Strange Bedfellows: The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems

Abstract

What explains the contents of political belief systems? A widespread view is that they derive from abstract values, like equality, tolerance, and authority. Here, we challenge this view, arguing instead that belief systems derive from political alliance structures that vary across nations and time periods. When partisans mobilize support for their political allies, they generate patchwork narratives that appeal to ad-hoc, and often incompatible, moral principles. In the first part of the paper, we explain how people choose their allies, and how they support their allies using propagandistic tactics. In the second part, we show how these choices and tactics give rise to political alliance structures, with their strange bedfellows, and the idiosyncratic contents of belief systems. If Alliance Theory is correct, then we need a radically different approach to political psychology—one in which belief systems arise not from deep-seated moral values, but from ever-shifting alliances and rivalries.

Keywords:

• Belief systems
• evolutionary psychology
• group behavior
• political psychology
• social identity

View addendum:

The Full Equation: On the Context-Dependency of Ideological Morality

This article is referred to by:

Political Belief Systems: Alliances without Values?

It’s More Complicated Than That—Alliances Are One of Many Factors Shaping Political Belief Systems

Strange Bedfellows and Their Irrational Pillow Talk

The Alliance Theory: A Strategic Model of Moral Judgments?

Seven Grand Challenges for Evolutionary Political Psychology or: Political Ideologies as Ad-Hoc Alliances…So What?

Distinguishing Between Worldview Conflict and Shared Alliances: Commentary on Pinsof, Sears, and Haselton

Speech Repression and Outrage from Orthodox Activists as Attempts at Facilitating Mobilization and Gaining Status among Allies

Culture, Partisanship, and Signaling: The Social Nature of Political Belief Systems

Political Belief Systems Are Not Singularly Rooted in Alliance Psychology

The Dangers of Alliances Caused the Evolution of Moral Principles

Political Ideology is Not Meaningfully Explained by Alliances and is Not Inconsistent with Attitudinal Inconsistencies

View responses to this article:

The Strange Epicycles of Political Psychology: A Response to Commentaries

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Though we posit a psychological equivalence between liberals and conservatives in this regard, we firmly reject any kind of moral equivalence, because different moral consequences can stem from the same underlying psychology. For example, more harm results from more vulnerable groups being categorized as “enemies.”

2 We note, however, that Alliance Theory is compatible with other types of psychological asymmetries between liberals and conservatives (see section titled “Individual Differences and Political Alliances”).

3 We note that another longitudinal study found that egalitarianism, as measured by Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), precedes party identification (Satherley et al., 2021). However, measures like SDO are confounded with group allegiances and are therefore poor measures of abstract values (see section “Comparing Alliance Theory to Alternative Theories” of this manuscript; see Schmitt et al., 2003; see also Bishop, 2004). Thus, this study may simply show that group allegiances precede party identification, which is consistent with Alliance Theory.

4 We downloaded data provided by the researchers for this study (available on the Pew Research Center website), which indicated that 34% of Democrats (and 39% of liberals) stated that atheists experience “a lot” of discrimination, compared to 14% of Republicans (and 17% of conservatives). Conversely, 23% of Democrats (and 22% of liberals) stated that evangelical Christians experience “a lot” of discrimination, compared to 41% of Republicans (and 41% of conservatives).