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Notes -
crossposted
note: this post, reluctantly, collapses liberals and leftists under the label 'liberal' to follow the conventions of the paper I'm whining about. I'll try not to twitch too much.
Heaven save me from misleading social science papers. I tweeted about this, but hopefully I can whine a bit more coherently in longform. Bear with me; this might get heavy on diving through numbers.
As part of a larger effort to explore DeSantis's claimed New College coup, in which he picked conservatives for the board of a progressive school, I returned to the evergreen question of political background of university professors, which led me to this study. The study is the most recent overall view cited by the Wikipedia page examining the question. Its conclusions are summed up as such:
If you're the sort to do "pause and play along" exercises in the middle of reading, take a shot at guessing what the underlying data leading to that conclusion looks like.
Here's the underlying spread. 9.4% self-identify as "Extremely liberal", 34.7% as "liberal", 18.1% as "slightly liberal", 18% as "middle of the road", 10.5% as "slightly conservative", 8% as "conservative", and 1.2% as "very conservative. Or, in other words, 62% identify as some form of liberal, 20% as some form of conservative.
So how do they get to the three reported buckets? Not with a direct survey. Prior analyses, notably including Rothman et al 2005, referenced repeatedly throughout this paper, lump "leaners" who express weak preferences in a direction in with others who identify with that direction. This paper elects to lump all "leaners" together as moderates, while noting that "we would not be justified in doing so if it turned out that the “slightlys” were, in terms of their substantive attitudes, no different than their more liberal or conservative counterparts." They use answers to twelve Pew survey questions, where 1 is "most liberal", 5 is "most conservative", and 3 is "moderate" to examine whether substantive attitudes are different enough to justify lumping the groups together.
Here's what their results look like, in full MSPaint glory. Again, if you're playing along at home, consider the most natural groupings, based on these results. The answers of "extremely/liberal" respondents average out to 1.4 on the 5-point scale, close to the furthest left possible. "Slightly liberal" respondents are not far behind, at 1.7 on the scale. Both "middle of the road" and "slightly conservative" respondents remain to the left of center, as measured by the Pew scale, averaging 2.2 and 2.8, respectively. It's only when you look at the "very/conservative" group that you see anyone at all to the right side of the Pew survey, with average scores of 3.7, far from the maximum possible.
From this data, the authors decide the most logical grouping is to lump "slightly liberal" respondents in with middle and slight conservatives as "moderates". That is to say: even though their scores are closest to the other liberals, almost a point closer to other liberals than to the slight conservatives, and more than a full point towards the "liberal" side of Pew's scale—significantly further left by that metric than even the most conservative grouping lands to the right—the authors label them "moderates".
Their justification? "[T]hat there are differences at all provides further reason to think that the slightlys should not be treated as belonging to the extremes." That is: any difference at all between their answers and the answers of those who identify as further left is sufficient justification to categorize them alongside people who they disagree with much more visibly. There is no sense in which this is the most natural or coherent grouping.
If the study went by pure self-identification, it could reasonably label 62% as liberals and 20% as conservatives, then move on. It would lead to a much broader spread for apparent conservatives than for others, but it would work. If it went by placement on their survey answers, it could reasonably label 62% as emphatically liberal, 28% as moderate or center-left, and 10% as conservative, with simple, natural-looking groups. Instead, it took the worst of both worlds, creating a strained and incoherent group of "moderates" who range from emphatically liberal to mildly liberal, in order to reach a tidy headline conclusion that "moderates" in academia outnumber "liberals".
Perhaps I shouldn't be so upset about this. But the study is everywhere, and nobody reads or cares about the underlying data. Wikipedia, as I've mentioned, tosses the headline conclusion in and moves on. Inside Higher Ed reports professors are more likely to categorize themselves as moderate than liberal, based on the study. Headlines like "Study: Moderate professors dominate campuses" abound. The study authors write articles in the New York Times, mentioning that about half of professors identify as liberal. Even conservative sources like AEI take the headline at face value, saying it "yielded interesting data" but "was fielded right before the extreme liberal lurch took off in the mid-2000s".
Look, I'm not breaking new ground here. People know the biases inherent in social science at this point. Expectations have mostly been set accordingly. There's not even a real dispute that professors are overwhelmingly liberal. All that as it may, it drives me mad every time I find a paper like this, dive into the data, and realize the summary everyone takes from it is either negligently or deliberately wholly different from the conclusions a plain reading of the data would provide.
It's not lying! The paper presents the underlying data in full, explains its rationale in full. The headline conclusion is technically supportable from the data they collected. The authors are respectable academics at respectable institutions, performing serious, careful, peer-reviewed work. So far as I have knowledge to ascertain, it contains no overt errors and no overt untruths.
And yet.
I believe much of the issue that the right has in the US and to a lesser extent in the rest of the anglosphere minus the UK is an aesthetic that is difficult for upper middle class people to swallow. The US is a two party system, so right = republican party even though they hardly fill the entire tent of right wing thought. The republicans have a weird mix of strip mall baptist church combined with oligarch wealth vibe to them. Someone who lives in a major city, is educated and well travled probably feels out of place at a Trump rally. Even in the UK but even more so in other European countries there is a brand of pearl necklace wearing urban right wing that likes neoclassical apartments in major European cities and enjoy high culture. The Republicans seem too focused on rural boomers who are opposed to change and want a culture that is fairly alien to the PMC.
I believe wokeness among the left is highly exaggerated in right wing circles. Wokeness is used to brush off the left as deranged, malicious or extremist when the majority of people who voted for Biden are not libs of tiktok-material. A lot of people are rightfully upset with the state of health care in the US, a lot of people do care about environmentalism, a lot of people see the cost of college as bonkers and a lot of people aren't really impressed by televangelist theology. The republicans would be better off looking themselves in the mirror than making the 2342 "feminist on college campus pwned” video on YouTube in which a bipolar woman is turned into a circus act for public humiliation. I am not convinced that the democrats would deliever better health care, cheaper college or a greener planet but they at least lift the issues.
This is a new phenomenon. It used to be that the US equivalent of what you're talking about was the suburban conservative, a breed that dominated the Republican party up until 2016 (although it had been on a downslope since the financial crisis). A combination of cultural change (the suburban US of the early 2000's may as well be a foreign country to what it is these days -- the country was still majority Protestant and overwhelmingly Christian, the Mainline churches were, if not vibrant, at least healthy enough to be analogized to middle aged rather than on life support as they are now -- and this was a process of change that was well advanced by 2016) and reactionary disgust at Trump and everything he represented meant that a district like Virginia's 7th could go from electing a Republican like Eric Cantor by 40+ point margins, cycle after cycle, to reliably picking Abigail Spanberger out of disgust at the populist who picked off Cantor in a primary.
It's not really ideological: most of the Republicans the suburbs used to favor were as reliably conservative as anyone in the new party. It's about, as you highlight, cultural factors. Respectability politics was a positive thing in the suburbs and the kind of conformism that allows for it is in bad odor right now. Combined with the actual cultural change that has happened in suburbs (especially in the North and West; suburban Georgia is still much more up for grabs than, say, suburban Pennsylvania), there just isn't this the old kind of bourgeoisie conservative constituency like there used to be.
The US also used to have the kind of urbanite conservative you speak of, but it's been on the way out for even longer. The Republican Party stopped being theirs/they cultural died in the 60's and 70's. Now, urban conservatives are working class white ethnics, 'Reagan Democrats' and their descendants.
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I find this critique a little hollow seeing as the left is not going to give up their night shows that follow the same format and have for far longer. It's a strategy that works, it happens to burn the commons in the process which is a fine thing to critique about it, but going after the effectiveness is just wishful thinking that the strategies that are healthy for the nation coincide with the strategies that effective in propaganda.
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There is a parallel here where Democrats blend Ivy Leage Blue Bloods with black Baptist churches. Trying to think of core differences in the dynamics between each party, I think the Democrats have their ethnic religious faction better silo'd. It might be an interesting tactic for the Republicans to use their platforms (such as exist) to just respectfully let the Bishops talk. It would highlight how much they fit with the "strip mall Baptist" crowd, and heighten the vast chasm with anyone who reads the NYT.
I mean, the reality is even socially conservative African-American Democrat's care about gay marriage and abortion far less than they do, say, about Social Security, health care, gun violence, or racism. Because all those things affect you more. Meanwhile, the leadership and median active member of megachurches are fairly comfortable socially conservative whites, so they can focus on culture war issues that don't directly affect them, the same way, say, cuts in food stamps may affect the congregation of a black church.
The reality is, if you deeply care about the type of social issues that white conservatives do, and you're African-American, you're likely already voting for the GOP or you're very elderly.
Also, even putting that aside, as a whole, minorities are still closer to liberal whites on various social issues than conservative whites who are in a worl of their own.
I wasn't even thinking about politics, so much as "tribe", and imagining the look on [Blue Tribe Harvard Grad]'s face when Bishop Robinson starts spitting facts about the differences between men and women.
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Every time I hear Mark Robinson talk, I’m struck by how… black he seems, despite his conservatism.
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Yup, there's always these polls that show "x of professors used to be Republicans in y year, but now..." when I can guarantee you that most professors who were still registered as Republican in say, 1980, hadn't voted for a Republican since maybe, Nixon, the first time, and were only registered Republican's because of weird ethnic coalitional politics where they grew up, or being in one of the weird places where the GOP were the more left-leaning party (like say, the South, and that's even kind of questionable).
Put it this way, the amount of Reagan-voting professors in 1980 is probably similar to the amount of Trump-voting professors in 2022.
Also, as noted, there are a lot of moderate professors who'd vote for a center-right European party that was liberal socially, but I suppose most of the people upset about woke professors wouldn't be too happy about that either.
Finally, the culture war, as far as "cancel culture" or "trans issues" go are low salience issues, even for GOP voters, as seen in midterm exist polls. In reality, it's the bugaboo of general right-wing social reactionaries, and centrists stuck in D+50 urban areas. Yes, if you're a standard-issue centrist Dem who works at a college or in media, you're probably annoyed by what the woke kids want to do. But, be like Matt Yglesias or Jonathan Chait, and complain enough online about them that they get annoyed by you, while also writing a lot about how Ron DeSantis voted a lot to cut Social Security & Medicare, and that Republican's still want to ban abortion, as opposed to spending all your time on the woke thing of the moment.
Even CRT/school closures as an issue, is kind of sketchy - people point to 2021 and Virginia, but if you really look into things, voting patterns show the standard drop in voting for everybody as is standard for off-year VA Governor elections, except for 70+ voters, which tells me the CRT thing was a bugaboo to older conservative voters, and that's about it. Even DeSantis and his massive win, is more accurately connected to general shifts in Florida's population (big increase in Venezuelan refugees + more older conservatives from midwes states moving in + COVID "refugees) + DeSantis doing non-conservative things (like using ARP money to raise teacher salaries + broadly supported environmental protections + not f'ng up post-hurricane) + as a bonus, the anti-woke stuff + a massive drop in turnout among Democratic voters. I forget the exact numbers, but only 80% of Democrat's turned out in 2022 compared to 2018, while 107% of Republican's did, and that's not all changes in voting registration.
Now, personally, as a leftie, I'm actually kind of OK w/ Florida becoming a Republican vote sink. Yes, all right-leaning people, upset about your woke swing state, move to Tampa. Upset Michigan has a Democratic trifecta, hit the road to West Palm Beach. Pennsylvania not banning abortion got you down? Panama Beach is looking lovely.
The 2021 VA Gubernatorial election was decidedly high turnout for a Virginia off-year election.
'Whose turnout drops less' is honestly something that makes perfect sense to be driven, at least in part, by what are live issues. After all, the 2021 Virginia Democratic candidate actually got over 100,000 more votes than the 2017 Virginia Democratic candidate. It's just that the Republican increased his vote total even more.
This whole line of reasoning reads like cope. DeSantis got 500,000+ more votes in 2022 than he did in 2018. You're free to believe what you want, but you're not really bringing evidence for it. It's probably a strategic mistake
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It’s worth noting that republicans everywhere want to raise teacher pay. The challenge is in actually doing that, because if you just give money to schools it’ll get embezzled by administrators who then proceed to cry about the poor underpaid teachers(which they’ll helpfully blame republicans for), no matter how thoroughly it’s earmarked for teacher pay.
Eh, teachers make fine money. My wife is a teacher, and her salary alone is easily enough to pay for a middle-class lifestyle. The issue isn't the money but rather all of the obstacles put in the way of their jobs. I'd guess more than half of the average teacher's time is spent on paperwork and regulation compliance rather than teaching.
Sure, teachers aren't from any objective measure underpaid, the point was it's a bipartisan consensus that teachers should be paid more.
Fair
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This isn't what happens - it's just even the increased teacher pay lags behind other white collar professions, so teachers feel underpaid. There are plenty of ways that a person could be upset with education spending, but administrators aren't stealing teachers' raises.
But yeah, many Republican's used the money for states in the American Rescue Plan to raise teacher's pay in many states (fully legally - not saying it was untoward that way), which is why in retrospect, as a partisan Democrat, the Democrat's should've not given largely Republican governors such a giant slush fund so they could look good to low-info swing voters (again, not a shot at low info voters, just a statement of fact), but instead maybe added a 2nd year of the expanded child tax credit, or something else along those lines. But, unfortunately, we overlearned the lessons of the 2009 recession where states and localities really did hit a massive funding crunch, which really didn't happen under COVID, something many people thought would happn.
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Yes indeed, how dare people who belong to a place have opinions about matters in that place! Don't they know that only certain people deserve to live there, and only certain opinions are correct? This place belongs to the right side of history and you don't get to stay here unless you fall in line. "Don't like it, move away" - hang on now, wasn't that supposed to be a racist slogan back in the day?
The statement you're responding to is explicitly declared to be at the partisan level. Responding with this level of vitriol is uncalled for when it's not someone trying to sneak in partisan rhetoric as dispassionate analysis.
I think the vitriol is borne from exasperation. A partisan saying things their tribe would have crucified people for saying 10 years ago, totally unbothered by the contradiction, is frustrating no matter what level it's declared at. Particularly if the conclusion they arrive at - if you don't like it you can leave - was one their tribe mocked mercilessly in their media for decades.
And if that were all the comment said, I would not have said anything. But if you give your argument without fighting the culture war, then throw in a "also, I personally like that this is happening", I would argue that this is not something someone else should get upset over.
Say what? It's just fighting the culture war with one element abstracted to the next level. It's not like they gave a completely non partisan and objective account of the situation and then said they were in favour of it, they gave a left wing assessment of the situation and then said they hope every republican moves to Florida. How do you come to the conclusion they weren't fighting the culture war?
Also it was specifically the last bit that upset me. Before that I thought they were just another moderate buying everything the msm sells, which is depressing, but not upsetting. Learning the op is both a proud leftist and on board with shipping people to Florida for political reasons is what aggravated me.
It doesn't need to be completely non-partisan, only reasonably so. The line in this place is that if you make a general effort to not come off as smuggling your opinions as facts, you don't get called out as a culture warrior. I think that post is reasonably non-partisan. Having a perspective isn't the same thing as being partisan, else we're down to maybe 10 people on this whole website who are allowed to post at all.
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My larger point was that's the whole Florida advertisement right now - don't like the wokes ruining your state? Come to Florida!
I was just pointing out, it may be actually a bad thing for the GOP long-term if this continues to happen.
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This is low effort and boo-outgroup. Bad combo. Do less of this.
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Of course one thing about European countries is that the separate parties allow for separate party cultures. There are different parties in Finland for mainstream urban center-righters, mainstream rural center-righters, populist nationalist right-wingers and religious conservatives, with all of them having separate stereotypes and the urban right-wing party being, well, "pearl necklace wearing urban right wing that likes neoclassical apartments in major European cities and enjoy high culture" apart from the fact that the local prestige architecture style is art nouveau moreso than neoclassical.
Recently one politician made the jump from the mainstream urban center-right party to the right-wing populist party, and a common joke was along the lines that the hardest thing for him would be being the one guy in his new party to wear suits that actually fit him.
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The most common issue I've had when doing literture reviews is that while the internal validity of the studies is almost always decent, if for no other reason that they measured something trivial, the external validity is often atrocious.
They could be doing stuff like you've discovered here or they might have found some small effect of something which they then draw wildly implausible conclusions from, which then gets reported as the result. When the wildly implausible conclusions have political implications they almost always only go in the one direction which leads to very distorted views of the state of the field.
I feel like peer review only extends to the internal validity of and people can make up whatever they want in the discussion and conclusion sections, only that's the only part people pay attention to...
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not much of a surprise. moderate means something different now than a decade ago. being a Clinton-era democrat basically makes you a conservative today.
I mean, being an Eisenhower-era moderate on civil rights made you a conservative by 1975 in many ways. Remember, Eisenhower actually looked back at putting Warren on the Court as a mistake. Social mores have always changed like this. It's just for a lot of people, it's the first time it's happening to them, so they think it's new, and proof this cultural change is different. There were people grousing in Gen X's perfect year of 1993 about how you couldn't say certain things anymore, and such.
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