The Partisan Contours of Attitudes About Rights and Liberties.

ABSTRACT: Americans of all political stripes abstractly support most of the rights and liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, such as free expression. Yet, we argue that attitudes regarding the basic mechanics of civil liberties-e.g., from whom they are protections-are divided across partisan lines. Because of elite rhetoric, we hypothesize that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to perceive rights violations, often by non-government entities (generally incapable of violations), and that they will perceive rights as under threat with greater frequency. Using a survey containing unique questions about rights, we first demonstrate that a large majority of the mass public has fixed preference structures regarding rights, suggesting that attitudes about liberties are not merely error-rid

SUBMITTER: Armaly MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9883813 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature