Kyle Saunders

Colorado State University, Political Science, Faculty Member

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Kyle L. Saunders is Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University. Professor Saunders' studies and interests include American politics, with particular emphases on public opinion, political behavior, elections, political parties, public policy (namely election administration and energy policy), and political methodology.
Phone: Phone: 970.491.5751
Address: Kyle L Saunders
Department of Political Science
C-366 Clark Building
1782 Campus Delivery
Colorado State University
Ft Collins, CO 80523-1782

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Papers by Kyle Saunders

Conspiracy Stress or Relief? Learned Helplessness and Conspiratorial Thinking

The Politics of Truth in Polarized America

This chapter investigates another possible cause of conspiracy theory belief: learned helplessnes... more This chapter investigates another possible cause of conspiracy theory belief: learned helplessness. Learned helplessness arises when individuals perceive themselves as unable to avoid negative situations in their lives or to affect desired change. Such perceptions become incorporated into the self-concept and manifest as feelings of anxiety or loss of control. Drawing on nationally representative panel data sets, the authors demonstrate that learned helplessness increases the likelihood of conspiratorial thinking and that, importantly, this relationship appears to be bidirectional—over time, conspiratorial thinking also tends to increase learned helplessness. This account has important implications for the demand-side account of conspiracy theory origins.

Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories?

Political Behavior

A sizable literature tracing back to Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style (1964) argues that R... more A sizable literature tracing back to Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style (1964) argues that Republicans and conservatives are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than Democrats and liberals. However, the evidence for this proposition is mixed. Since conspiracy theory beliefs are associated with dangerous orientations and behaviors, it is imperative that social scientists better understand the connection between conspiracy theories and political orientations. Employing 20 surveys of Americans from 2012 to 2021 (total n = 37,776), as well as surveys of 20 additional countries spanning six continents (total n = 26,416), we undertake an expansive investigation of the asymmetry thesis. First, we examine the relationship between beliefs in 52 conspiracy theories and both partisanship and ideology in the U.S.; this analysis is buttressed by an examination of beliefs in 11 conspiracy theories across 20 more countries. In our second test, we hold constant the content of the conspiracy theories investigated-manipulating only the partisanship of the theorized villainsto decipher whether those on the left or right are more likely to accuse political outgroups of conspiring. Finally, we inspect correlations between political orientations and the general predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories over the span of a decade. In no instance do we observe systematic evidence of a political asymmetry. Instead, the strength and direction of the relationship between political orientations and conspiricism is dependent on the characteristics of the specific conspiracy beliefs employed by researchers and the socio-political context in which those ideas are considered. Keywords Conspiracy theories • Conspiracy thinking • Partisanship • Ideology • Conservatism Replication files can be found at https:// datav erse. harva rd. edu/ datas et. xhtml? persi stent Id= doi: 10. 7910/ DVN/ MMMYGJ.

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Macrointerest

British Journal of Political Science, Nov 18, 2020

An interested and engaged electorate is widely believed to be an indicator of democratic health. ... more An interested and engaged electorate is widely believed to be an indicator of democratic health. As such, the aggregate level of political interest of an electoratemacrointerestis an essential commodity in a democracy, and understanding the forces that change macrointerest is important for diagnosing the health of a democracy. Because being interested in politics requires time and effort, the article theorizes that the electorate's level of political interest will be highest when the electorate believes the government cannot be trusted or is performing poorly. To test hypotheses derived from a proposed theory against rival explanations, the study develops a measure of macrointerest using a quarterly time series of aggregated survey items (1973-2014) of political interest. The authors find support for the theory that the electorate responds as reasonable agents when determining how closely to monitor elected officials: interest is positively related to decreases in trust in government.

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Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust

American Journal of Political Science, 2015

Given the potential political and social significance of conspiracy beliefs, a substantial and gr... more Given the potential political and social significance of conspiracy beliefs, a substantial and growing body of work examines the individual-level correlates of belief in conspiracy theories and general conspiratorial predispositions. However, although we know much about the psychological antecedents of conspiracy endorsement, we know less about the individual-level political causes of these prevalent and consequential beliefs. Our work draws from the extant literature to posit that endorsement of conspiracy theories is a motivated process that serves both ideological and psychological needs. In doing so, we develop a theory that identifies a particular type of person-one who is both highly knowledgeable about politics and lacking in trust-who is most susceptible to ideologically motivated conspiracy endorsement. Further, we demonstrate that the moderators of belief in conspiracy theories are strikingly different for conservatives and liberals.

