Dealmakers: The Psychology of Legislative Compromise [Hardcover]

This book explores the partisan differences in personality and values among voters to understand why Democrats tend to compromise the most. Drawing on evidence from opinion surveys, randomized experiments, Twitter, and legislative transcripts, this book evaluates openness, altruistic values, and other political and psychological factors that play a role in political compromise.Compromise is critical to democratic policymaking, but it can be hard to find on Capitol Hill. In this era of routine legislative gridlock, however, some lawmakers do still cross the aisle. InDealmakers,David C. Barker, Andrew M.O. Ballard, and Christopher Jan Carman examine why they doand why they tend to be Democrats. The answer, the authors contend, comes down tovoterdifferences in personality and values. Specifically, they argue that empathetic traits and values drive Democrats to accept compromise, whereas competitive traits and values drive Republicans to reject it. Those differences filter up through the ballot box, the data suggest, guiding behavior in the halls of Congress. Drawing on evidence from opinion surveys, randomized experiments, Twitter/X, and legislative records,Dealmakersis the first analytical deep dive into the psychological factors that structure political dealmaking and its absence.PrefaceIntroduction: Aisle Crossers and Arm CrossersSection I: Ideas and ArgumentsChapter 2: The Wisdom that Precedes UsChapter 3: Our Theory: Bridging, Battling, and BargainingSection II: Setting the Analytical TableChapter 4: Giving to Get or Just Giving In? How Voters View CompromiseChapter 5: Reappraising What's Come BeforeSection III: Evaluating Our Theory: Citizens6: A Bird's Eye View of the Evidence7: Digging into the Explanatory Weeds8: The Electoral ConnectionSection IV: Evaluating Our Theory: LawmakersChapter 9: Capturing Compromise on Capitol HillChapter 10: The Heart of the Deal?ConclS?