When Politics Becomes Personal

Demonstrates how partisans can feel deeply attached to their political party without feeling disdain for their political opponents.

This book functions as a field guide to partisanship for scholars and students in political science and social psychology. It also makes scholarship on partisanship accessible to people outside of academia who are interested in the impact of unconditional party loyalties on themselves and their communities.Can we be good partisans without demonizing our political opponents? Using insights from political science and social psychology, this book argues for the distinction between positive and negative partisanship. As such, strong support for a political party does not have to be accompanied by the vilification of the opposing party and its members. Utilizing data from five different countries, Bankert demonstrates that positive and negative partisanship are independent concepts with distinct consequences for political behavior, including citizens' political participation and their commitment to democratic norms and values. The book concludes with the hopeful message that partisanship is an essential pillar of representative and liberal democracy.