in both education groups (i.e., α = 0.57 in the no-college group versus α = 0.60 in the college group in 2004; α = 0.65 in both groups in 2008).
Although our main focus is on education, the logic of our theory implies that other variables tapping attention to elite discourse should function similarly to education. To examine this, we repeated all of our analyses with interviewer ratings of respondents’ information levels substituted for education; we choose information since it is perhaps the best predictor of reception and understanding of elite signals (e.g., Zaller 1992). In 2004, this analysis revealed a significant Authoritarian Predisposition × Information interaction in an OLS model predicting the seven-point party measure (b = 0.27, p = 0.05). In the 2004 multinomial model, this interaction was significant in the Republican versus independent equation (b = 2.83, p < 0.05) but not the Democratic versus independent one (b = 1.10, p > 0.40). In 2008, this analysis revealed a significant Authoritarian Predisposition × Information interaction in an OLS model predicting the seven-point party measure (b = 0.34, p < 0.001). In the 2008 multinomial model, this interaction was significant in the Republican versus independent equation (b = 3.13, p < 0.001) but not the Democratic versus independent one (b = −0.29, p > 0.60). These analyses thus confirm and replicate our education results.
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Appendix
Appendix
Measures from the 2004 and 2008 National Election Studies
Partisanship. v043114, v043114a, and v043115, in 2004; v083097, v083098a, and v083098b, in 2008.
Authoritarian predisposition. v045208-v045211, in 2004; v085158-v058161, in 2008.
Beliefs about government. v043136 in 2004; v083108x in 2008.
Interviewer-rated political information. v043403 and v045303 in 2004; v083303 and v085403 in 2008.
Demographic and control variables. Items used to construct these measures are as follows: age (v043250, in 2004; v081104, in 2004), region (v041203, in 2004; v081204, in 2008), income (v043293x, in 2004; v083249 in 2008), the Black and Latino dummy variables (v043299, in 2004; v083251a, in 2008), gender (v043411, in 2004; v081101, in 2008), religiosity (v043220, v043221, and v043223/v043224, in 2004; v083182, v083183, and v083185/v083186, in 2008), biblical literalism (v043222 in 2004; w083184 in 2008).
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Federico, C.M., Tagar, M.R. Zeroing in on the Right: Education and the Partisan Expression of Authoritarianism in the United States. Polit Behav 36, 581–603 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9250-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9250-4