ABSTRACT
This chapter measures the public's commitment to compromise with multiple political, cultural, and contextual measures from a national survey. It first asked respondents what political compromise means to them in a voice-captured open-ended question. Views on political compromise tend to cluster around compromise being a shared, positive, cultural norm, though a substantial number of Republicans reject political compromise as negative and do so with a negative tone. The chapter looks at factors that might expand or restrict the potential for compromise. Partisanship, strength of party identification, and differing worldviews affect attitudes toward compromise, as do preferences on specific issues. Meanwhile, exposure to disagreement in political discussion makes Republicans less likely to reject compromise completely. The chapter suggests that lack of political compromise does not stem entirely from political leaders' intransigence. Despite the impact of disagreement exposure on Republicans, few of the influences included in this analysis lead voters to embrace compromise on specific issues.
