Does Partisanship Affect Compliance with Government Recommendations?

This article studies the role of partisanship in American’s willingness to follow government recommendations. I combine survey and behavioral data to examine partisans’ vaccination rates during the Bush and Obama administrations. I find that presidential co-partisans are more likely to believe that...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political behavior 2021-03, Vol.43 (1), p.451-472
Main Author: Krupenkin, Masha
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Federal government
Immunization
Original Paper
Partisanship
Political Science
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Presidents
Sociology
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Summary:This article studies the role of partisanship in American’s willingness to follow government recommendations. I combine survey and behavioral data to examine partisans’ vaccination rates during the Bush and Obama administrations. I find that presidential co-partisans are more likely to believe that vaccines are safe and more likely to vaccinate themselves and their children than presidential out-partisans. Depending on the vaccine, presidential co-partisans are 4–10 percentage points more likely to vaccinate than presidential out-partisans. Using causal mediation analysis, I find that this effect is the result of partisans’ differing levels of trust in government. This finding sheds light on the far-reaching role of partisanship in Americans’ interactions with the federal government.
ISSN:0190-9320
1573-6687
DOI:10.1007/s11109-020-09613-6