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Putting the Political in Political Interest: The Conditional Effect of Politics on Citizens’ Interest in Politics

American Politics Research

Given that political interest is one of the best predictors of political participation, it remain... more Given that political interest is one of the best predictors of political participation, it remains curious that the causes of interest are undertheorized and understudied. Notably absent from much of the research on political interest is an exploration of how variations in the nature of politics itself might have an impact on individual-level political interest. We develop a theory and a set of testable predictions about how partisanship interacts with the presence of a presidential (vs. midterm) election, the party of the sitting president, and elite polarization, to affect political interest. We report multilevel models that use ANES measures of political interest and partisanship and the DW-NOMINATE Senate polarization measure (from 1960 to 2008) and discuss the implications of our findings for the long-term prospects of an interested electorate.

Justice Speaks, but Who’s Listening? Mass Public Awareness of US Supreme Court Cases

Journal of Law and Courts

The impact of elite frames and motivated reasoning on beliefs in a global warming conspiracy: The promise and limits of trust

Research & Politics

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It’s Not All About Resources

American Politics Research

Conspiracy Theories in the United States: More Commonplace than Extraordinary

Critical Review, 2016

Ideology, Identity, and Partisanship

Political Engagement and Polarization in the American Electorate

Disparate Impact? The Effect of Term Limits on Democratic and Republican Female State Representatives

Is Polarization a Myth?

Bayesian Inference for Political Science Panel Data

Abstract To answer substantive questions regarding individual change, it is necessary to collect ... more Abstract To answer substantive questions regarding individual change, it is necessary to collect information from each subject multiple times. For decades, political scientists have collected a great deal of panel data, relating to mass behavior, comparative politics, and international relations. Unfortunately, the most commonly used method of analyzing panel data–linear models with individual fixed effects–oftentimes masks important quantities that can be estimated using alternative strategies. In this paper, we review the literature on the ...

Ideological Realignment in the U

New Barriers to Participation: Application of New Mexico's Voter Identification Law

In democratic societies there is a tension between maximizing ballot access and minimizing voter ... more In democratic societies there is a tension between maximizing ballot access and minimizing voter fraud. Since the 2000 presidential election, this tension has been central to discussions about election reform, at the national and local level. We examine this tension by focusing on the implementation of voter identification laws in one state that has experienced significant issues in recent elections, and that is now implementing significant attempts at election reform: New Mexico. We hypothesized that Hispanic voters were more likely to show some form of identification than other types of voters. Using a voter data set from New Mexico’s First Congressional District in the 2006 election, we find that Hispanic, male and Election Day voters were more likely to show some form of identification than non-Hispanic, female and early voters. In addition, using an overlapping study of Bernalillo County 2006 poll workers, we find no evidence that certain groups of poll workers were more likely...

A Social Identity Theory Perspective on Ideology

Explaining State Level Variation in the Gender Gap in the 2004 Election

olemiss.edu

While the gender gap in vote choice, with women voting significantly more Democratically than men... more While the gender gap in vote choice, with women voting significantly more Democratically than men, is a well-known and well-studied feature of American politics, little is known about the contextual factors that allow the gender gap to vary quite dramatically across states. In the 2004 presidential election the gender gap varied from 15 percentage points more men than women voting for Bush in Oregon to a reverse gap of 3 percentage points more women voting for Bush in Texas. The gender gap has largely been studied as ...

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Supreme Court Influence and the Awareness of Court Decisions

annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2006

Using survey data collected about public opinion three issues before the Supreme Court during its... more Using survey data collected about public opinion three issues before the Supreme Court during its 2004 term, we seek to measure the impact of oral arguments and decisions issued by the Court on public awareness of Supreme Court cases. We seek to improve upon the methodology typically used in this type of study by using quasi-experimental design with the Court decisions as the stimulus of hypothesized public awareness change. Our work assesses the impact of an elite signal on mass opinion, something difficult for public ...

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The Rise of the Ideological Voter: The Changing Bases of Partisanship in the American Electorate

The State of the Parties. Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007